XXIX. 



originated, resulting ultimately in the establishment of many stately 

 monasteries, of which Beaulieu was so fine an example. 



It was clear, however, that although the circumstances of the two modes 

 of life were different, the intention was the same in both cases, for the 

 early anchorites and the later monks shared the firm conviction that the 

 recluse life was the only ark of refuge in a world submerged in vice and 

 wrong^and misery. " Come out from among them and be'yc separate " 

 was to them a mandate claiming literal and absolute obedience and 

 forming the fundamental rule of their corporate existence. This 

 dominant tenet of the Monastic Orders was strenuously impugned both 

 by the parish clergy and by the brotherhoods of itinerant preachers called 

 Friars, whose work as evangelisers was necessarily in opposition to this 

 theory of monasticism. Many and bitter were the controversies arising 

 from this difference ; its consequences were witnessed in Dorset when 

 in a struggle between these theological combatants the Abbey Church of 

 Sherborne was burnt down. 



If it is asked what elevating influence intervened to prevent the 

 corporate exclusiveness of monasticism from deteriorating into individual 

 apathy, sloth, and egotism, the answer is to be found in the existence of 

 the minster church ; this was the heart, the vivifying organ of the 

 conventual body; for this each member worked and lived : the carving and 

 painting as well as the structural work gave occupation to many of the 

 brothers, while other brethren wrote out and illuminated the service 

 books, made the vestments and embroidered them with gold and silver 

 thread drawn out probably within the walls. A rich abbey was perhaps 

 the most perfect development of the co-operative principle that the 

 world has ever seen ; the gardeners, millers, ploughmen, dairymen, 

 bakers, cooks, all brothers of the house, fed their brethren the tailors, 

 the weavers, the seamsters, the cordwainers, who clothed the sculptors, 

 the decorators, the goldsmiths, who probably all worked in their several 

 bays of this cloister for the ultimate object of beautifying and adding 

 renown to the sacred building, that was to all alike, from the mitred 

 abbot to the humblest lay brother, the only recognised and legitimate 

 tangible object of their affections, as well as the heart and motive of 

 their corporate life. The next in importance of the abbey buildings were 

 the cloisters ; here were the various workshops of the artificers. In one 

 bay the wood-carver might be shaping a " Miserere " with one of those 

 grotesque designs of a hunting scene or a domestic quarrel, such as one 

 may often see outside quaint resting places and commemorating perhaps 

 an incident of then recent date. In another bay a weaver works at his 

 loom, and in the corner, where the traffic is least, the schoolmaster is 



