270

SCENE SIXTH.

THE CONSTRUCTORS OF NORTH-WESTERN SOCIETY: THE MONASTIC ORDERS OR CLERGY, THE BARONS, KINGS, AND COMMONS.

The seventy or eighty years between the time of Justinian's Reformation of the Roman Law, and the rise of Mahomet, may be regarded as a time of transition between the old and the middle world; during which the disappearance of the remnants of antiquity was fast approaching to its consummation. The Barbarians were then overrunning the whole Empire of the West; the depopulation of cities and the dispersion of the people in the provinces were going on rapidly; schools on the old model of Greece and Rome, losing their support, were going to ruin almost simultaneously ; commerce was dying; the ornamental and fine arts were being forgotten. War, and the primitive handicrafts of working in wood and iron, were bringing back the days of romance and fable; and the new spiritual power was accumulating strength amid the feebleness of the old civilisation. Such was the force and universality of the flood which came over the past, that even the clergy themselves, the most learned men of the day, assisted the Barbarians in completing the ruin of political and intellectual Rome. Gregory the Great, in this period of transition, affected so much contempt for

ancient learning and wisdom, that he even despised the ordinary art of grammar in his writings, and sharply rebuked St. Dizier, Bishop of Vienne, for teaching it in his cathedral school. The old civil schools had taught it, and it was the object of the clergy of that period to substitute everywhere ecclesiastical schools in their stead; and so long as the civil schools existed, the slightest resemblance of them was viewed with suspicion.

Society never had been in a more hopeless condition. It can be compared to nothing but death and dissolution; and no man could ever have imagined the simple and most efficient means by which it was restored. When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit never fails to raise up a standard against it. There is no retrogression; there is only translation. But the East was then the source of all new ideas, and there we must look for the succour that was approaching.

Monastic, or rather conventional, life had been growing in the East since the days of St. Basil, who is called the Great, because he is the father of the Monachism of the East. But the spirit of Basilian Monachism is contemplative, and merely consists of retirement from the world. It had travelled westward, but could have been of little service for the restoration of society, where industry and labour indefatigable were demanded. This want was abundantly supplied at the proper season. In 528, A.D., when Justinian was beginning

his reform of the law, St. Benedict was founding the Monastery of Monte Cassino, in Italy, the first and still the chief of all the Benedictine conventual establishments. His discipline was mild, but it forbade idleness. It was a sacred Socialism, or perfect community of goods, in which all individual interest was to be sacrificed, and made subservient to the general welfare of the community and the church. The popularity of the idea was marvellous. It spread like wildfire over all the western world—that portion which was to represent the new trilogue of the Drama. That such an institution was wanted at the time is evident from the fact of its rapid growth. The immense benefit which it conferred on the world for nearly a thousand years-in reclaiming waste lands, making roads and bridges, founding new towns, and enlarging old ones, instituting colleges and schools, erecting cathedrals, abbeys, and parish churches, encouraging trade and commerce, establishing inns and hospices for travellers, and messageries for carrying goods and letters, preserving and restoring literature is such as ought never to be forgotten by posterity in judging of the mission-we may call it Divine, for all such public missions are Divineof the monastic orders.* These Benedictine Monks were, in the course of ages, subdivided into

*By Divine, in this place, we mean high in the graduated scale of Divinity, but not the summit.

branches innumerable, which took different names; such as the order of Citeaux, founded by St. Robert-the Camaldules by St. Romuald, -the order of Cluny by St. Odon, &c.; but they all followed the general rules of St. Benedict; and so universal was the adoption of his discipline for several hundred years, that Charlemagne, at the end of the eighth century, inquired if there were any other than Benedictine Monks in his dominions. Everywhere their societies flourished, and the barren heath was soon transformed into a garden around them. The Monks of the Congregation of Fulda possessed as many as eighteen thousand farms, and those of St. Benedict Polironne employed three thousand pairs of oxen in the cultiof the land. They were all forbidden the use of meat, and obliged to sleep in their day clothes, but were permitted to take a small portion of wine daily; and this economical arrangement not only contributed to the multiplication of cattle, but to the cultivation of the vine; and thus we see, in the hands of these devoted men, the restoration of society in one or more of its phases begun and assured of success. The order of the monks of Citeaux increased so rapidly, that in fifty years after its institution it numbered five hundred abbeys, and in the year 1200 they had increased in little more than a century from the foundation to 1800. They extended over all the North-western world, and many of the military monks, such

T

pay

it

as the orders of Calatrava, Alcantara and Montreza in Spain, and those of Christ and of The Bird in Portugal, adopted the rules of Citeaux. Clairvaux, over which St. Bernard, the oracle of his age, presided, was one of its earliest branches, and to this order, still Benedictine, the King of Portugal, Alfonso the First, submitted himself and his kingdom as to a feudal suzerain, engaging to a yearly tribute of fifty golden maraboutins. This one fact alone demonstrates the immense moral power of these wonderful institutions in the Middle Ages; for it was not by the sword of steel that they made their conquests, but by the sword of the spirit, the sword of moral discipline and well deserved reputation, which commanded and secured the confidence of the people. Then they could sing the final song of the church

Praise to the Conqueror, praise to the Lord!

His word was our arrow, his breath was our sword!

But when they were no longer wanted, or less wanted, their discipline was relaxed, and they lost the confidence which once they deserved. The Popes themselves, by infallible inspiration, accomplished this. Pope Sextus the Fourth, the Pope who first licensed female prostitution, amongst other favours granted the superiors permission to eat meat ; and when once the general begins to grow fat, the soldiers become lazy. But even in the time of Charlemagne, in the eighth century, we find the monastery of St. Denys representing to the King,