MA S TER NEGATIVE NO. 92-80592-10 MICROFILMED 1992 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK 55 as part of the . ^ Foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project Funded by the __^ NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions may not be made without permission from Columbia University Library COP^^IGHT STATEMEiNT The copyright law of the United States - Title 17, United States Code - concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copynghied material... Columbia University Library reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgemeni:, fulfillment or the orde would involve violation of the copyright law. 1 Air H OR: GIBSON, WILLIAM S. TITLE: REMARKS ON THE MEDIAEVAL WRITERS PL A CE : LONDON DA TE : 1848 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT Master Negative # BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGET Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record Restrictions on Use: 942 :G359 l |*^ ||ll| ■ »! iJ fl U ilMJ I j " I i«.m{>.i n^^> 41 i |-^i ■g.-wj ' i s Gibson, William Sidney, 1814-1871. Remarks on the medieeval writers of English history; intended as a popular sketch of the advantages and pleas- ures derivable from monastic literature: and being the substance of a paper which was lately read before the ** Morpeth church institution." By William Sidney Gib- son, esq. ... London, W. Pickering, 1848. 1 p. 1., 51 p. 21=°. Subject entries : 1. Gt. Brit.— Hist.— Historiography. 2. Middle ages- Literature. "" *. . ^Se^.-j; Library of Congress, iia 8-7600 DA1.G45. 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BY WILLIAM SIDNEY GIBSON, ESQ. ♦ V ♦ BARRISTER AT LAW; FELLOW OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES, LOND. AND NEWC..* FELLOW OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIF.TY : A LOCAL SECRETARY AT NEWCASTLE OF THE ARCH^OLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF GREAT BRITAIV HON. MEMB, OP THE ST. ALBAN's ARCHIT^XT. SOCIETY: MEMB. OP THE ECCLESIOLOGICAL (LATE CAMB. CAMD.) SOC. : ETC. AND AUTHOR OF A HISTORY OP THE MONASTERY OF TYNEMOtTTH, ETC. ETC. LONDON : WILLIAM PICKERING, 177, PICCADILLY. 1848. ^j NEW WORK, BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 'A \T M' JUST PUBLISHED, In Two Volumes, Royal Quarto, Price Six Guineas, Half Morocco, uncut, HISTORY OF THE MONASTERY FOUNDED AT TYNEMOUTH, IN THE DIOCESE OF DURHAM. LONDON : p. WHITE ANU SON, DEVONSHIRE SQTTAnE. This Work is decorated with Illuminated Pages, and a profusion of Illuminated Initial Letters, forming a series of examples of ancient Art. They are selected from celebrated MSS. of the Middle Ages, and are finished by hand in Gold and Colours, equal to Original Drawings. The Work contains also a Series of characteristic Etchings, represent- ing the Ruins of Tynemouth Priory; together with Engravings on Wood, fac-simile Representations of Antient Deeds, Seals, &c. The Work was commenced in 1843, and has been completed in the present year, 1847. The following are selections from Criticisms of the Press : — " This record of the Antiquities of the Monastery at Tynemouth is from the pen of an accomplished Antiquary, and is the most superb specimen of Typography and Illuminated Engraving we ever beheld. We most cordially recommend these volumes to the Scholar and the Antiquarian, as an important addition to their lihrsity:' —Dolman's Magazine, June 1846. " A work of pre-eminent beauty and value. It is illuminated with incomparable skill and effect ; and you seem to enter into every chapter as through folding doors of stained glass. "—/6i«^, June 1847. " During the last three years, several important and costly works have appeared, on the History of Ancient Monastic Foundations in England. The volume before us is the most attractive of these contributions to English Ecclesiastical History."— Archeeological Journal. WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. " In many respects, we cannot express too highly our admiration of this magnifi- cent work. It is very handsomely printed, on excellent paper, and embellished in a style at once singular and appropriate." — Gentleman's Magazine, *' A work which is destined to occupy an honourable place in the historical litera- ture of the country." — Newcastle Journal. The famous and once extensive Conventual Church of Tynemouth was, in its architectural character, one of the most beautiful of the many Ecclesiastical Structures which the piety and taste of Mediaeval Church- builders raised in England ; and, in its history and eventful annals, is one of the most interesting of the Ancient Monastic Foundations of this country. Moved by a desire to collect all the particulars that time has spared of the Life and Works which, in its once-famed cloisters were dedicated to the Most High, and by feelings of reverence for the In- stitutions and of admiration for the Arts of Olden Time, the Author has bestowed a very large sum of money on the production of this Work ; and it is believed that no other Historical publication has been produced, at the expense of an Amateur, in a style so ornate and costly : it is, in some respects, unique. The Work has been already received with flattering encouragement and patronage by persons of taste, high rank, and fortune. The Copies not already subscribed for are limited in number : for the present, however, the price will not be raised to the Public. -./ Orders for the Work will be received by Mr. Pickering, Publisher, 177, Piccadilly, London. WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR, Of which a few Copies may yet he obtained: THE CERTAINTIES OF GEOLOGY. One Vol. 8vo. cloth, lettered, 10s. 6d. *• A Work calculated to arrest the serious attention of every Christian reader.' Britannia, THE HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES OF HIGH6ATE; A Prize Essay. 8vo. 3s. 6d. * ! \ \\ \f ^ wv Xi K E M A R K S, &c. &c. i A L THOUGH we are indebted to the Monasteries, which -L\. for many centuries flourished in this country for the only authentic sources of English History, and for the preserva- tion of Classical learning, there have been times, almost within our own recollection, when Monastic Literature and Histonr were most ungratefully neglected. Not only has a godless age allowed the walls within which those treasures of literary labour were produced and collected, to crumble for the most part into rums ; but, as if to lend some colour to that neglect and apathy It was too long the fashion to affect a contempt for Monastic mstitutions and Monastic learning. And yet it might have been known, by the fruits which they have left, that while the rest of the nation was engaged in strife, or devoted to the pursuit of woridly avarice, the tenants of the Cloister were « nourish- ing the vestal fires of knowledge;" were garnering up, for the benefit of future times, not only the imaginative Classics and the Roman Historians, but also the Theological works of the early Fathers ; and were moreover writing those books to which we are indebted for all we know of English History. The Monks ^ truly were not only the channels of God's love and mercy to their fellow creatures, but also the untiring perpetuators of / written knowledge : they collected and preserved the scattered remains of Classical literature and refinement ; and their / Monasteries constituted the only retreats of learning, in ages / when, but for them, perpetual violence and warfare would have ' A 2 4 \f 1 * I barbarized mankind and extinguished learning. To the Bene- dictines, more especially, this praise is due ; for they, not content with hoarding up books, endeavoured to diffuse Science, and opened their retreats to the studious; and it has been justly remarked, that if the manual labour contemplated by the founder of their order was found incompatible with these nobler occupations, we cannot wonder that the Monks should prefer, to the tillage of their grounds, the propagation of knowledge and the cultivation of the human mind. In ages of literary refinement, men have been too apt to shrink with aversion from the study of Monastic History, no less than from the faith of their ancestors ; — accustomed to the purity of Cicero, they have despised the eloquence of legendary histories and Monastic compositions, even though relating to holy men who seemed the favourites of heaven, or affording the best sources of English History ; and have stigmatized the writings of the Monks as the compilations of " the dark ages ;" while their style has been most unjustly condemned as rude ard unpolished — their matter as savouring of superstition. Even in these march-of-intellect times it is too much the fashion for people, without making any investigation for themselves, to join in the cry which accuses the middle ages of extreme darkness ; and some vague and inaccurate representations made by Robertson and other modern writers, as to the high price and scarcity of books in mediaeval times, have seemed to countenance that accusation. " But the world," says Archdeacon Churton, " will, before long, be enabled to see that these ages have been called dark, chiefly because the moderns have chosen to remain in the dark about them." The people who take their ideas of mediaeval times from some modern popular writers, are, indeed, like that traveller at an inn, mentioned by Mr. Maitland, who wished to look out and see if it was day ; and who returned to bed with a very wrong judgment on the matter, owing to his being in the dark himself, whereby he was led to open the glass-door of a cupboard, by mistake for a window. Instead of the Church having been the originator of the darkness peculiar to the mediaeval epoch of Christianity, \ •;5 \{ \l ^ '♦ i \ the fact is, that the lights of knowledge were presei-ved under the shelter of the Monasteries alone, which have been well described as repositories of the learning which then was, and well-springs for the learning which was to be. Let us, then approach with reverent curiosity, the written monuments of Monastic industry and enlightenment. Dr. Johnson has remarked, that whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of human beings. " The world," says a Reverend author," " is a whirlpool of business, pleasure, and sin. Its torrent is always breaking upon the hearts of worldly and tepid Christians, ready to break in and bury them under its flood, unless frequent reading of works in which the advantages of devotion and piety are joined with the most attractive charms of history, oppose a strong fence to its waves. The more deeply a man is immersed in its tumultuous cares, so much the greater ought to be his solicitude to find leisure for breath- ing after the fatigues and dissipation of business and company ; as the wearied husbandman, returning from his labour, recruits his exhausted strength by allowing to his body necessary refreshment and repose. The chamelion changes its colour as It IS affected by sadness, anger, or joy, or by the colour upon which It rests: in like manner, what our meditations and aflections are, such will our souls become." It is evident that the traditions, manners, and monuments of a fonner age, have a charm for the public mind of the present day ; and it is ever with advantage that we turn to them, since in this country, our laws, our customs, our language, our lite- rature, bear the impress of mediaeval times. We are indeed surrounded by the traces and the footsteps of our ancestors, which still reflect upon our path the visions of a bygone age, like those " light fleecy clouds That, struggling through the western sky, have won Their pensive light from a departed sun." '^ Alban Butler ; Lives of the Saints, in Pref. p. i. V Besides, we cannot be insensible to the advantages and plea- sures derivable from the literature of the Cloister, or to the benefit with which we may exchange the too-often worthless publications of the day for the purer streams which