Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/734

Rh 706 MONACHISM and being itself the beginning of a new and settled order, it has the distinction of giving greater dignity and weight to the female side of monachism than had been the rule previously. Numerous and crowded as convents for women were in the early church, there is little evidence of their exercising any powerful influence as a factor in the practical religious life of the time, and though a few individual women of eminence, a Euphrosyne or a Macrina, illustrate the annals of the common life in the East, yet as a class the Basilian nuns do not play at all so important a part in ecclesiastical history as the spiritual descendants of Scholastica, sister of Benedict ; for the same flexibility and comparative gentleness of his rule which made it healthier for men than its precursors were still more effective when dealing with the more sensitive organization of women. Accordingly, the Benedictine nuns offer a far greater variety of type than their Eastern sisters, and exerted a much more visible influence upon society, even before those newer forms of the organization of women s work in the church were devised which have given it much additional importance. Further, whereas the most serious and well-founded objection alleged against mona chism is that by parting large companies of men and women irrevocably from each other, and treating this severance as an indispensable condition of the highest kind of life, it has tended to throw discredit on marriage and the family, and so to weaken society, which is based on family life alone, a strong counter-plea can be put in for the Benedictines. Not merely are they free, as already remarked, from the anti-social tendencies of Oriental monachism, which actually did disintegrate society in Egypt, but their institute was the one corrective in the early Middle Ages of those habits and ideas which tended to degrade the position of women. The cloister was not alone the single secure shelter for women who had no strong arm to rely on ; but it provided the only alternative profession to marriage, and that one recognized by public opinion as of even higher distinction, and opening to women positions of substantial rank and authority, less precarious than the possession of temporal estates, which might only serve to attract cupidity, and so invite attack. The abbess of a great Benedictine house was more than the equal of the wife of any save a very great noble ; and, as single women were thus not obliged to look to wedlock as the only path to safety and consequence, they were enabled to mate on more equal terms, and were less likely to be viewed as the mere toys or servants of the stronger sex. But the special eminence of the Benedictines, in which they were without even the semblance of rivalry till the Jesuits arose, is that they were a missionary, civilizing, and educational body. It is true that the first successful efforts to convert the barbarian conquerors of the empire somewhat precede their entrance on that field of labour, and Ulfila amongst the Mojso-Goths, Valentinus in Bavaria, and Sever- inus in Austria had achieved much even before Benedict was born ; but their work needed to be taken up on a larger scale, and by a permanent organization not liable to be imperilled by the death of any one missionary or group of missionaries. And the task of laying the very foundations of civilized society, apart from the question of religious conversion, was as yet quite unessayed. It was as teachers of what for those times was scientific agriculture, as drainers of fens and morasses, as clearers of forests, as makers of roads, as tillers of the reclaimed soil, as archi tects of durable and even stately buildings, as exhibiting a visible type of orderly government, as establishing the superiority of peace over war as the normal condition of life, as students in the library which the rule set up in every monastery, as the masters in schools open not merely to their own postulants but to the children of secular families also, that they won their high place in history as benefactors of mankind. No doubt there was another side to this picture, even before the order began to deteriorate collectively ; but the good actually effected far exceeded the evils which may have accompanied it. The Benedictine institute was carried to Sicily by Placidus in 534 ; to France by Maurus, Simplicius, and their companions in 543 ; to Spain at a somewhat later and uncertain date ; but did not touch any of the Teutonic countries till the very end of the century. That The C work was chiefly accomplished by another agency, that of tic mo- the Celtic monks, themselves disciples of a Christianity m presumably carried to Ireland from Gaul, and following a rule seemingly adapted from that of Pachomius. The early history and constitution of Irish and Scottish monachism are too obscure to be set down with any con fidence, but it is at least clear that it was mainly tribal in organization, and even less subject to episcopal authority than the Eastern and Italian forms. The same holds good of the Welsh communities which survived the Saxon invasions of Britain. Legend is abundant, trustworthy record is scanty, and only a few facts can be rescued from oblivion. Amongst them may be included the introduc tion into Scotland of a species of monachism resembling that of Augustine, by Ninian, first missionary of the southern Picts, who borrowed his institute from Martin of Tours, and set up a cathedral, a house of canons, and a school of learning at Whithorn (Candida Casa) in Galloway before the close of the 4th century, himself dying, it is thought, about 432 (^Elred, Vit. Nin.}. The foundation of the second model of Welsh monachism (the first has gone below the horizon of history) is ascribed to the bishops Germanus of Auxerre and Lupus of Troyes, who visited Britain in 429 to combat the prevalent Pelagianism, itself a form of opinion due to a British monk. They are alleged to have been, directly or through their disciples, founders of great monasteries and schools at Hentland on the Wye, at Llantwit, Llancarvan, Docwinni, Bangor, Whitland, &c. ; while among the more famous names connected with these and similar houses may be mentioned Asaph, David, Illtut, Dubric, Cadoc, Gildas the Wise, and Kentigern, the last-named being a zealous missionary. But Ireland was the true stronghold of Celtic monachism, and before the close of the 5th century was already thickly planted with religious houses. Armagh, Clonard, Aran, Lismore, Cluain-ednech, Clonfert, and, above all, Benchor or Bangor, the famous abbey of Comgall, on the coast of Down, near the entrance of Belfast Lough, are some of the more conspicuous founda tions ; and there are numberless stories recorded of the learning, the austerities, and the miracles of their inmates. The chief interest they have for the student of ecclesiastical history lies rather, however, in the colonies they sent forth than in their home operations, and it is to the great foundation of Columba (521-597) at lona, the hive of missions and home of Western learning, more than to any Irish monastery, except Bangor, that the Celtic raid on heathenism is mainly due. The rule of Columba l resembles the Benedictine in prescribing three kinds of employment prayer, work, and reading ; while under the last-named head not only Scripture but all attainable secular learning was included, and it is also certain that the work of copying MSS. in a careful and beautiful fashion, which became so important a part of monastic occupation, reached maturity first at lona. It remains only to say in this connexion that the discipline of lona, apparently borrowed from Irish use, made the abbot supreme, not 1 Published by Dean Reeves in Colton s Visitation of Derry, p. 109, and in another form by Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, &c., ii. p. 119.