25 
MONASTIC INSTITUTIONS OF THE MIDDLE 
AGES. 
By the Rev. J, 8S. DOXEY, February 19th, 1889. 
The essayist in describing the Institutions of the Middle Ages 
with religious organisations at their head said it was not his wish 
nor should it be his effort to defend them, or on the other hand 
to speak of them with an unfriendly prejudice, but simply to 
endeavour to describe them as they were. He was induced to do 
this as notwithstanding our advancement in learning and science, 
und the multiplicity of books and information, it was surprising 
how little was known by the generality of people of the History 
of Monasticism, of the various Orders, or of the progress and 
fortunes of even one Religious House. For instance, many 
persons visiting Whalley and seeing the Parish Church whole 
and in a good state of preservation, and the Abbey close by with 
portions in a state of ruin, had in his hearing expressed an 
opinion that the Abbey must be much older than the Parish 
Church, whereas when the Monks migrated from Stanlawe in 
Cheshire, a place near the entrance to the Manchester Ship 
Canal, some considerable part of the present Parish Church 
building, not to speak of an earlier Saxon one, had been in 
existence at least a hundred years. 
The Religious Houses, he went on to point out, occupy so 
important a position in medieval society that they cannot be 
overlooked by the historical student, and in these days when we 
are able, through the facilities afforded by railways and the kind- 
ness of owners, to visit the ruins of Abbeys and Priories, 
many of them situated in beautiful localities where wood and 
dale predominate, such a subject, he felt, must be interesting 
to the tourist who visits such places, and to the members of the 
Club. After speaking of the rise of Monasticism in Egypt and 
its spread to the East and thence to the West, he said that at a 
very early period in our own country there were monasteries and 
schools of learning, some of these of large extent, for Bede tells 
us that there were no less than two thousand one hundred monks 
in the monastic establishment at Bangor alone. 
There were in the Middle Ages four principal Religious 
Orders, the Benedictines, the Cluniacs, the Carthusians, and 
the Cistercians. Of the foundation and distinctive features of 
each of these orders he spoke in turn. ‘The vows taken in most 
cases were those of obedience, poverty and chastity, and in some 
cases manual labour also, but as they became popular and wealth 
flowed into their coffers and so their influence increased, they 