refreshed \ the Monks of old. The renowned Petrarch, the finest spirit of his age, after paying a visit, in the year of our Lord 1347, to a Carthusian Monastery, wrote a treatise " On the Leisure of the Religious ; " so impressed was he with a sense of the sweets and advantages of their retired state, compared with the agitations of life in the world : and we, with like feelings of admiration, turn to the literary works which they have left, and which shew how well that leisure was employed. Those literary works embrace many different classes of learn- ing. History occupies a prominent place in the record of Mo- nastic literary labour ; and the Historical works of the Cloister are those to which our attention is more particularly directed on the present occasion. Whether they are now despised or cherished, those works once constituted the current history of the time, and were consulted by all enquirers. But the Monastic writings consist, for the most part, of transcripts of the Holy j Scriptures in full ; of the Gospels ; of the Psalms ; of particular Books of the Old and of the New Testament ; of the Writings of the early Fathers and Commentators ; of the various Service Books used by the Monks in celebrating the Divine offices ; of the writings of the Schoolmen ; of treatises on various depart- ments of Art and Science ; and— though last, not least— of the > Classical authors. Of our obligations to the Monks, for the \ perpetuation of written learning, some estimate may be formed, though it must necessarily fall short of the reality, by sur- veying the Catalogues of MSS. and early Historical works in our Public Libraries ; not to mention the many works of the Antients, for the preservation of which we are indebted to Monastic industry. If the intellectual assiduity of the Mo- nastic Orders had been restricted to multiplying copies of the compositions of others, we should still find abundant reason to admire their zeal and labour, wonderful as their perform- ances are as manual undertakings ; but, it is in their character \,? ^ iy> of originators, rather than perpetuators, that, in the present discourse, we are to regard the learned scribes of the Cloister. No sooner was a Monastery founded, than it began to have books ; and this, before the Monks or even the Abbat acquired the most ordinary comforts of life. How greatly should we honour the men who, under adverse circumstances, and regard- less of personal labour and privation, could, in a few years, by the work of their pens, not only make a beginning for a school of learning, and provide all things necessary for the decorous performance of Divine service, but could also treasure up those storehouses of literary knowledge, to which the historian and scholar of future ages should come, when the writers had been for many centuries numbered with the dead ! Great and systematic provisions were made and maintained by the Monasteries, for the preservation and transmission of vn-itten learning, whether it were that which originated in the Monastery, or that which was merely there transcribed. " The great Cathedral, Conventual, and Collegiate establishments with which our island was studded," are justly described by Dr. Giles as "so many conservatories in which every kind of learning was cultivated." In every great Monastery there was an apartment, called the Scriptorium, where many writers were constantly employed in transcribing, not only Service books for the quire, but books for the library or for literate persons. There are instances in which estates were granted for the support of the Scriptorium. That in the Monastery of S. Edmund's Bury was endowed with two mills; so that, while the produce of the earth was ground into food for the body, means were provided for feeding the mind also. In a.d. 1171, the tithes of a rectory were appropriated to the Convent of S. Swithin at Winchester for maintaining the Scriptorium. But it is unnecessary to multiply instances. The estimation in which the labours of the Scriptorium were held in the middle ages is abundantly apparent. The Monks did not fail to make good use of such provisions : - the employment must have been diligently follow- ed at Croyland ; for Ingulphus relates, that when the Convent 8 library was burned in a.d. 1091, seven hundred volumes were consumed. Fifty-eight volumes were transcribed at Glaston- bury during the government of one Abbat, about a.d. 1300; and in the library of that Monastery (the richest foundation m England,) upwards of four hundred volumes belonged, in 1248. The Scriptorium of S. Al ban's Abbey was built by Abbat Paulinus, a Norman, who ordered many volumes to be written there, from copies furnished by Archbishop Lanfranc, about A.D. 1080, At various times subsequently, the opera- rations in that Scriptorium are noticed as being in full vigour, especially under Abbats who, like the illustrious Thomas de la Mere, formerly Prior of Tynemouth, and afterwards Abbat of S. Alban's, were conspicuous for patronage of learning. More than eighty books were transcribed for this great Monastery by liis successor, the renowned Abbat, John of Whethamstede, who presided in the reigns of Henry IV. Henry V. and Henry VI. A grand transcript of the Postilla of Nicholas de Lyra on the Bible was begun during his abbacy, and at his command ; the ornaments and handwriting of which were costly and beautiful. The Monk who records this undertaking lived shortly after the Abbat, and speaks of it, in his time unfinished, as if it were some great public edifice. '' God grant," he says, '' that this work may in our days receive a happy consummation." The whole process of book-making was carried on within the Cloister, where the writers, illuminators, and binders, all fol- lowed their respective occupations in the Monastic habit. By a division of labour, copies of works which, to a single scribe, would have been the labour of a life, were made and commu- nicated to distant Monasteries often within a short period after their first production. For this purpose, hired writers were sometimes employed, in aid of the Monks. Thus, in a roll of JohnMoreys, Warden of Winchester College in 1396, disburse- ments for "diet for the writers" occur. It appears in this instance, that the College bought the materials, and hired persons to write, illuminate, note and bind the books, within the walls. The highest cost of one of the books mentioned— a manuscript for the yse of the Monks, is 11, 13*. 4c/.— a sum '1 rfr / 9 equivalent to about sixty pounds of our money. The Monks covered their books with the skin of the deer, as appears from many instances. About a.d. 790, Charlemagne granted an unlimited right of hunting to the Monks of a Monastery, for making their gloves and girdles, and covers for their books from the skins of the deer they killed.* The books noticed in the Warden's account in the fourteenth century, already men- tioned, were still covered with the same material. The Rev. James Raine, in his edition of the Account Rolls of Finchale, which afford a mass of curious information respecting the habits and doings of the reverend persons who moved within its now deserted walls, gives a curious illustration of the literary proceedings of a Convent. Uthred, Prior of Finchale, himself the most learned man of his day ( he lived late in the reio-n of Edw. III.) brings a foreigner to his Church, and employs him in transcribing Jerome's Eusebius and Bede's Ecclesiastical History. In the British Museum are preserved the very manuscripts which he wrote ; and a note is inscribed stating that they were written in Finchale in 1381. After finishing his work there, the transcriber, for such seems to have been his occupation, was employed at Durham, where the splendid copy of Nicholas de Lyra was written, in 1386, by his pen. Persons who have not seen the contents of our great public libraries, would look with astonishment on the immense masses of manuscripts which are there contained, written for the most part in Latin, and in a style and character of handwriting which a They appear to have represented on this occasion, not only that the skins of the deer were useful for binding books, but also that the flesh of the deer was good for sick monks. Mr. Hallam, in speaking of the general love of field sports which prevailed in the middle ages, suggests another motive for obtaining such a grant as this. Ho says, it was im- possible to repress the eagerness with which the Clergy rushed into these secular amusements. Alexander III., by a letter to the Clergy of Berk- shire, dispenses with their keeping the Archdeacon in dogs and hawks during his visitation. An Archbishop of York, in 1321, seems to have travelled with two hundred followers, and to have hunted with a pack of hounds on his tour. The third Council of Lateran in 1180, had, however, prohibited this amusement on such journies, and restricted Bishops to a train of forty or fifty horses. [Ilallam's Middle Ages, ii. 374.] 10 renders their contents unintelligible to many persons ; but which, in their subject matter, composition, caligraphy, and decorations, fonn treasures of inestimable value. But it is hardly necessary to remark, that to form an esti- mate of the quantity of books which were written by the hands of the Monks and Conventual Scribes in England, from the contents of our public repositories of MSS. would be to adopt criteria very inadequate to the purpose. The destruction and sale of MSS. by ignorance and cupidity, is a sad and sufficient method of accounting for the disappearance of thousands of Monastic volumes. The dissolution of religious houses dis- persed in a woeful manner the cherished monuments of literary labour. The bulk of these valuable MSS. were transferred from the Monasteries at their dissolution, to private hands. Some reached the Royal Library at Westminster. The judi- cious zeal of Sir Robert Cotton accumulated, in the inesti- mable library which bears his name, a matchless collection of the MSS. which were for ages the objects of the jealous care of their former Monastic possessors. And the judgment and munificence of Sir Thomas Bodley, and a few less eminent collectors, aided to preserve many hundreds of these undeniable proofs of Monastic industry. But more are lost for ever. It is difficult to form an adequate idea of the extent of the spoliation of MSS. which was committed when the treasured accumulations of the Monastic libraries came to be invaded by the King's Visitors, or fell into the possession of the new tenants of the Abbey and its lands, by the act of the sceptred miscreant who sold what he had no right to sell — what no Parliament could give him any right to sell — to purchasers who knew that they had no right to buy. Of the wanton muti- lation committed by those greedy and ignorant myrmidons, the King's Commissioners, who were sent by Henry VIII. to visit Oxford three hundred years ago, Anthony Wood gives us some description. In his account of the year 1550, he writes to the following effect :— " To return at length to the royal delegates, some of whom even yet remained in Oxford, doing such things as did not at all become those who professed to be learned and H ^ A? 11 Christian men. For the principal ornaments, and at the same time supports of the University, that is, the libraries filled with innumerable works both native and foreign, they permitted or directed to be despoiled. Hence a great multitude of MSS. having no mark of superstition about them (unless it were to be found in the red letters on their titles,) were adjudged to the flames or the vilest purposes. Works of scholastic theology were sold*off amongst persons exercising the lowest description of arts; and those which contained circles or diagrams, it was thought good to mutilate or to burn, as containing certain proofs of the magical nature of their contents. An immense quantity, almost a waggon load, of MSS. was carried off from Merton