CHAPTER VI 



THE CLERGY AS PASTORALISTS 



In its revelation of the part played by the spiritual 

 power in the progress of colonisation Australia repeats, 

 though faintly and, as it were, perfunctorily, the 

 history of Europe. Chateaubriand has glorified the 

 initiation of agriculture in Gaul and Germany by the 

 monasteries, and Montalembert has told in eloquent 

 detail the story of the Monks of the West, There is 

 some difficulty in discerning, through the cloudy rhe- 

 toric of these two great writers, and their deliberate, 

 indeed unavoidable, omission of specific statements, 

 exactly what was the part played by the monks in the 

 clearing of the dense forests and their conversion into 

 pasture or agricultural land. We may suspect that 

 it has been somewhat exaggerated by the enthusiasts 

 who led the Cathohc reaction at the beginning and 

 in the middle of last century. The number of the 

 monks was limited, and among them the industrial 

 pioneers were few, while the forests were still extensive. 

 They were certainly not the initiators of either deforest- 

 ing or rearing or cultivation. The Roman proprietors 

 of Gaul held great domains, which consisted largely of 

 grassy meadows. The territorial princes who preceded 

 the Roman conquest, as we know from JuHus Csesar, 

 had thousands of serfs, who must have tended flocks 

 and herds over far-spreading lands.* But there was 

 much left to be done. The monks must have given an 



* FusTEL DE CouLANGES, Lc Domaine rural chez les Romains, 

 I. iii. 



3 33 



