8 



wliile the Archbishop and his staff of secular 

 clergy occupied buildings close to the Cathedr.il 

 and led the same sort of life as missionaries did in 

 the present day, when they lived together as a 

 brotherhood. The Archbishop held property, as 

 he had a staff of clergy to support and moved 

 about the world as a man of affairs. But the 

 neighbouring abbey gave him a place of rest and 

 retirement whilst alive, and was his resting place 

 at his death. This theory at any rate helped them 

 to understand why the St. Augustine's Abb^y 

 should have been founded and why for so many 

 years, the Archbishops were buried here instead 

 of in the Cathedral Itself. Therefore if they tried 

 to picture to themselves what the state of 

 affairs was round about their Cathedral for 

 three centuiies just prior to the Norman 

 conquest, they would not, he thought, be 

 far wrung in thinking it probable that their 

 Cathedral was governed by a body of men called 

 the Chapter, who lived together uader the presid- 

 ency of a Dean, in buildings occupying the site of 

 the later monastery. Every day they would meet 

 in the church to say the canonical hours ; atstated 

 intervals a chapter would be held to transact 

 business, and they dined together in the common 

 hall, practically as fellows of a college did to-day. 

 Perhaps, in Canterbury, as in the case of some 

 cathedrals, there were special endowments from 

 the tithes of some parish in the Diocese for certain 

 members of the Chapter, called Prebends, who 

 would have certain rights of precedence and 

 oreaching in the Cathedral itself. But in every 

 secular foundation, from a great Cathedral down 

 to tlie most simple college of priests in a country 

 town, like the College at Ashford— they found 

 the same essential greatness, viz., the common 

 religious lif& of a number of men, usually priest^?, 

 under a common rule, without vows. However, 

 with the coming of the Normans and the grow- 

 ing fondness for monastioism, a great 

 many of the old English secular foundations were 

 turned into Monabteries and this took placu at 

 Canterbury. In 1067, the year after the battle of 

 Hastings, an accidental fire burned down the 

 Saxon Cathedral, and nearly all the buildings 

 that belonged to it. There only re- 

 mained the Refectory, the Dormitorj, and as 

 much of the Cloisters as enabled the clergy or 

 canons to pass from one to the other. Three 

 years later, in 1070, William made Liufranc Arch- 

 bishop of Canterbury — which was a stupendous 

 move. Lanfraoc was a " Regular " brought up in 

 the " Benedictine Monastery of Bee in Normandy. 

 For the last three years he had been Abbot of 

 the great Monastery of Uarn, and was therefore, 

 accustomed to the stattly buildings and the splen- 

 dour which the Normans affected. When he came 

 over to Canterbury he found the Cathedral prac- 

 tically reduced to nothing by the fire, and his 

 clergy living as best they could in the ruins. Of 

 course he was filled with consternation, but he 

 was not a man to stand idle, and 

 he rapidly restored the Church and 

 in seven years he had erected such buildings as 

 were essential fora Monastery and had established a 

 Regular Foundation for tlie monks. Then in 

 lOSO, when the increased number of monks 



required more space, he pulled down all th& 

 buildings he had tir^t put up, and erected others 

 on a much larger scale. He brought over from 

 his old Monastery cf Oarn the Abbot, one Henry, 

 to be the Prior of Christ Church. The lecturer 

 here pointed out that the Archbishop was ex- 

 officio Abbot, and that the head of the Monastery 

 of Christ Church always bore the title of Prior. 

 So that in 1080 they had a regular Monastery 

 fully established at Canterbury, and Lantrauc 

 drew up for its use a body of statutes, which, he 

 said in his letter to Prior Henry, "Wo nave 

 gathered from the customs of these monasteiies 

 which nowadays are of the greatest weight in 

 the Monastic order." They were in reality based 

 upon the celebrated rule of St. Benedict, who 

 established a Monastery at Mount Cassino, wheie 

 he wrote that famous document which had 

 exercised an influence on the world second only to 

 that of the gospel itself. St. Benedict did not 

 invent monasticism, but the final end of 

 monasticism, as he conceived it, was the promotion 

 of the glory of God. This rule was written in 

 515, and by the year 1005-less than 500 years-it was 

 computed that the Benedictine Order had built 

 over 15,000 abbeys, had given to the Church 24 

 Popes, 200 Cardinals, 400 Archbishops, and 700 

 Bishops. The buildings of the Monastery of 

 Canterbury were constructed with reference to 

 three main purposes for which the monks professed 

 to live. I'he first was worship, the second moral 

 improvement, and the third work. And so there 

 were three principal places which were the scenes 

 of his daily life, viz , the Church (the chcirof the 

 Church), the Chapter House, and the Cloister. 



THE CHOIR. 



They were apt to think that the services in the 

 Church must have interfered with the monk's 

 daily life. The daily services in the Church took 

 the first place and governed all the other arrange- 

 ments, for the monk's business was the serving of 

 God, but by the Benedictine Rule theservice of God 

 was to include the improvement of man, and even of 

 nature ; study, education, agriculture, and forestry 

 were recommended to the monks, and, moreover, 

 were practised by them. In the hard, lawless 

 society of the 10th and 12ch centuries men did not 

 think it possible to be religious unless thoy retired 

 fiom the world. The paths of life then were few 

 and sharply defined. The men who wanted to be 

 greatest in the world hid perforce to be soldiers 

 when tighting was the only profession of the free 

 born, and war with its cruelty and outrage was the 

 constant temptation of all but the Priest and.the serf. 



THE CHAPTER HOUSE. 



Proceeding on to the Chapter House, the lecturer 

 explained that this was the Council Chamber for 

 the whole Monastery, the place for mutual in- 

 struction for the whole community, the place for 

 hearing idvice, and for maintaining discipline. 

 Here the second great purpose of iIih monk's life 

 was practibed, viz., moral improvement. The 

 rev. lecturer recounted the business which 

 occupied the attention of the Chapter duriug the 

 day and mentioned that at the close of the 

 ordinary work there came the dnily enquiry about 

 discipline, and those otficials whose duty it was to 

 guard the discipline of the House made their 