College." [Athenae, ed. Bliss, i. 466.] The learned Editor adds, (p. 468 ) '' Of the various beautiful MSS. in Duke Humphrey *s library, one specimen only has escaped the ravages of these monsters ; this is a superb folio of Valerius Maximus, written in the Duke's age, and probably purposely for him." "The mischief committed at this time," says another writer, " can scarcely be conceived : I have seen several fine old chronicles and volumes of miscellaneous literature mutilated, because the illuminations were supposed, by the reforming Visitors, to re- present Popes and Saints, when they were really intended for the portraits of kings and warriors ; nay, some were absolutely mathematical figures ! The malice of these barbarians was only equalled by their ignorance," &c. Whole libraries were destroyed, or used for waste paper, or consumed for the vilest purposes. The wealthy and magnifi- cent Abbey of Malmesbury, which possessed some of the finest MSS. in the kingdom, was ransacked, and its treasures either sold or burned to serve the commonest purposes of life. An antiquary, who travelled through that town many years after the dissolution, relates that he saw broken windows patched up with remnants of valuable early MSS. on vellum, and that the bakers had not even then consumed the stores they had accumulated, in heating their ovens. ^ " Maitlands Dark Ages, p. 281, note. 12 But, as I have already mentioned, the intellectual assiduity of the Monastic orders was not restricted to multiplying copies of the compositions of others. Many of the learned recluses were originators, as well as perpetuators, of learned and useful works ; and it is now time to notice the venerable Fathers of English History, whose writings embrace national histories, and aiFord text-books to historians in these our days. The most eminent British Historian, properly ^so called, whose works are extant, is Gildas, surnamed " The Wise," who is said to have been born in Wales about a.d. 520. He was a Monk of Bangor, and died in Glastonbury Abbey about A.D. 571, being about half a century before the blessed Paulinus converted Edwin, king of Northumbria, to the Christian faith. Another translation of the works of Gildas has been recently published by Dr. Giles.* Proceeding to the next century, we come to the most antient and venerable of our native Historians, Bede. Upon the banks of the Tyne, in the territory of the Monastery of S. Peter and S. Paul at Jarrow, — whose pleasant seclusion was not then inva- ded by mining and manufacturing operations, which blacken the country, pollute the air, and bring to the temples of mammon a toiling, un-instructed, and half-civilized population, — lived and wrote of old this venerable author, the first authentic annalist of the English Church. He was born about a.d. 672, within the territory of Jarrow; and having been educated under Bene- dict Biscop, the Abbat of Weremouth, was ordained Priest at the age of thirty, by the hands of S. John of Beverley, Bishop of Hexham. Commentaries on the Holy Scriptures, and treatises on numerous branches of learning, attest his devotion to literary labour; but the most valuable of his works is the History of the English Church, from the time of Julius Caesar to a.d. 731, » A list of tlie principal British Historians, and of the Roman Authors who wrote concerning Britain, has been given by Mr. Richard Thomson, in his Introduction to the Illustrations of British History — an unpretending and clever work which deserves remembrance, and forms the 20th and 21st Volumes of Constable's Miscellany, published in 1828. A useful "Manual of British Historians," was published in 1815 by Mr. Pickering. ^ V y r^-» ^ ^<^l v^ w 13 which work was principally compiled from the information of his contemporaries and the records of religious houses. Though invited to Rome by the Pope, he " never passed the limits of his Northumbrian abode :" nor did this venerable writer anticipate that, although he never travelled from his native country, his works and his fame would be borne to every land, and his memory be honoured throughout all the kingdoms and countries of the universal church. He laboured, both in his Monastery, and in his religious, biographical, and historical works, even during his long and painful decline, under an asthma ; and he departed this life at the moment when he concluded his trans- lation of S. John's Gospel into the vernacular tongue, on the 26th May, a.d. 735. Next to the works of the Venerable Bede, the most antient and eminent of the historical remains of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, is the Saxon Chronicle, of which an English version has been given to the world by Professor Ingram, who supposes that the Saxon annals were carried on until a few years subsequent to the Norman invasion, by such writers as the Archbishops Dunstan, TElfric, etc. To Asser, a Monk of S. David's, afterwards Bishop of Sherburne, we are indebted for a contemporary account of the reign of King Alfred. Many particulars, relating to the civil government of this period, are dispersed through separate memoirs of the Saxon Saints and Sovereigns. The life of the great Royal Saint of England, Edward the Confessor, has been preserved to us by Ailred, Abbat of Rievaulx. After the Conquest by William of Normandy, the contempo- rary Histories, Annals, and Biographies, (which seem to have been suspended, at all events as far as native English writers are concerned, during the reigns of the Danish Kings,) become more copious and interesting; but, as the authors are numerous, only the more celebrated can be mentioned. First of these comes Ingulphus, Abbat of Croyland, in Lincolnshire, who, about the age of twenty-one, was Secretary to William the Conqueror in Normandy. He wrote a History of his Abbey, in which he gives some particulars of the English 14 15 Sovereigns, and died in 1109/ The " Historia Crojlandensis" is published in Savile's ** Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores." Contemporary particulars of William I. were written also by William of Poictou, his soldier, priest, and chaplain. Next comes Florence of Worcester, the careful and judicious compiler of a General History, extending from Adam to A.D. 1118, and printed at London in 1592. Eadmer, a Benedictine Monk of Canterbury, who was elected Bishop of St. Andrew's, but resigned his see in 1121, because Alexander of Scotland would not allow him to be consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote in six books, Memorials from William I. to Henry I., which were edited by Selden. Then comes the far-famed William of Malmesbury, pro- nounced by Archbishop Ussher to be the chief of our Historians. He was Monk and Librarian of that Abbey, and has been celebrated as an elegant, learned, and faithful Historian. His great work of the Acts of the Sovereigns of England, extends from the coming in of the Saxons to a.d. 1126. He died in 1143. His books were made familiar to the learned reader, by the edition published by Sir Henry Savile ; and since, more accurately, by Mr. Hardy, for the English Historical Society. AiLRED, Abbat of the Cistercian Abbey of Rievaulx, wrote a Genealogy of the English Kings, a Life of S. Edward the Confessor, and an Account of the War between the King of Scotland and the English Barons in 1138, which was signalized by the Battle of the Standard, all printed in Twysden's Scrip- tores ; and, at his request, Reginald of Durham undertook at least one of his valuable works. a Ingulphus tells us, in his history, that he studied grammar at West- minster, and that he was afterwards sent to Oxford, where he read the works of Aristotle and the rhetoric of Cicero. This writer agreeably pourtrays the Confessor's Queen, Edgitha, who was admirable for her literary accomplish- ments, her beauty, and her virtue. He relates, that many a time when a boy, he met the Queen as he was coming from school, who would dispute with him concerning his verses ; that she had a particular pleasure to pass from gram- mar to logic, in which she had been instructed ; and that she frequently ordered one of her attendants to give him two or three pieces of money, or to be carried to the Royal pantry and treated with a repast. 1^ > 'V vK r L^ 1 1 25 modern times, who scruple not to excite the passions, and to endanger the salvation of their readers, and of whose writings we may exclaim, in the words of Tasso, — ** O knowledge best unknown !" A late writer, of a different school, tells us that the Historian of the Abbey of Jumieges is obliged to confess his inability to do justice to the admirable men who pursued learning and the arts within that Cloister, " because," he says, " their modesty and humility rendered them unambitious of being known to future times." In the writers of the middle ages there is no egotism — no worshipping of self — no attempt to please the taste of a self-sufficient, half-learned age. Their motives and views were totally opposed to these. Greatly, however, as we should ever prize the now rare virtues of modesty and humility, and admire that constancy to the vow of renunciation of the world taken by the writers on making their Monastic profession, which dictated the suppression of all particulars relating to themselves, we must regret their silence on this head, and remember that a desire for the praise of posterity is an honour- able and legitimate ambition indwelling in the mind. In the multitude of works we have thus hastily viewed, in whose pages the men, the thoughts, the manners of now forgot- ten ages are presented to our view, we find precepts of conduct no less than flowers of history. Of the authors, an eminent French writer remarks, that if we consider them in a purely literary point of view, we shall find their merit no less con- spicuous and no less varied. The descriptive powers of some of these writers ; their forcible, natural, and unaffected style ; and the poetical feeling which is evinced by them when the occasion is such as to call forth the powers of the imagination, are very remarkable. The Monastic historians relate, in the most vivid and graphic manner, events which receive only a vague and meagre notice from modern popular writers of English annals. To their pages we are indebted for many most interesting pictures of antient times and manners ; indeed, the spirit in which they wrote enables us to derive, even from 26 their historical writings, lessons of moral and instructive ten- dency, while we admire them for their flowers of literary composition. Nor did they think even simple incidents unworthy of notice, if they afforded touches of Nature. Even the greatest of Monastic historians, as for example, William of Malmesbury, depict trifling incidents or local transactions of their time with artistical skill, while pursuing the chain of national events. The work of the venerable historian just mentioned is a memorable example of a Monastic writer whose pages abound with elegant phrases, and are written with clas- sical taste, in language concise, strong, and nervous. His mind was evidently imbued with the spirit and beauty of the Roman writers.