Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/736

Rh 708 MONACHISM generations from its inception. Parallel with the time of de clension and partial reform just described was the rise and decay of the noble and far-sighted school-system projected by Charlemagne, and entrusted to the superintendence of Alcuin. Its relation to monachism as distinguished from the history of education, is that one of its main features was the capitulary of 789, which directed that, besides the primary school attached to each monastery, all the more important houses were to found and open secondary ones also, with a higher range of subjects, even if such schools were interior or claustral, and only for the junior monks and novices, not exterior and free to the general public. Several of these schools rose to consider able efficiency and repute, notably those of Fulda, St Gall, Tours, and Rheims, discharging to some extent the functions of universities. But the weakness of the later Carolings involved this plan in the troubles which ended in the break-up of the empire of the Franks, and the 10th century saw the end of it. In England monachism shared the common destiny of decay. It had been marked during the period known as the Heptarchy by a degree of royal favour unparalleled elsewhere ; for it may almost be said that the number of kings, queens, and persons of royal race who here betook themselves voluntarily to the cloister and not under political compulsion, as often in con temporary France exceeds the aggregate of those in all other countries. Yet it is likely that the fashion set in this wise helped to hasten decay, by inducing many persons to adopt the monastic life with little taste for its restric tions ; and it is certain that secularity (chiefly manifesting itself in costly dress), riotousness, and drinking had become frequent amongst the English monks of the 8th and the early part of the 9th century. The decay was further precipitated by the spread of the institute of Chrodegang, which thinned the supply of recruits to monachism proper, as the easier life of canons regular was preferred. The same cause affected the convents of nuns, for an order of canonesses was established about this time on similar lines. The one bright spot in the history of 9th century mona chism is the conversion of Sweden by Anskar, a monk trained in the famous house of Old Corbie in Picardy, which, albeit Benedictine, had been mainly planted by a colony from the stricter Columbanian house of Luxeuil, and had thus kept the traditions of a purer time almost unimpaired. The 10th century emphatically the &quot;Dark Age&quot; or &quot;Age of Lead&quot; was the time when monachism, both in East and West, touched its lowest point. Three causes contributed to this in the West : first may be placed the raids of the Northmen ; next, the growth of the feudal system, converting abbots into secular lords in virtue of the lands held by their monasteries being chargeable with feudal obligations ; and lastly, the seizure and impropria- tion of monastic revenues by kings, princes, and bishops. The last of these causes was at work in the East also, further complicated, as we learn from the decrees of a council held at Constantinople in 861, by the founda tion of monasteries intended from the first merely as sources of pecuniary advantage to the founders; although the success of Greek monks in the conversion of Bul garia, Moravia, and, somewhat later, southern Russia, showed that the cloister had not become quite effete even under the conditions of the Byzantine empire in that era. What the state of things was in the West, even at the outset of the 10th century, may be learned from the language of the council of Trosley, near Soissons, in 909. It speaks of the ruin of many abbeys by the heathen, and of the disorderly condition of many which survived. Monks abandon their profession ; married lay abbots, with guards and hunting retinue, occupy the cloisters of monks, canons, and nuns ; and the rules are universally disregarded. But, as constantly before, so then, reformers were at hand. Berno first abbot of Cluny in France, Dunstan in England, and, somewhat later, Anno archbishop of Cologne in Germany, undertook, and to a considerable extent effected, the work of reform. Only the first of these, however, calls for special notice here ; and it will suffice to say that Berno, after having been abbot of Beaume, was set by William the Pious, duke of Aquitaine, over his new foundation of Cluny in 910, where he speedily initiated a reform of the Bene dictine rule, whose very name, and even the memory of the reforms of Benedict of Aniane, had been forgotten in nearly all the so-called religious houses of the time. This new rule is the first example of the establishment of an order within an already existing order, of which it still formed part, many subsequent instances of which occur later. It was stricter than the original code in several particulars, notably as regards fasting and silence ; and it laid especial stress on liturgical splendour. Cluny became the head of a large number of dependent houses, and, under the government of Berno s successors, Odo, Aymard, Majolus (who refused the papacy), Odilo, and Hugh I., rose to great eminence, but was nearly brought to ruin by Pontius, abbot in 1109, who was soon deposed, and succeeded by Hugh II., and then by Peter the Venerable, who completed the work of drafting the statutes of the new order, begun long before, but not finished, by his pre decessors. In his time (1093-1156) the Cluniacs spread over not only the whole of France, but had houses in Italy, Spain, England, Palestine, and in Constantinople itself, and the &quot;Arch-Abbot,&quot; as he was called, had more than 300 churches, colleges, and monasteries under his authority. It is enough to say, with regard to Dunstan s reforms in England, that they were directed to two objects: the substitution of monks for secular canons, and the introduction of the Benedictine rule, till then practically unknown in England, into the monasteries, for the mona chism introduced by Augustine belonged to an earlier type. The llth century is noticeable for several events in the New history of monachism ; first of which stands the foundation onler of the Order of Camaldoli by Romuald, early in the llth, r century, a strict community of hermits, living by the system of an Eastern laura of detached cells; but this society has never been of much importance. The Order of Vallombrosa, founded by John Gualbert in 1039, is more remarkable, as being the first to introduce the grade of &quot; lay-brothers,&quot; which plays so large a part in later monastic annals, the object being at once to open the cloister to a class previously barred by the obligation to recite the office in choir, which necessitated a certain degree of education, and to lighten the strain on the choir-brethren by relegating the rough work of the monas tery to an inferior grade of inmates, thus securing more time for reading and meditation for the cultured monks. A series of struggles between bishops and abbots in this century in respect of monastic jurisdiction the practice having constantly vacillated in despite of Gregory the Great s decision 400 years earlier issued mainly, though not wholly, in favour of exemption, and the reforms pushed everywhere rehabilitated monachism in popularity. The great stimulus given to the spirit of ecclesiastical dis cipline and energy by the Hildebrandine movement con tinued not only during the reign of Gregory VII., but for a considerable time after : amongst its results were the Order of Grammont, founded in 1074, but not transferred to the place whence it is named till 1124; the far more celebrated and influential Carthusians, a peculiarly ascetic