Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/737

Rh MONACHISM 709 community, established by Bruno at the Chartreuse, near Grenoble, in 1084, which still boasts that it is the only order which has never been reformed on the ground of deviation from its original institute ; and the Order of Fontevraud, founded for both monks and nuns (more strictly, canons and canonesses) by llobert of Arbrissel in 1100. Regarding the last named two remarkable facts may be cited : that the founder in 1115 entrusted the superior-generalship of the whole institute to the abbess of the nuns ; and that he provided that new abbesses should always be elected from secular women, as having more practical knowledge of affairs and capacity for ad ministration than women trained in a cloister. There is yet one order more belonging to this period of new foundations, of higher note than most that of the Cister cians, founded by Robert of Molesme in 1098 at Citeaux, near Dijon. This society, chiefly famous as that to which Bernard of Clairvaux belonged, carried its asceticism into a region whence the other monastic bodies had banished it, that of Divine service. The barest simplicity in build ings, church furniture, and worship was enjoined by the rule : plain linen or fustian vestments, iron chandeliers, brass or iron censers, no plate save a chalice and a tube (and those of silver rather than of gold), no pictures, stained glass, or images, and only a few crosses of painted wood, and the most rigid simplicity in chanting, such was the ceremonial code with which they challenged the costly ritual of Cluny. A more durable innovation was the institution of &quot; General Chapters,&quot; to which every abbot of a Cistercian house had a right to be summoned to share in the delibera tions held at the chief establishment, and which he was even bound to attend, that, while each dependent house thus obtained a representation in the parliament of the order, it could be called on to render to the central authority an account of its own doings. The Austin Canons, already mentioned, were probably founded at Avignon about 1061, and the Order of Premontre by Norbert in 1120. This society was simply a stricter body of Austin Canons, stand ing towards them much as Cluny did to the Benedictines. But there are yet two other institutes of this active period which differ from all previous foundations. So far, the new orders are merely modifications, more or less sweeping, of the original Egyptian system, but the crusades gave birth to two entirely unprecedented forms of monachism : the Mili tary Orders, of which the most celebrated are the Templars, the Hospitallers, and the Teutonic Knights ; and convents of women, affiliated to these orders, who were appointed to serve in the lazar-houses, hospitals, and similar institutions attached to them, and whose rule, for the first time in monastic history, was drawn up on a distinctly active and not a contemplative basis. Work of the sort had been done long before, but only as a casual accident, not as the primary object of a community. litary The military orders arose in a more accidental fashion lers - than any other variety of monachism, being due to the desire felt to lessen the perils Avhich attended pilgrimage to Jerusalem, then almost as much part of the religious craving of Christendom as the hajj to Mecca is with devout Moslems. The Templars were at first designed only as an armed escort to protect the visitors from attack, and the idea of permanent guardianship of the Holy Places did not shape itself till later; while the Hospitallers (afterwards famous as Knights of Rhodes and of Malta, as the main bulwark of Christendom against the Turks, and as main taining the police of the Mediterranean against all pirates and rovers), borrowed the first idea of their institute from the knightly order of St Anthony of Vienne, founded in Dauphine about 1095, and devoted themselves originally to tending sick pilgrims at Jerusalem. The Teutonic Knights date from the third crusade, and owe their foundation to the sufferings of the duke of Swabia s army at the siege of Acre, as it would seem that the Hospitallers were either unable or unwilling to supply the needed assistance. These knights, when at last the Eastern crusades were abandoned, turned their arms against the heathen of Prussia, which they conquered, as also Livonia, Courland, and Pomerania, besides keeping the Slavonic enemies of Germany in check by frequent raids into Lithuania and Poland, holding their ground as a sovereign order for three centuries, till the Reformation brought about their fall. The common char acteristic of all these orders was the union of the seemingly incompatible qualities of the monk and the soldier in the same persons, of the convent and the barrack in the same house. But the contrast was not so sharp to mediaeval eyes as it would be to modern ones ; for while knighthood was surrounded with religious ceremonies and sanctions on the one hand, and on the other the feudal rank of bishops and abbots made them in some sense military chiefs, occa sionally even taking the field in person, there was no great difficulty in accepting the permanent combination of what was often found casually united. The military orders passed away when their work was ended: the Templars, as the victims of a great crime, closed by a ghastly tragedy ; the Hospitallers, and those Spanish and Portuguese orders which were enrolled as regiments against the Arab invaders of the Peninsula, though titularly still existing, yet really ceased to be more than a name when the Moslem power in Europe was finally broken. But the active organization of women was a more fruitful germ, and has never since ceased to put forth new developments, varying with the noticed wants of each period. To this epoch belongs also the beginning of that policy of the Roman see of utilizing the monastic orders, won over by special privileges and exemptions, as a body of supporters almost a militia more to be relied on than the secular clergy, and thereby the seed of conflict between seculars and regulars, destined to work much evil later, was sown, and also the beginning made of that dena tionalization of monachism which tended from the first to its unpopularity and decay. It was found that a new order was the best safety-valve for enthusiasm which might become dangerous if dis couraged, but which could be made a valuable ally if allowed to take shape in a fresh society, hoping to surpass all its precursors ; and it is worth remarking that the one occasion when this wise policy was departed from, when Peter Waldo vainly sought in 1 179 recognition and sanction from Pope Alexander III. for his proposed institute of mission preachers, gave rise to a sect (the Waldenses) which is still existing, and which has given trouble to the Roman Church quite disproportionate to its numbers and influence. The Carmelites, founded by Berthold of Calabria on Mount Carmel about 1180, and incorporated under rule by Albert, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem in 1209, were the last order of importance which sprang up at this time ; for the Gilbertines, an English order founded at Sempringham in Lincolnshire in 1148, curious chiefly for their double monasteries for men and women; the Beguines, c. 1170 (who are, however, notable for their semi-secular and parochial organization, whence many later active bodies have borrowed hints); the Humiliati, c. 1196; and the Trinitarians, for the ransom of captives amongst the Moors and Saracens, founded by John de Matha and Felix de Valois in 1197, never rose to great influence or popularity, though the Servites, an order of the year 1223, became powerful in Italy. This period of rapid multiplication was quickly followed by one of equally rapid decay, the first to show clear tokens of degeneracy being the once rigid Cistercians, who never recovered their old moral foot ing, and who, it may be mentioned, were accountable for much of that hatred of the Church of the Pale in Ireland