^ So likewise, (to select a native historian of this diocese,) Reginald of Durham gives many specimens of his artistical skill in composition ; while, like other Monastic writers, he affords important illustrations of the ecclesiastical and civil polity, the moral and social condition of the people, the domestic manners, and the administration of justice, in the times with which he was contemporary. •» a He addresses his friend and patron, Robert Earl of Gloucester, natural son of King Henry I., in this Ciceronian style : — (the passage occurs at the conclusion of the " Gesta Regum," which is dedicated to the literate person addressed:)— "So devoted are you to literature that, though distracted by such a mass of business, you yet snatch some hours to yourself, for the pur- pose either of reading or of hearing others. Justly do you regulate your exalted rank in life ; neither omitting the toils of war for literature ; nor con- temning literature, as some do, for military service. Here, also, the greatness of your learning appears ; for, whilst you love books, you manifest how deeply you have drank of the stream. Many things are eagerly desired when not possessed ; but no person will love philosophy who shall not have thoroughly imbibed it." b Thus, from instances recorded by Reginald, it would seem that the administration of justice and the humane treatment of prisoners at Durham, were sadly at fault in his time. He describes (Hist. Dunelm, ch. xlix.) how Osbern, Sheriff of Durham in the time of Bishop William de S. Barbara, in his zeal as a public functionary, but through ignorance of the law, commits to prison a person innocent of what was laid to his charge. The poor prisoner spends his substance in buying food, and afterwards suffers from hunger and starvation : he has no bed save the bare ground, which wears away his clothes ; while his fetters eat into his flesh : he lias no money either to buy his discharge (this seems to refer to the price or pecuniary penalty imposed by the Saxon laws upon the crime) or to engage an advocate in his behalf. )^ . t 'Vt^ h 27 The review we have now taken of the works left to us by the more eminent of the Monastic historians of England, will be sufficient to establish the assertion made in the early part of this Memoir, that history occupies a prominent place in the record of Monastic literary labour. I should like to give a series of specimens of these writers ^ ; but I fear that, if I should endeavour, by selecting passages for quotation, to impress such of my readers as have not already perused the works of Monastic historians with my own sense of their lofty purpose and the beauties of their style, I should be considered like the pedant who, when he offered his house for sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen. Besides, were I to give only one The hearing of his case is deferred from day to day, and he is described as lingering in prison during the whole winter, until the high festival of S. Cuthbert's day (the 20th March) came round. Again, he tells us (chap, lv.) that during the reign of Henry II., while John was Abbat of Furness in Lancashire, one of its founders, who was in the household of the King, sought to deprive the Abbey of a tract of land no less than thirty-four miles in length and four in breadth. The Abbat and Monks appeal to the secular judges, but in vain. They next apply to the Court of Rome, but the King has influence enough to prolong the suit from year to year, for the benefit of his favourite. The Abbat at length erects an altar in honour of S. Cuthbert, in the Monastery of Furness ; he again appears before the King to vindicate his right, and finds those who were pre- viously his enemies become his friends ; whereupon he makes a vow to visit Durham Abbey, where on his arrival, he relates all these particulars. One more instance of defective administration of justice, and we must quit the interesting pages of the good Reginald. — Christian, the Durham Mint Master, rents a mine from the Bishop ; (perhaps a lead mine, from which silver might be obtained by refining, for coinage) ; he finds a person who was reported to have discovered a treasure which of right belonged to the Bishop, in his capacity of Count Palatine. He commits him to the Bishop's prison within the castle, and informs the sheriff and other officers, who, hoping to obtain a share of the wealth which was believed to have been discovered, load the unhappy man with chains and fetters of more than usual weight, and threaten him with an appeal to the judicial ordeal. Thus we see that, in those days, as in our own times, the sins of covetousness and avarice swayed mankind. a On account of its local associations, as well as of the stirring scene described, we may refer to the narrative given by Robert de Graystanes, one of the six historians of whom Durham Abbey could boast, of what befel a new Prior of that noble house. It may be translated as follows : — *' In the year of our Lord 1313, about the period of the Festival of S. Barnabas, William de Tanfeld resigned the office of Prior ... he receiving 28 29 extract from the work of each of the more eminent Monastic writers, I should far exceed the prescribed limits of this paper. I must therefore pass on to observe, that the Monastic Histo- rians have, undoubtedly, amplified their pages with legendary tales, some of which exhibit rather their pious credulity than their discrimination and judgment. Sometimes these legends are interwoven and connected with the narrative, but are frequently so totally unconnected with it, that they may seem to be interpolations. But the introduction of legends of modem origin, relating to alleged miracles, some of which, indeed, were never adopted or sanctioned by the Church at large, does not impeach the veracity of the writers ; for the tales in question, whatever might be their origin, were received by those who related them, and by those to whom they were the cell of Jarrow, with the manor of Wardley, and certain tithes of that parish, as a provision for him; and after a licence for election had been obtained from the Bishop, Geoffrey de Burdon, then sub-prior of Durham, was elected soon after the Feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul, afterwards confirmed at Durham, and on the same day installed in office, the Bishop having ordained him without delay, to save loss, because the house had been much impoverished from the causes already mentioned, as well as by the wars of the Scots. This Prior endured, during his whole priorate, the war of Scotland, the frequent visits of the King and of his nobles going towards Scotland, a murrain among the cattle such as had been never seen before, a failure of the fruits of the earth, so that a quarter of corn was sold for forty shillings [equal to at least £16 of our money], and sometimes a quarter of peas or of beans and even of barley was sold for twenty-four shillings — women eat their children, through the extremity of famine .... In horses, however, and in his attendants, he was fond of display, delighting to have men for his attendants instead of boys, and to have horses for riding and not ponies, giving entertainments with becoming splendour but rarely; and so much did he despise annoyances, (for he was sometimes the mark for injuries and slander, as a bear for the dogs,) that on those days he was more jocund at table and more joyful than usual, as if he rejoiced .... that he was held worthy to endure contumely for the sake of his house. Having therefore before his eyes the interest of his house in all things, preferring to it neither the favour of the King, nor of the great nobles, nor his own honour, .... his zeal for his house in reality consumed him ; yet, whatever he might suffer for its sake he held as nothing. In admitting Novices, he was a diligent inquirer into their learning and morals, caring little for the entreaties of their friends, even if those who sought to influence him were great personages. In the year 1315, in the octaves of S. John the Baptist, the Scots plundered the whole property of the house, for the Prior was then absent at Beaurepaire, and not crediting the approach of the Scots, (although he had been forewarned,) r, f t K H) addressed, with full assurance of faith. That the venerable Abbat of Rievaulx, for example, whose life was a model of all the virtues, would relate matters which, however incredible we may think them, he did not believe to be true, will (as a learned author remarks) be admitted by no person acquainted with his character and writings. Can we wonder that faith was reposed in the miracles of the saints ? We should always remember that they were believed to be wrought, not by any independent power or virtue of the saints, but b\ the power and grace of God ; and, since men whose lives on earth had been distinguished by exalted virtue were justly held to be the favourites of Heaven, it is not surprising that this favour was believed to be signalized in a supernatural manner. The glorified saint was supposed to be conversant in the affairs of until he had finished his mass, he found that the Scots then surrounded the park. They followed him as he fled on horseback, as far as the confines of Durham. They also followed his companions, who were fleeing in different ways, and escaping with difficulty from a very strong body of them. There were then taken by the Scots many of the attendants of the Prior, a long waggon belonging to the Prior, with the horses and harness, the entire chapel of the Prior, vessels of silver, table linen and bed linen, with all the utensils of the house. Also, in the park were taken sixty mares, and a hundred and eighty cows with their young [a supply ?] for three years, and the house was damaged in many ways by them. Robert Bruce then lay at Chester, and James Douglas plundered Hartlepool and all the eastern district of the bishopric. After having committed many evils, a truce was made concerning the bishopric until the Nativity of our Lord, for eight hundred marks, and the Scots returned to their homes. This evil was followed by another, at the translation of S. Swithin next following, that is, on the ides of July, when there came such a flood of water as marvellously exceeded the usual bounds of the river, washed away the corn and crops that were near, carried away mills and mill pools, and entering the neighbouring houses by night, washed them away, and drowned men, women, and children. Nobody then living recollec- ted such a flood, nor such dearness as followed it, nor such a pestilence among the cattle. The quarter of corn was sold for forty shillings ; and from the greatness of the famine, so many thousands of men died in the fields, roads, and ways, in the cities and out of them, that there were scarcely any left to bury the dead. In the city of London, 20,000 men were estimated to have died of famine in that year. He was therefore much worn down by such evils all the days of his priorate, and loaded also with [the burthen of] contributions and tithes to the Pope, so that if he had not been very strong, his spirit would have failed within him. The sudden death of the Bishop, Richard de Kellaw, and the election which followed, aggravated his burthen." 