MONASTERY 



548O 



MONASTICISM 



Monastery (Gr. monasterion). 

 House for monks. The term seems 

 at first to have been applied to all 

 religious houses of retirement, 

 whether for men or women; but 

 in course of time, while monks and 

 nuns were housed in abbeys and 

 priories, the former under abbots 

 and priors, and the latter under ab- 

 besses and prioresses, it became the 

 custom to call the houses for nuns 

 nunneries or convents, and those for 

 monks monasteries. See Abbey ; 

 Convent ; Karakoram ; Priory. 



Monastery, THE. Eleventh of 

 the Waverley novels, published in 

 March, 1820, and the only one to 

 which Scott added a sequel (The 

 Abbot). A romance of the mon- 

 astery of St. Mary's of Kennaqu- 

 hair (Melrose Abbey), it deals with 

 the family history of the Avenels 

 (the lawless Border baron, Julian ; 

 his gentle niece, Lady Alice, and 

 her daughter, Mary) and the 

 Glendinnings (the widowed Elspeth, 

 who shelters Lady Alice and her 

 daughter, and her sons, Edward 

 and Halbert, rivals for the hand 

 of Mary). Euphuism is burlesqued 

 in the character of the fugitive 

 Elizabethan courtier, Sir Piercie 

 Shafton, and the introduction of 

 the supernatural White Lady, 

 guardian spirit of the Avenels, is 

 regarded as a weakness. 



Monasticism (Gr. inonastikos, 

 living alone). System under which 

 persons live who have abandoned 

 the world for a life of religious 

 seclusion. It is more ancient than 

 Christianity, and perhaps is pre- 

 historic. The problem of conformity 

 to the world had become acute, 

 even before the formation of a state 

 Church under Constantine, in 325. 

 Thenceforward a steadily increas- 

 ing stream of Christians went out 

 to hermit life in the Egyptian 

 deserts. They fled not only from 

 the world, but from a Church which 

 had admitted the world to its 

 bosom. Many of these hermits 

 gradually formed communities 

 under systematic rules, of which 

 S. Basil's is the best known. 



Meanwhile the monastic ideal 

 spread to Western Europe, where 

 it found a legislative genius in S. 

 Benedict (d. 542), whose rule either 

 superseded or modified all others. 

 Both Church and State, from 

 different points of view, agreed in 

 ratifying the indelibility of mon- 

 astic vows. From the " Three Sub- 

 stantials" of poverty, chastity, and 

 obedience not even emperor or 

 pope could grant dispensations. 

 These, under the Benedictine rule, 

 were reinforced by other prescrip- 

 tions frequent prayer, manual 

 labour, abstinence from flesh-food, 

 and strict claustration within mon- 

 astic precincts. The rules of the 



Monastery. Plan of the ancient 

 priory of S. Bartholomew, London. 

 A. Cloisters. B. Nave. C. Chapel. 

 D. Refectory. E. Great Tower. 

 F. Choir. G. Prior's house, above 

 which was infirmary and dormi- 

 tory. H. Chapter House. J. South 

 transept. K. North transept. L. 

 Present entrance to church 



regular canons were rather less 

 strict than those of the Benedict- 

 ines in the matter of food and 

 claustration. 



Throughout the Dark Ages the 

 monks did indirectly work of great 

 value as missionaries, sacrificing 

 their ideal of seclusion to the ne- 

 cessities of their fellow-men. School 

 teaching, except to the boys who 

 were being trained for monks, was, 

 however, no part of the monastic 

 ideal at ordinary times and places ; 

 the universities owed scarcely any- 

 thing to the monasteries in their 

 inception ; and even the nunnery 

 schools of the later Middle Ages 

 grew up in spite of ecclesiastical 

 prohibitions, and mainly under the 

 pressure of financial causes. The 

 direct services of the monks to 

 medicine and art have been exag- 

 gerated. While monasticism was 

 perhaps the greatest social force 

 of the Middle Ages, it cannot be 

 really understood except in refer- 

 ence to its environment ; and medi- 

 eval civilization was still very rudi- 

 mentary in important particulars. 



The llth and 12th centuries saw 

 a considerable revival of learning 

 and civilization in Europe ; and 

 the monastic system was found to 

 need a good deal of reform. Be- 

 tween 1020 and 1120 eight new 

 and stricter orders were founded ; 

 of these the most important were 

 the Carthusian, Praemonstraten- 

 sian, and Cistercian. The last 

 aimed simply at a restoration of the 

 exact Benedictine rule, which had 

 everywhere been relaxed. It owed 

 most of its success to S. Bernard 

 (d. 1152), but, by the end of the 

 century, even this reform had 

 spent most of its force. Then came 

 the great revivals associated with 

 the names of S. Francis (d. 1226) 



and S. Dominic (d. 1221). The 

 Franciscans and Dominicans, with 

 the Austin friars and Carmelites, 

 were called Mendicants, as op- 

 posed to the older Possessionates 

 or owners of property. 



In all orders the individual was 

 forbidden to possess property ; but 

 whereas, in the older orders, the 

 corporate endowments were con- 

 siderable, the four orders of friars 

 repudiated in theory even cor- 

 porate possessions. This, however, 

 soon broke down in practice ; but, 

 to the very end, the friar differed 

 from the monk in depending to a 

 considerable extent upon alms. 

 The Franciscan revival was cer- 

 tainly the greatest religious move- 

 ment between the Apostles and 

 the Reformation, and contributed 

 greatly to the advancement of 

 learning. From about 1230 on- 

 wards, the friars became for a 

 century the most active and suc- 

 cessful of university teachers. 



This was the last of the great 

 reforms of the Middle Ages, though 

 much was done at different places 

 to avert decay. The more intimate 

 monastic records, which are only 

 now being systematically published 

 and studied, show a gradual aban- 

 donment, not only in practice, but 

 even in theory, of many of S. 

 Benedict's most important pre- 

 scriptions. Manual labour was 

 practically dead three centuries 

 before the dissolution in England ; 

 the prohibition of flesh-food was 

 whittled away, even with papal 

 sanction ; and the rule of claustra- 

 tion was so habitually broken that 

 its re-enactment by Henry VIII 

 has sometimes been spoken of as a 

 piece of intolerable tyranny. For 

 the actual methods of that monarch 

 there is little to be said, but the 

 necessity of the dissolution can be 

 inferred from monastic records 

 themselves, and from the com- 

 plaints of the most orthodox 

 churchmen. It was not that the 

 monks of 1536 were so much more 

 relaxed than their forefathers for 

 many generations past, but society 

 had begun to outgrow the need for 

 monasticism as a great world in- 

 stitution a growth which, it must 

 be said, owed much to the civil- 

 izing influence of monasticism 

 itself in the past. 



Its subsequent history only em- 

 phasises the lesson of English 

 history. In France, some of Rich- 

 elieu's greatest difficulties were 

 with the reform of the monks ; and 

 the Revolution swept them away 

 as a state institution, a story 

 which has been repeated in nearly 

 every other European country. 

 That the ideal in itself is healthy is 

 proved by its vitality under volun- 

 tarist conditions, and even under 



