36 PROC. COTTESWOLD CLUB vol. xili. 



the same order, but of different nationalities, was calcu- 

 lated to diffuse knowledge of new or improved plants, 

 and methods of cultivation : thus resuming a process 

 that had been carried on everywhere under the Roman 

 Empire. To the out-door pursuits that occupied the 

 earlier monks, the Benedictines added more work of the 

 pen and pencil ; until they attained a high degree of ex- 

 cellence in the copying and illumination of manuscripts, 

 in painting on glass, etc. But above all they were suc- 

 cessful in ecclesiastical architecture : evolving by a con- 

 tinuous gradation from the cruder forms of Roman and 

 Byzantine building the most beautiful designs to which 

 stone and lime can lend themselves ; and nowhere perhaps 

 were these brought to greater perfection than in the build- 

 ing of Tintern Abbey. 



It is sometimes remarked that the times which pro- 

 duced such architecture, and during which the copyist 

 preserved to us the great treasures of Hebrew and of 

 classical antiquity, ought not to be styled " the dark 

 ages : " but those who make the remark seem never to 

 have reflected that the earlier "dark ages" of classical 

 Greece and Rome not only produced marvels of archi- 

 tecture, but those more enduring marvels of writing, 

 which they also preserved as effectually as did the monks 

 who afterwards came into possession of them. 



It is clear that while the monks worked out this remark- 

 able evolution in architecture, they did not accomplish a 

 commensurate progress in literature. The horizon of 

 the cloister was too restricted for that freedom of thought 

 which is indispensable to such an expansion ; and its 

 narrowing influence is apparent even in the most valuable 

 of the works for which we are indebted to them : such 

 for instance as the several mediaeval Chronicles. Even 

 the best of their compilations will not l)ear comparison 

 with works of the same class of an earlier period. For 