30 31 the world, and to feel deep sympathy, and exercise great power in the Church militant, and in the necessities of brethren on earth. The believers in such sympathy and power may have carried their belief and their devotion to the length of blind credulity. I do not know that they did so ; but I know that their belief realized the Communion of Saints, which we profess to acknowledge, and effected in some degree an anti- cipation of the gathering together in one fold of the whole family in heaven and in earth. Is it so extraordinary, that throughout Christendom, a belief should prevail in the efficacy of the invocation of saints, as that the superstitions, whose footsteps are everywhere around us, should in spite of Christianity have retained so firm a hold in the popular mind ? Having, then, endeavoured to shew that the obligations of English history to the Monastic writers are immeasurably great ; that honesty, fidelity, and singleness of purpose, generally distinguish their compositions ; that they are not justly charge- able with ignorance of the Holy Scriptures ; and that their credulous transmission of doubtful legends forms no ground for impeaching their veracity ; it only remains that we should briefly notice their services in another class of learned in- dustry — I mean in the perpetuation of classical literature. And although, as Mr. Maitland remarks, the Monks may not have had that factitious admiration for the poets of antiquity which they probably would have had, if they had been brought up to read them before they could understand their character and beauties, and to admire them as a necessary matter of taste before they could form any intellectual or moral estimate of their value, they could admire the learning, the beauties of thought and language, the enduring images which adorn the heathen poets of antiquity. " The dishes prepared by Cicero," says a venerable Abbat in the year 1150, ** do not form the principal or the first course at my table ; but if at any time, when filled with better food, any thing of his pleases me, I take it as one does the trifles which are set on the table after dinner." Some of the Monks and Ecclesiastics of antient times do i \V' indeed appear to have thought, that the less Christians had to do with heathen works of fiction, and with poetry about false gods, the better : but, unlike the Universities, which educate the Clergy in mathematics, and in the languages of Greece and Rome rather than in the patristic writings, they thought it better to be without the classics than without religion. And yet thfe immortal achievements of the writers of classical antiquity were embraced and preserved by the Church. It was her peculiar province to gather up all the emanations of undying intellect and genius with which her Divine Lord had at any time endowed His creatures. The past as well as the present were made tributary to her great purpose and to His due honour. <« Virgil and Homer," says an eloquent modern writer, *' were treasured up by the priesthood of the One God, although ^neas and Achilles were the worshippers of the daemons of Mythology; and they were treasured up, because of the genius by which this now innoxious pantheism was there encompassed. Horace and Anacreon, despite their panegyrics upon drunkenness, were preserved because of the music of their bacchanalian verse. Terence and Aristophanes were cherished because of their matchless drolleries and sarcasms; Juvenal and Persius for their satires upon depravity ; Demos- thenes and Tully for their impassioned eloquence; ^schylus and Hesiod for the sublimity of their conceptions ; Euripides and Sophocles, for the graces of their diction and the grandeur of their declamatory rhythm ; Pliny, for the amplitude of his investigations ; Democritus, for the beauties that sparkled out in the very ghastliness of his merriment ; and even the dismal but bewitching Lucretius, for the natural flowers of poetry that sprouted through the chinks of his sterile creed, and bloomed in the wastes of his desolate materialism." * Probably, their multiplication of all these imaginative classics may be taken ^ also to shew, that the Monks knew and felt, that the mind and imagination require a domain wider than the limits of real life. When polytheism had been introduced, the lively imagination =^ Catholicity in the Dark Ages. Dolman's Mag. p. 479. / 32 of the Greeks, excited by the natural beauty of their country, soon furnished those incentives to fancy, in which Egypt, though more abounding in objects of wonder, was deficient. Hence, besides Juno, Vesta, Themis, whom they added to the principal divinities derived from the marshy banks of the Nile, every Grecian mountain received its Oreads, every wood its Dryads, every fountain its Naiads, the sea its Tritons and its Nereids, and every river its God ; the variety of the seasons produced the hours ; and the muses and the graces were the genuine offspring of the genius of the people. And why is it that the gods of the Olympus (in the language of Sir Walter Scott) still preserve a poetical empire, although dethroned and forgotten in their antient mountains ? " On the principle, that popular taste desires a repetition of its favourite themes, it is," says Mr. Price, " that every country in Europe has invested its popular fictions with the same common marvels; that all acknowledge the agency of the lifeless productions of Nature ; the intervention of the same supernatural machinery; the existence of elves, fairies, dwarfs, giants, witches, and enchant- ers ; the use of spells, charms and amulets ; and all those highly gifted objects, of whatever form or name, whose attributes refute every principle of human experience, which are to conceal the possessor's person, annihilate the bounds of space, or command a gratification of all our wishes." And many of the imaginary beings of classic antiquity are identical with the characters of modem popular superstition in these northern countries. But although the Germans retain many traces of those pagan times when there were gods mighty to destroy as well as mighty to save, ours are "spirits of a gentler sort." Generally, our popular legends are of fairy-rings, peris, fairy- sparks, and fairy-dew. We have Pixies and Pixie Colts in Devonshire, and the Good People in the North of England ; and, "in spite," says Mr. Neale, "of Bishop Corbet's Farewell to Fairies, Robin Goodfellow still churns the milk, sweeps the hearth, thrashes the corn early in the morning, for those whom he favours, or sours the pans and bums the milk among those he dislikes." Every part of Nature was peopled by the (\ -I ) .i/i V*, *i *; 33 imagination and popular belief, with visionary beings ; " the domestic fiend nightly visited the hearth; the elfin tribe — scattered over the wild heath or inhabiting the woodland glade — danced in the pale moonbeam ; the water nymph sang to the clashing of the torrent; the mountain spirit screamed from his craggy eminence ; the souls of the deceased revisited the scenes of their earthly experience." So lately as 1685, Bishop Nicolson,* speaking of the natural superstition of the Borderers at that day, remarks, that they are much better acquainted with, and more firmly believe their old legendary stories of fairies and witches, than the articles of their creed. Instances need not be cited to prove that long after the pagan nations had disappeared from Britain, their belief in spells remained. It is evident that the belief in the power of amulets or charms, which existed even in the times of Homer, prevailed in this country during the middle ages. A poetical example of this is afforded by a discover} very recently made known to the public; I mean, the discovery last year, of a broken spell in the tomb of a crusader, who was of the family of De Broham.'' But the traditional legends and superstitions of our ancestors are not the subject of this memoir: if they were, how many an instance might we cite in this county of Northumberland! There is the marvellous tale about Rothley mill, as the haunt of a family of fairies, which is mentioned in Hodgson's History of Northumberland.^^ There is the legend of the giant con- nected with the antient site of Corbridge.*^ There are the antient and reverential honours paid to the wdtchen or rowan tree— (mountain ash,) of which superstition sequestered districts still afford lingering remains. And there are many tales of wonder, which will occur to the recollection of those who » In a letter published in Bishop Gibson's edition of Camden's Britannia, ed. 1695, p. 843. b Archaeological Journal, March, 1847. •^ Vol. i. Part ii. p. 305. «> Noticed in the Gentleman's Mag for April, 1847, p. 407. C 34 are familiar with the antient ballad literature of once merry England. And still we seek the legendary song to tell — ** Of antient deed, so long forgot ; Of feuds, whose memory is not ; Of forests, now laid waste and bare ; Of towers, which harbour now the hare ; Of manners, long since changed and gone ; Of chiefs, who under the grey stone So long have slept, that fickle fame Hath blotted from her rolls their name." But we have been led into a long digression, by comparing the current reception of miraculous legends with the popular belief in supernatural agencies : and it is now time to resume the consideration of the more strictly historical features of Mo- nastic literature. The wearers of the cowl and girdle cherished the imaginative classics, for the same reason, probably, that we seek, in the folk-lore of mediaeval time, matter to excite the emotion and sympathy which are natural to the mind. Beyond all these, there were the voluminous creations of the historians ; there were Tacitus, and Livy, and Herodotus, and Curtius, and Sallust, and their kindred brethren; and " all these," says a WTiter already quoted, ^* did the discerning ecclesiastics gamer up, at a period when, but for their inter- ference, the MS. originals would have supplied fuel for the baking of a kid, or the kindling of a casual bonfire." It would seem, indeed, that the Roman historians early attracted the attention of the learned in the middle ages. Valerius Maximus appears to have been the favourite classic of the Monks ; and the editor of the Catalogues of the Library of Durham suggests, that his " Dicta et facta Memorabilia" appears to have been the model upon which Berchorius com- piled that popular work, the " Gesta Romanorum," — a famous collection, which proves that romantic compositions amused the leisure hours, not only of our ancestors of the laity, but also of the Monks themselves. Quintus Curtius, mentioned in the above enumeration, was an admired historian of the romantic ages. Peter of Blois, c J A \ 35 Archdeacon of London, a student at Paris in 1150, mentioning the books most common in the schools, declares, that he profited much by frequently looking into this author, ^neas Sylvius very seriously relates, that Alphonsus IX. King of Spain, who reigned in the thirteenth century, sought relief from a tedious malady, by reading the Bible over fourteen times, with all the glosses, — (his complaint must have been indeed tedious !)— but not meeting with the expected success, he was cured by the consolation he received from once reading Quintus Curtius.^ To come nearer home : the Monks of Durham appear to have possessed a refined taste in classical literature ; for we find them in possession of the Bucolics, Georgics, and ^neid of Virgil, some of the poems of Ovid, the comedies of Terence, the satires of Juvenal, the poems of Claudian and Lucan, and some pieces of the composition of Horace. But to return to one of the most famous of the writings of the Cloister, which has been already referred to, namely, the Gesta Romanorum. This is a very antient collection of religious, legendary, and romantic narra- tives, compiled for the use of Monastic societies. It also furnished the Monastic preachers with materials for illustration of their discourses. The writer, long unknown, is Peter Ber. chorius, a native of Poictou, who died Prior of the Benedictine Convent of S. Eloi at Paris, in 1362. It was first printed in 1473, and has been very often reprinted in various languages. It is compiled from more antient chronicles, legends of the saints, oriental apologues, and from some of the fictitious narratives which came into Europe with the Arabian literature^ Its pages are quoted by many antient Monastic WTiters, and have afibrded the source of many tales and incidents immor- talized by Gower, Chaucer, Spenser, and other poets of England. Its title by no means describes its contents ;b for, although most of the stories are prefaced with the name or reign of a Roman a Hallam's Middle Ages, i. 531. ^ We may take a few specimens of its contents : Vespasian's Rings. Ch. x. '^ Vespasian marries a wife in a distant country who refuses to return home with him, and yet declares she will kill herself if C 2 36 emperor, the person named has no historical connection with the circumstances of the story. The Cloister had its poets too; but they were content if they could compose some hymn or melody for the glory of God, and the utility of the Church. Other poet-monks there were, the remarkable merit of whose compositions procured for them the favour of earthly sovereigns, and whose he goes. The emperor ordered two rings to be made, of a wondrous efficacy ; one of which, in the stone, has the image of Oblivion, the