Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/735

Rh MONACHISM 707 merely over his monks, as in other rules, but over bishops also, whose office was simply that of ordaining such as were to be promoted to holy orders ; l they had no territorial jurisdiction as rulers, because the monastery, not the diocese, was the primary local unit in Celtic Chris tianity, and thus a great founder or abbot was of more account and power than a bishop. Another famous pupil of Irish monachism, Columbanus, trained at Benchor along with his companion Gallus, exercised a powerful influence on the religious life of his time (543-615), not only as the founder of important monasteries at Luxeuil, Fontenay, and Bobbio, and as scholar and missionary, but also as the author of a rule, more severe both in its pro visions and in its penalties than the Benedictine, with which it disputed for a considerable time the first place, and which it might very probably have displaced, had not the Benedictine institute, as of Italian origin, found that favour at Rome which a Celtic code, bearing more than one trace of divergence from Latin usages, could scarcely expect. With the mention of another prominent name in the list of distinguished Celtic reformers and mission aries, that of Fursey, abbot of Lagny near Paris (c. 650), we close this sketch of the Celtic movement in the 6th and 7th centuries, merely adding that its extent and influence may be partly estimated from the number of monasteries founded in England and various parts of the Continent by Irish monks, and the list of Celtic saints recoverable from the different martyrologies and similar records. The former amount to more than one hundred ; the latter to nearly three hundred. Returning to the Benedictines, the most important event in their history after the consolidation of their institute was the favour they received from Gregory the Great, himself once a monk, who set himself to reform monastic discipline, then at a very low ebb save where the new foundation was at work. He enacted several regulations for the better government of monasteries, such as pro hibiting the admission of any persons under eighteen, exacting two years novitiate, enforcing inclosure, visiting relinquishment of monachism with imprisonment for life, and finally, in the Lateran synod of 601, exempting monasteries in all cases from the jurisdiction of bishops (a measure due, it appears, to episcopal misconduct and oppression rather than to monastic ambition), thereby abolishing the measure of control which the eighth canon of Chalcedon and the legislation of Justinian I. in 535 had left in the hands of the diocesan, and leaving only the still surviving check, that the bishop s consent was required for the erection of any new monastery. The mission of the monk Augustine to England in 596 was, however, destined to produce more immediate and for tunate results than this piece of legislation. It brought Latin monachism into a part of Britain whence Welsh monachism had been long extirpated, and though little success attended the original foundation at Canterbury, yet two other houses were destined to be the cradles of great things. Jarrow-on-Tyne, founded by Benedict Biscop, trained the illustrious Bede, to whom is due the monastic school of York, which in its turn sent out Alcuin to recon stitute European learning under the fostering hand of Charlemagne ; Nutcell in Hampshire reared Boniface to be the apostle of Germany, and founder of one of the most celebrated and powerful monasteries of the Middle Ages, that of Fulda. Nevertheless, decline set in very soon, 1 So Bede tells iis : &quot; Habere autem solet ipsa insula rectorem semper abbatem presbyterum, cujus juri et omnis provincia et ipsi etiaiu episcopi, online inusitato, debeant esse subject!, juxta exemplum prinii doctoris illius, qui non episcopus sed presbyter extitit et mona- chus &quot; (Hist. Eccl., iii. 4) ; though, after all, the principle is precisely that of the Benedictine rule as applied to priests. and the 8th century was a time of deterioration amongst both the seculars and the regulars. To amend the former, Monastic Chrodegang, bishop of Metz, instituted in 760 an order reform- of Canons Regular, living by a rule carefully based on and ers 8th adapted from the Benedictine, with the bishop as abbot, ce the archdeacon as prior, and with a general likeness in all the details of community life, except that there was no obligation to poverty, and the canons were allowed to enjoy any private property and such fees as they might receive for the performance of religious rites. This rule became extremely popular, was sanctioned by the coun cil of Aix-la-Chapelle in 816, and was adopted in most cathedrals of France, Germany, and Italy within fifty years after, besides making some way in England also. It prevailed till the institute of the Austin Canons was substituted for it. And, as regards the laxity amongst regulars at this time, there is extant a very interesting letter from Bede addressed to Ecgberht, archbishop of York, calling his attention to the excessive number of monasteries in northern England which were conducted without a rule, and were often merely fictitious institutions, founded by laymen with the object of obtaining charters of privilege which would exempt them from civil and military burdens, such laymen then assuming, without warrant, the title and powers of abbots, and filling their houses either with monks expelled from their own societies, or with lay retainers induced to receive the tonsure and promise obedience. Bede calls on the archbishop to con vene a synod and institute a visitation for the correction of these abuses. The cause of the decline of the monasteries is to be sought in their popularity, which brought them great estates and other kinds of wealth, leading to the relaxation of the vow of poverty, which was interpreted as merely forbidding individual property ; in the growth of pluralities ; and in yet another cause which at first does not seem to lead in the same direction the growing custom of ordaining monks, hitherto laymen, to fit them better for missionary work. But this led, not only to much more intercourse with the society of a lax and turbulent age than suited with claustral rules, but to ambition, as it became customary to fill several sees with monks from certain abbeys. The declension, notably in the habits of the superiors of wealthy houses, had become very marked, when a reformer arose in the person of a second Benedict, of Aniane in the modern department of the Herault (750-821), who, in gratitude for an escape from drowning in the Ticino in 774, adopted the mon astic life, and changed his name Witiza to that of the great Nursian monk. But he accounted the Benedictine rule too easy, and adopted instead the severest practices of Eastern monachism. He quitted the house of Seine, where he had been professed, and betook himself with a couple of companions to Aniane, where by 782 he had built a monastery for a thousand monks, with depend ent cells, and collected a considerable library, paying special attention to the acquisition of the rules of the different monastic bodies both of East and West. He was transferred by his warm patron, the emperor Louis the Pious, to an abbey built for him near Aix-la-Chapelle, whence he acted as in some sense a superior-general and inspector of all the Benedictine houses, and drew up a harmony of all the rules he had collected to aid him in the task of reform. What he actually effected was the practical abolition of most of the competing codes, so as to leave the Benedictine in nearly sole possession, and to procure the enactment of a large body of canons in the council of Aix-la-Chapelle before mentioned, which laid down detailed provisions for the government of monasteries, whose very minuteness made them vexatious and ulti mately intolerable, so that the reform lasted scarcely two