other the image of Memory : the ring of Oblivion he gave to the empress, and returned home with the ring of Memory." Story of the Hermit. Chap. Ixxx. *' A devout hermit lived in a cave, near which a shepherd folded his flock. Many of the sheep being stolen, the shepherd was unjustly killed by his master as being concerned in the theft. The hermit seeing an innocent man put to death, began to doubt the existence of a Divine Providence; and resolved no longer to perplex himself with the useless severities of religion, but to mix in the world. In travelling from his retirement, he was met by an angel in the figure of a man ; who said, * I am an angel, and am sent by God to be your companion on the road.' They entered a city ; and begged for lodging at the house of a knight, who entertained them at a splendid supper. In the night, the angel rose from his bed, and strangled the knight's only child who was asleep in the cradle. The hermit was astonished at this barbarous return for so much hospitality, but was afraid to make any remonstrance to his companion. Next morning they went to another city. Here they were liberally received in the house of an opulent citizen ; but in the night the angel rose, and stole a golden cup of inestimable value. The hermit now concluded that his companion was a Bad Angel. In travelling forward the next morning, they passed over a bridge; about the middle of which they met a poor man, of whom the angel asked the way to the next city. Having received the desired information, the angel pushed the poor man into the water, where he was immediately drowned. In the evening, they arrived at the house of a rich man ; and begging for a lodging, were ordered to sleep in a shed with the cattle. In the morning the angel gave the rich man the cup which he had stolen. The hermit, amazed that the cup which was stolen from their friend and benefactor should be given to one who refused them a lodging, began to be now convinced that his companion was the Devil ; and begged to go on alone. But the angel said, * Hear me, and depart. When you lived in your hermitage, a shepherd was killed by his master. He was innocent of the supposed offence ; but had he not been then killed, he would have committed crimes in which he would have died impenitent. His master endeavours to atone for the murther, by dedicating the remainder of his days to alms and deeds of charity. I strangled the child of the knight. But know, that the father was so intent on heaping up riches for this child, as to neglect those acts of public munificence for which he was before so dis- tinguished, and to which he has now returned. I stole the golden cup of the A . J ' ^1 ^ i i f 37 names have survived the wreck of Monasteries. The most antient of the poets of the Cloister, is Geoffrey of Monmouth, who has been called the father of our narrative poetry; his pages have furnished foreign poets of celebrity with materials, and our Shakspeare with his Lear, Cordelia, and Cymbeline; whilst Milton and Dryden borrow largely from the old Monkish writer. hospitable citizen. But know, that from a life of the strictest temperance, he became, in consequence of possessing this cup, a drunkard ; whereas he is now the most abstemious of men. I threw the poor man into the water. He was then honest and religious. But know, had he walked one half of a mile further, he would have murthered a man in a state of mortal sin. I gave the golden cup to the rich man who refused to take us under his roof. He has therefore received his reward in this world ; and in the next, will suffer the pains of hell for. his inhospitality.' The hermit fell prostrate at the angel's feet ; and requesting forgiveness, returned to his hermitage, fully convinced of the wisdom and justice of God's government." It should be observed, that this is the original of the fable of Parnell's hermit ; and Sir Wm. Ouseley, in a learned paper which is published in the first volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, has shewn that the tale was derived from the East. He remarks, that very striking features of oriental imagination may be found in several stories of the Gesta Romanorum ; and he instances the story of a treasure discovered by means of the shadow falling at certain moments from a statue's head or pointed finger, which may be traced through several English works up to the Gesta Roma- norum and even to William of Malmesbury, and which is found in an Arabian writer of the eighth century. The story of the infant placed by his mother in a cask, with writings, money, and garments, and committed to the sea, and who is miraculously saved in a distant country, educated by an Abbat, becomes a warrior, defeats the enemies of his mother then become a widowed princess, and at last becomes her husband, each ignorant of the relationship subsisting between them, but on the discovery of which, each retires to a cloister, is found, says Sir Wm. Ouseley, in the manuscript works of different eastern authors, more especially in one who dates his poem in the tenth century. The story relating to the statue is given in a translation of the Gesta as follows: — Chap. cvii. "There was an image in the city of Rome, which stretched forth its right hand, on the middle finger of which was written STRIKE HERE. For a long time none could understand the meaning of this mysterious inscription. At length a certain subtle clerk, who came to see this famous image, observed, as the sun shone against it, the shadow of the inscribed finger on the ground at some distance. He immediately took a spade, and began to dig exactly on that spot. He came at length to a flight of steps which descended far under ground, and led him to a stately palace. Here he entered a hall, where he saw a king and queen sitting at table, with their nobles and a multitude of people, all clothed in rich garments. But no 38 Having now described some of the classes of literature which occupied the thoughts and the pens of the Monastic writers, I shall conclude this memoir by a brief notice of some circum- stances illustrative of the value set upon manuscripts in the middle ages. And first I may remark, that mediaeval history affords many instances of taste and zeal and generosity in the collection of books, which are hardly eclipsed by the costly doings of person spake a word. He looked towards one corner, where he saw a polish- ed carbuncle, which illuminated the whole room. Tn the opposite corner he perceived the figure of a man standing, having a bended bow with an arrow in his hand, as prepared to shoot. On his forehead was written, ' I am who am. Nothing can escape my stroke, not even yonder carbuncle which shines so brightly.' The clerk beheld all with amazement ; and entering a chamber, saw the most beautiful ladies working at the loom in purple. But all was silence. He then entered a stable full of the most excellent horses and asses : he touched some of them, and they were instantly turned into stone. He next surveyed all the apartments of the palace, which abounded with all that his wishes could desire. He again visited the hall, and now began to reflect how he should return ; 'but,' he said, * my report of all these wonders will not be believed, unless I carry something back with me.' He therefore took from the principal table a golden cup and a golden knife, and placed them in his bosom ; when the man who stood in the corner with the bow, immediately shot at the carbuncle, which he shattered into a thousand pieces. At that moment the hall became dark as night. In this darkness, not being able to find his way, he remained in the subterraneous palace, and soon died a miserable death. ** In the MoRALisATioN of this story, the steps by which the clerk descends into the earth are supposed to be the Passions. The palace so richly stored, is the world with all its vanities and temptations. The figure with the bow bent is Death, and the carbuncle is Human Life. He suffers for his avarice in coveting and seizing M'hat was not his own ; and no sooner has he taken the golden knife and cup, that is, enriched himself with the goods of this world, than he is delivered up to the gloom and horrors of the grave." This story is related by an earlier authority, William of Malmesbury, of Pope Gerbert, Sylvester II. who died in A.D. 1003. A spiritual romance, written originally in Greek about A.D. 800, by John of Damascus, a Monk, and entitled Barlaam and Josaphat, is probably the remote but original source of Shakspeare's Caskets, in The Merchant of Venice. The passage is translated by Warton as follows: — "The king commanded four chests to be made ; two of which were covered with gold, and secured by golden locks, but filled with the rotten bones of human carcases. The other two were overlaid with pitch, and bound with rough cords ; but replenished with precious stones and the most exquisite gems, and with ointments of the richest odoiu*. He called his nobles together; and 'i V 39 modern book collectors. The diocess of Durham affords one of the most remarkable of these instances, in the person of Kichard de Bury, a Monk and afterwards Bishop of this Diocess Lord Chancellor of Edw. III. and one of the most eminent of the scholars who threw a lustre on that brilliant rei°^' precious, supposmg hey were made to contain the crowns and girdles of the king Je k r ^r ^"^^r^"'"' ^''^"^ ""^y "^^^^^ ^'* <=0"'^™Pt- Then safa eyes o/'sensf '■"rl " r ' """l^ "" ^""^ ''^'-'"-''t'o" = for ye look with the eyes of sense. But to discern baseness or value, which are hid within we must look w,th the eyes of the mind.' He then ordered the golden cllsis: be^opened, wh.ch exhaled an intolerable stench, and filled the'beholderrwith Boccacio.- A kmg had an only son. As soon as he was born the physicians declared, that if he was allowed to see the sun, or any fire before he armed at the age of twelve years, he would be blind."^ tL king commanded an apartment to be hewed within a rock, into which nl iilt could enter; and here he shut up the boy, totally i^ the dark vet with proper attendants for twelve years; at the'^nd of whicl tint h'e'boS hn„ abroad from his gloomy chamber, and placed in his view, ^en womfn gold precous stones, rich garments, chariots of exquisite workmansh p d "wn by horses with golden bridles, heaps of purple tapestry, armed knights on horseback oxen and sheep. These were%ll distinctly'pointed om to the youth : but bemg most pleased with the women, he desfred to know L wto name they were called. An esquire of the king jocosely told him, thatll ev were devils who catch men. Being brought to the king, 'he was ask d vS cjil •• "" '"' """^^ '" "'' '''"■ "«-!"-<'. '- "eriU Z ot1tt7'' '""1"°"'^ ?"f1. ^"'""""'^ ^''^^'' ^^"'"^'1 ^ poem on .he tale of the Legacies bequeathed by a king to his three sons, which tale is alsot theGestaRomanorum:-"To the eldest he bequeathes all his^tenal in hentance; to the second, all that he had acquired by conquest -aid to ^e third, a nng and necklace, both of gold, and i rich cloth, 'a the ttee la gifts were endued with magical virtues. Whoever wore the rLlon h finge , gamed the love or favour of all whom he desired to please WIm ever hung the necklace over his breast, obtained all his heart^ou d dl' e' Tzz^^cz:)-''' -'' "' '-'-'>■ --^-^ - 4 P^n .he\r?sr.' '*"' '"'''"'" "' ""-"- "- Vum,., in .S2.,, by 40 41 the countenance of royal favour, for freely searching the hiding- places of books. For the flying fame of our love had already spread in all directions ; and it was reported not only that we had a longing desire for books, and especially for old ones, but that any body could more easily obtain our favour by quartos than by money." " Crazy quartos and tottering folios," he continues, "flowed in most rapidly, from the great as well as the small, instead of new-year's gifts and remunerations, and instead of presents and jewels. Then the cabinets of the most noble Monasteries were opened ; cases were unlocked, caskets were unclasped, and startled volumes, which had slum- bered for long ages in their sepulchres, were roused up Amongst these as time served, we set down more voluptuously than the delicate physician could do amidst his stores of aromatics ; and where we found an object of love, we found also full enjoyment We delighted more in folios than florins, and preferred paltry pamphlets to pampered palfreys. " In addition to this, we were charged with the frequent embassies of the said prince, carrying about with us, however, that fondness for books which many waters could not extinguish ; for this, like a certain drug, sweetened the wormwood of peregrination; this, after the perplexing in- tricacies, scrupulous circumlocutions of debate, and almost inextricable labyrinths of public business, left an opening for a little while to breathe the temperature of a more genial atmosphere." Then, speaking of his beloved Paris, the good Bishop says : " In that city are delightful libraries in cells redolent of aro- matics ; there, flourishing conservatories of all sorts of volumes; there, academic meads ; there, the promontories of Parnassus, and the porticoes of the Stoics ; there, with an open treasury, and untied purse-strings, we scattered money with a light heart, and redeemed inestimable books from dirt and dust." We have not any account transmitted to us of any consider- able number of valuable books being, at any one time preceding the Refonnation, introduced into England. When S. Gregory A ^1. %f the Great returned, to the blessed Augustine, then recently consecrated Primate of the English, the pall (the ensign of his dignity), he also sent to him, amongst other things, the follow- ing MSS. : — a Bible adorned with some purple and rose-colour- ed leaves ; the Psalter ; two copies of the Gospels ; a volume of Legends on the sufierings of the Apostles for the faith, having a picture of Christ in silver ; another volume concerning the Martyrs, on the outside of which was a glory, silver gilt and set round with beryls and crystals ; and an exposition of the Epistles and Gospels, having on the cover a large beryl surrounded by crystals. Of collections formed in England in early times, the notices which have come down to us are few. I must give them as they occur, for they are too few for classification. There were, in the times of the Saxons, several valuable libraries in this island ; amongst others, those at Canterbury and Durham, and in the Abbeys of S. Alban and Glastonbury, were the most considerable. S. Egbert, Archbishop of York, a disciple of Venerable Bede, was a man of great learning, and founded a noble library at York, about 735 ; which was accidentally destroyed by fire, in the reign of King Stephen, with the Cathedral, the Monastery of S. Mary, and several other religious houses. Alcuin his disciple, a Northumbrian, the most learned man of his age, in his epistle to Charlemagne, who invited him to his Court, mentions, with great respect, his master Egbert, and the noble library which he had founded. Upon the English becoming masters of Paris in 1425, eight hundred and fifty-three MSS. were removed to this country, from the collection in the Louvre formed by Charles V, which amounted, in 1365, to nine hundred volumes. The famous library established in the University of Oxford, in 1440, by that munificent patron of literature, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, contained only six hundred volumes. They were, however, of extraordinary value. In 1482, the library of the Abbey of Leicester contained eight large stalls, which were filled with books. 42 In the library of Peterborough Abbey, at the Dissolution, there were seventeen hundred books in manuscript. Leland relates, that John Walden, a learned Carmelite, be- queathed to the library of the Grey Friars in London, as many manuscripts of approved authors, written in capital Roman characters, as were then estimated at more than two thousand pieces of gold. He adds, that this library, even in his time, exceeded all others in London for antiquity and number of books.* If it were an object of the present discourse to give a description of the treasures which, collected from the spoils of the Religious Houses, are now deposited in our public collections, inexhaustible topics would be found in the contents of the Cottonian, Harleian, Bodleian, and Royal Libraries; the rich stores of which are open to every student of antient literature. Henry VIII. in the foundation of that magnificent collection known as the Royal Library, gave to learning some portion of what he had taken from religion, for he placed in it many choice MSS. collected by that celebrated antiquary, John Leland, from the spoils of the Monasteries. Towards the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Thomas Bodley devoted his days to the reinstating of the public library at Oxford, and to the searching after and purchasing books and manuscripts ; and he thus accumulated twelve hundred and ninety-four rare MSS. for that collection. His great contemporary, Sir Robert Cotton, after a labour of upwards of forty years, accumulated those numerous and inestimable treasures which compose the Cottonian Library, and now remain a noble memorial of his mu- nificent regard for his native country. At a subsequent period, the Harleian Collection was commenced by Robert Harley, who was created Earl of Oxford in 1711. The catalogue of this treasury of erudition and historical information, published by the late Record Commission, fills three large folio volumes, and extends to upwards of seven thousand MSS. ; it should, however, be said that these, Hke the contents of the Lansdowne » See Hunter's English Monastic Libraries, Ito., 1831. I 43 Collection, consist, for the most part, of transcripts from earlier MSS. — Catalogues of the MSS. added to the libraries of the Colleges in the Universities, as also to those of many Cathe- dral Churches, the Palace at Lambeth, the Inns of Court, the College of Arms, and other repositories, were published in 1697, under the title of " Catalogus Manuscriptorum Anglias et Hi- berniae." And in the first general Report of the Commissioners on Public Records, some useful particulars are given of the contents of public collections of MSS. It is justly a subject for national gratitude and pride, that so many of the inestimable labours of the Cloister have found a home in these magnificent public collections. Of those remarkable MSS. which have survived the storms that laid in ruins the Monasteries where they were written and jealously preserved, and have become conspicuous among the treasured contents of our public collections, it is impossible to speak within the limits of the present memoir. But on account of the local associations, I may refer to the fact that in the library of the Dean and Chapter of Durham is preserved a copy of the New Testament which might have been handled by the mighty S. Cuthbert, the Ritual in which he may have prayed ; the venerable Bede's transcript of the Four Gospels in his own hand-writing, — a splendid proof of the elegance of his pen, and of his accuracy as a transcriber. The Church of Durham did not escape the hands of the spoiler; aud many of its choicest treasures were removed at the time of the Dissolution, from their parent roof. But some of the Durham manuscripts are treasured up in the Cottonian library. The Saxon copy of the Four Evangelists, which King Athelstan gave to the church of Durham, now exists in that collection. The Saxon book of the Gospels, preserved in the same treasure- house, tells its own tale, in the words of Aldred, the Saxon glossator. This most precious volume was written expressly for the use of S. Cuthbert, by Eadfrid, Bishop of Lindisfarne, and illuminated by Ethelwold his successor with equal elegance."^ * Two fac -similes of the illuminations and capital letters may be seen in *' Astle's Origin and progress of Writing," pp. 96, 97. 44 45 Bilfrid, the anchorite, covered it with gold and silver plates and precious stones. And yet the work was finished so early as the year 720, Its subsequent history is pretty generally known. It remained in the church of Lindisfarne until the Danes drove the Monks from the island ; and then it became the companion of their travels ; but having accidentally fallen into the sea during their attempt to cross over into Ireland, and having been soon afterwards found in safety on the coast of Scotland, to which they were driven by stress of weather, it was, for greater safety, placed upon the inner coffin which contained the body of this mighty saint, where it remained until 1104, when the Monks had established themselves at Durham. Soon afterwards it was carried back to Lindisfarne, its original home, where a colony of Monks had built upon the site of the original cathedral the church of which so many interesting portions remain. The book can still boast of its brilliant illuminations and caligraphy.* Many curious instances of the large prices paid for remark- able or richly decorated MSS. in the middle ages, are on record. But, as Mr Maitland remarks, the price paid for some particular books in the middle ages must not be taken as evidence of the general dearness and scarcity of literature. The instances on record prove little, and are much like the following : — A MS. written in England about the time when S. Cuthbert's Book of the Gospels was written, and now preserved at Lichfield, was purchased before the year 1020, by Gelhi, for one of his best horses. The MS. is known as S. Chad's Gospel.** In A.D. 1174, Walter, Prior of S. Swithin's at Winchester, purchased of the Monks of Dorchester, in Oxfordshire, the Venerable Bede's Homilies and S. Austin's Psalter, for twelve measures of barley, and a pall on which was embroidered in silver the history of S. Birinus, their patron Saint, converting a Saxon king. » Raine's S. Cuthbert, 34. It is the MS. Cott. Nero, D. iv. See initial letters M and P, in Life of S. Oswin, prefixed to the History of Tynemouth. ^ Astle on Writing, p. 100. Edit. 1803. i t A copy in French of Comestor's Scholastic History was taken from the king of France at the battle of Poictiers, and being purchased by William Montague, Earl of Salisbury, for one hundred marks, was by the will of his Countess Elizabeth, ordered to be sold for forty livres. About A.D. 1400, a copy of Jean de Meun s Romaunt de la Rose, was sold before the palace-gate at Paris for forty crowns, or £33. 6s. 8d. William Wallingford, Abbat of S. Alban's, gave or sold from the library of that Monastery, to Bishop Richard de Bury, Terence, Virgil, Quintilian, and Jerome against Rufinus, to- gether with thirty-two other volumes, valued in all at fifty pounds of silver. Some of them were again obtained by the Abbey. The books used in the Church ceremonies of olden time were numerous and costly. The provision of them belonged to the rectors or parsons of the churches, until 1305, when the duty of providing them was apportioned between the rectors and parishioners. In 1424, two manuscripts, each of which was an Antiphonarium, cost the Monastery of Crabhouse in Norfolk £17. 6*. Sd. being equivalent to £120. of modern currency. Antonio Beccatelli is said to have given a large field, in exchange for a beautiful MS. of Livy, in A.D. 1455. " It were easy," says an author, " to multiply examples of similar pur- chases; but let these suffice, for modern instances are not wanting of the conversion of acres into leaves." It therefore is not surprising, that in the lives of Popes and many Bishops, the donations of books are recorded as acts of signal generosity, and as deserving of perpetual remembrance. The gift was sometimes inscribed even on the monuments of departed benefactors. On the donation of some edifying work it was usual to couple, with the donor's name, his pious object. Thus, for instance, Abbat Thomas de la Mare gave to the Priory of Redburn a copy of the Sanctilogium Britanniae, written by John of Tynemouth, and dedicated by him to the Abbat, which copy now remains in the British Museum, with 46 47 an inscription recording that it was given in order that the brethren, instructed by the example of the saints and taught to imitate their virtues, might be fitted for the life eternal. Donations or bequests of books, whether to individuals or to Religious Houses, were usually accompanied by stipulations and restrictions, indicative of the value set upon them by their possessors: thus, in 1225, Roger de Insula, Dean of York, gave several Latin Bibles to the University of Oxford, with a con- dition that the students who perused them should deposit a cautionary pledge. Sometimes a book was given to a Monas- tery, on condition that the owner should have the use of it during his life, or the benefit of the pious intercessions of the fraternity after his death. Sometimes, to a private person, with the reservation that he who received it should pray for the soul of his benefactor: or, if to a Convent, offered with great solemnity on the altar. When the unsettled state of the times afibrded little se- curity to the person, and still less to property, the Monks had recourse to a pious stratagem for the protection of their literary possessions. The most formidable anathemas were denounced against all who should dare to alienate a book presented to the Cloister or Library of a Religious House. Thus, the Prior and Convent of Rochester declare that they will, every year, pro- nounce the irrevocable sentence of damnation on him who shall purloin or conceal a Latin translation of Aristotle's Physics, or even obliterate the title. That the Monks of Durham had recourse to similar expedients, for the security of their volumes, those which remain abundantly confirm. It was enough to frighten the possessor of a book containing it, even though he came by the MS. honestly. The Monks, however, did not entirely rely upon the efiicacy of the dreaded anathema, but frequently exacted pecuniary security for the safe custody or return of their books. Nor was it only in the composition, multiplication, and preservation of books, that the Monks performed signal services to the cause of education and learning. The most eminent scholars which England produced, both in philosophy and Ul •• y, humanity, before and even after the twelfth century, were educated in English Religious houses, or in those Colleges in our venerable Universities which owe their original founda- tion to the Abbats and Priors of the greater Monasteries, and were maintained by contributions from the Monastery and its Cells. Thus, Trinity College, formerly Durham College, Oxford, was founded by Richard Hoton, Prior of the once great Abbey of Durham, about A.D. 1290, as a place of aca- demical study for his Monks. Thus also, Worcester College, Oxford, (formerly Gloucester Hall,) was founded in part by the Abbat of S. Peter's Abbey, Gloucester, for the benefit of thirteen Monks of that house. It was afterwards enriched and enlarged by other Monasteries, and especially by the princely Abbey of S. Alban, from which Monasteries scholars were sent to the College. The illustrious John of Whethamstede, a Monk of S. Alban's, and Prior of Tynemouth, was Prior of this College (then Gloucester Hall,) before he accepted the dignity of Abbat of S. Alban's. To each of its students in the times of John of Whethamstede, that venerable father allowed, from his own purse, an annual pension of 13^. 4c?. The Convent was the preparatory school : ability and aptness for learning sent the youth to the College, where he studied, and returned home ready to fill the stall of a deceased Monk in the Convent, or in one of its Cells. Enough has been now advanced to shew the fallacy of the opinion which identified the name of Monastery with error, corruption, and tendency to evil ; and to induce us all to regard the venerable ruins which are scattered throughout our land, with feelings of sorrow, as the hallowed monuments of antient works of mercy overthrown by the misguided zeal and the miscreant violence of fanatical or covetous men : " Deserted now, we scan the grey, worn towers ; The vaults where dead of Feudal ages sleep ; The cloisters, pervious to the wintry showers ; These, these we view, and view them but to weep." Beneath those towers, and in those Cloisters, the Monks, u 48 whose works we have been considering in this discourse, labour- ed, fasted, obeyed, and went to their final rest; and though they committed to writing so few particulars relatn^g to themselves, that we know little more than the names of those whose imperishable writings afford us instruction and delight their labours of love, and piety, and learning remam.' If placed in wild and barbarous localities, they christiamzed the people, and conquered with the Cross; and whether there, or in a goodly heritage and led forth by their heavenly Shepherd in smiling vineyards to which the light of the Gospel had been brought by holy men who had gone before, their lives were dedicated to the honour of God, and to the praise of the Rule of their Order. The government of such men was well calculated to propagate a spirit of application and improvement around them; while the service of the Church, always support- ed in Collegiate establishments and in Monasteries with great decency and even splendour, strengthened the influence of religion, and with it extended the giaces and the chanties which ever accompany its steps. The decorations, both ex- ternal and internal, of their churches and of the buildings annexed to them, not only gave employment, almost constant, to numerous artisans, but, moreover, inspired and kept alive a taste for the fine arts ; and to the number of such foundations, and to their splendid establishments, we are probably indebted for the rich stores of choral music, the treasures of architecture, sculpture and painting, of which we may be no less justly proud than of our literary treasures. Considerations such as these, might abundantly excuse the historical enquirer, who should take what the worid would . The writings of the middle ages are remarkable monuments of activity a..d acquisitions of mind; and the extent of research which in numerous in- stances they display, is really astonishing. As a powerful telescope discloses to our view, in boundless space, separate suns, of whose ex^tence we should otherwise have no suspicion, so the pages of many writers, who flourished m a distant aera, reveal to us that writers and philosophers existed in ages yet more early and remote, whose very names are not to be discovered elsewhere in human records, and would be for ever unknown to us, if they had not once been familiar in the Cloister. ■1.(1 Ik. : \: \ \ "^^ 49 call a too enthusiastic view of antient Monachism. But, how- ever just the foundation they afford to his feelings of reverence for the institutions of olden time which bore such goodly fruit, and whatever may be his wish for their revival in a modified form in this country even in these our days, it cannot be denied that the Monastic institution which fulfilled its godly purpose, has had " its day" in England. And, save for the pur- poses of employing the magnificent revenues of our Cathedral foundations in a manner more in accordance with the inten- tions of antient piety than they are employed at present, and of ensuring the celebration of the Offices of the Church more frequently than is convenient to secularized dignitaries, and more decorously than is always their practice in our venerable cathedrals, the revival of Monastic recluses in this day might not, perhaps, be attended with those benefits to society, which flowed from the Monastic institution in times and in a state of society which differed so widely from our own. But while this is admitted, it cannot be too strongly urged, that the ex- istence of an institution, which should be antagonistic to the growing power of wealth, to the growing spread of commercial heathenism, and to the cold, selfish, mammon-worshipping spirit of the age, is needed in a most extreme degree ; for the Church of England, notwithstanding the recent auspicious revival of her dormant energy and vindication of her character and office, has now no sufficient power to check the calculating, utilitarian spirit of the age, or to subdue the practical heathen- ism which is every where increasing around us. The revival of Monastic orders, for the exercise of works of piety and mercy — not alone in the Cloister but — among the busy scenes of the world, among the toiling and suffering millions of our fellow- creatures, would surely be a hopeful and a blessed event. The Church of England is at present unable to still the raging waves of popular heathenism, or to cope with the gigantic evils which afflict the lower orders of society; and, unless institu- tions of Catholic times should be brought to aid the Church of England in her work, and it should please God to turn the hearts of the wealthy and powerful among her sons, to i 50 build again, for collegiate and charitable uses, the old waste- places, and to restore to the original purposes of its dedication the now estranged patrimony of the Church, she cannot hope to diffuse the blessings of education and sympathy amongst the destitute people, or to defeat the hostility of the legions of dissent. Meantime, as a reverend author has remarked, it is possi- ble to us in all states to make the very circumstances of our condition, whether on the throne, in the army, in the state of marriage, or in the deserts, the means of our virtue, without quitting our state in the world. The functions of the state of recluses differed from those of our condition; yet patience, humility, penance, zeal, and charity, which they practised con- tinually, are necessary virtues in all persons. '* The lesson to be learned from all Church history," says Archdeacon Churton, **is a lesson of faith in the Author of all truth, the Founder and Preserver of that religion of which the Church is His appointed keeper and witness in the world. The old Christian bishops and fathers of our native land lived and died," he continues, '^ in the same faith which we cherish; they founded or they maintained a Church, in doctrine and discipline the same as ours ; they sought, by one Saviour's blood, an inheritance in the same Heaven in which we hope to dwell." To conclude. People congratulate themselves upon the ab- rogation of the august rites and ceremonies of the antient faith. God only knows whether we may safely dispense with the use of any of those aids to piety which were accustomed to be devoted to His service. But now, although we do not follow the austere rule of a Monastic fraternity, or enter the portals through which the Monks of old hoped to reach the joys of Heaven, let us prize as we ought that Rule to which we all became subject, when we became regenerate, at our Baptism. We live under the rule of the Church ; we have a body of pious, learned, and earnest clergymen ; a Liturgy and Ritual which, if used in their stately fulness, possess a sublime simplicity and religious beauty, and are admirably adapted to a worship ren- » ' 51 » dered with the heart and understanding. Let us then, warned to obey the ordinances of the Church, and cheerfully following her godly rule, seek to imitate the Monks in zeal, devotion, patience and good works ; and, confiding in the mercy of God, let us offer the prayer, and humbly cherish the hope, that with them we may become partakers of His Heavenly Kingdom. 4! I / I ' i id THE END. /, P. WhJte & Sou, PrlatcrijS, Devonshirc-oquare.Bisbopsgate, Loodoa. is If » «» / \ ' \ i /i 14 t 1 I t 1 p. >iS" COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 0032249942 / 1 1 ^B^^H^B^ >tt i 1 1 ^S^^^Ek ''' "^ j ILI I^K^' i\ 1 ^B^^^^%^'' 't'^'^'^' i 1 1 "•S ^^^^^SjJ^ iJA 1 |W 1^'mJ 1 M^B fipy^ Ss jte (t ^ • ''$iU>M