MONASTIC ENGLAND.
A traveller, visiting any of the monastic ruins which adorn the loveliest of our valleys, cannot but be impressed by the changes time works on institutions and systems. These piles, stately in their desolation, remain as landmarks of a system, which, after holding sway for centuries, was suddenly swept away. Like all social institutions, the monastic orders supplied a public want, and when it was no longer needed, the system disappeared. Many institutions, after having fulfilled their purpose, develop into abuses, and so to some extent counteract the good effect they had formerly produced, and this doubtless applies to the case of the monasteries. The noble architecture and great extent of these ruins show us the skill and enthusiasm displayed by the early workers of these orders; their utter ruin, while it has made the whole appear more picturesque, shows the inevitable end of institutions which outlive their usefulness.
As long ago as the fifth century, it was the custom for devout men to form themselves into societies, apart from the world, that their lives might be untainted by its evil influences. The leader in this movement was St Benedict, an Italian monk, whose followers, naming themselves after him, gave to their order the name of Benedictines. These men, spreading themselves over France and England, were the pioneers of the later monastic orders. They lived in the most extreme poverty, choosing the most forsaken and barren regions for their homes. Thus, we find them in the days of the Saxon, founding in a marsh beside the Thames the abbey of Westminster; in the district of the Fens the abbey of Crowland; in the swamps of the west the abbey of Glastonbury; whilst farther north, on wild headlands overlooking the North Sea, rose the abbeys of Whitby and Lindisfarne. But our knowledge of the life passed by the inmates of these sanctuaries is extremely scanty. The times were too turbulent to allow the monks much time for study, and although Cædmon and Bede have left glimpses of this age in which they lived, their scanty records are only as flashes in the darkness. The Danes harassed the land incessantly; and the monasteries, as representing a religion they hated, were with them especial objects of attack. Crowland Abbey was given to the flames, and the abbeys of Whitby, Lindisfarne, and Tynemouth were sacked and destroyed.
After the Conquest, the Norman abbots gave a new energy to a system which was becoming somewhat stagnant, and by the twelfth century, this new impetus had reached its climax. Then rose the monasteries whose ruins make Yorkshire scenery doubly attractive. The abbeys of Fountains, Bolton, Rievaux, and Kirkstall, were all commenced in this period, amid surroundings far different from those which make these districts so attractive to the modern traveller. One consideration in choosing the site of the abbey is worth notice. It was always near to a running stream, from which the brethren might obtain their supplies of fish. Thus, we never think of Bolton Abbey without the Wharfe, or of Melrose without the Tweed.
In every monastic establishment, the principal feature was the abbey, or chapel, consisting of nave, chancel, and transepts, built on the plan of a cross. Here, the monks assembled for prayers, which seem to have been of such wearisome length that artificial means were invented to counteract their soporific effect. In the chancel of Westminster Abbey may be seen the seats ingeniously contrived to throw on to the floor any monk who allowed himself to be overcome by the monotonous routine of prayers. Adjoining the abbey was the chapter-house, where the abbots from the neighbouring monasteries formed a chapter to discuss matters of church interest, and to sit in judgment on those of their brethren who had transgressed. And although it is well known that the origin of the dispute between Becket and the king was the leniency shown by these chapters to their own priesthood, when the plaintiff was a layman, yet in cases where the interests of the church were at stake, these priestly judges did not hesitate to inflict even death itself on the delinquent. Readers of Marmion will be reminded of the fate of Constance; and the discovery within recent times of a skeleton immured in a vault of Coldingham Abbey in Berwickshire, may perhaps serve to suggest that this was not an uncommon method of inflicting death.
The refectory, which in many ruins shows least signs of decay, corresponded to the modern dining-hall, and was often a noble and spacious apartment. But the most important of the abbey buildings, in our eyes, was the Scriptorium—the abbey library and study. Here were preserved and copied the writings of the times, and the greater part of our history, prior to the sixteenth century, is owing to the work of these priestly scribes.
The monks formed independent colonies, asking, and indeed needing, no help from the world around them. At first, their lands in many instances were small in extent, and their poverty was amply sufficient to deter any but devout men from casting in his lot with them. Poverty and work they considered the two great antidotes against sin. Even in those early times, they were fully acquainted with the adage which connects mischief with idle hands. Their employments were as various as their tastes. The building of the abbey must have furnished employment for several generations of monks. The stained-glass windows and the bells of their churches were their own handiwork. Visitors to the Patent Museum at South Kensington are attracted by the loud ticking of a clock, still said to be a capital timekeeper, although the three centuries of its infancy were passed in measuring time for its makers, the monks of Glastonbury. As further instances of the versatile occupations of the monks, it will be remembered that Roger Bacon, the inventor of the common lens, was a Franciscan. Gardening, too, occupied much of their time, and we even read of Becket and his monks tossing hay in the harvest-field.
But as time went on, the abbey lands became extensive, by the grants of men who thought to compensate for their misdeeds by becoming liberal in their dying hours to mother-church. In the course of time, the abbots had become in reality great landowners, and monks only in name. From a glimpse left us of the state of affairs round the abbey of St Edmonsbury, it is plain that the abbot was held more in awe by the surrounding tenantry than the king himself. The abbot of Furness was virtual lord over the country north of Morecambe Bay from the Duddon to Windermere; and the estate of the abbey of Fountains stretched to the foot of Penygant, a distance of thirty miles.
As numerous instances have shown, wealth is a power, which, if not wisely used, may not only demoralise individuals, but communities and nations. The abbeys, whose walls had been raised to encircle piety and poverty, became in time the abodes of indolence and luxury. Indeed, it is probable that the scanty knowledge we possess of our country’s history during the two centuries prior to the destruction of the monasteries, is owing to the fact that the monks, who had formerly been our chief historians, had thrown aside a task which few others were then competent to take up. The new learning, which carried knowledge outside the monasteries, had not yet sprung into being, and the only learned sect in the land had become idle.
The monastic system, had it been allowed to live on, would certainly have met with a severe check, if not destruction, in the religious reforms which took place in the reigns of Edward VI. and Elizabeth. As it was, the end came before its time, and like all premature reforms, the dissolution clashed with the spirit of the age, and was regarded by the common people as an injustice. The monks had never driven hard bargains with their tenants, and their popularity as landlords was great. Even when their dissolution was discussed in parliament, the members showed themselves averse to extreme measures, and compromised the matter by striking at the smaller monasteries only. But the insurrection known as the Pilgrimage of Grace soon gave Henry VIII. a pretext for their total suppression, and in 1539, the work of dissolution was finished in a most ruthless manner. The abbots of Fountains and Jorvaulx were hanged together at Tyburn, and the abbot of Glastonbury shared the same fate. The abbot of Furness, to escape death, was compelled to sign a deed conveying his whole estate to the king.
The abbeys were for the most part despoiled by the people of the district. A stained-glass window of Furness Abbey was carried off to adorn Bowness Church, on the banks of Windermere. An oriel window from Glastonbury Abbey was used in the building of a neighbouring inn; whilst the houses of the village owed great part of their building materials to the destruction of this noble church. In the case of Crowland, the abbey seems to have suffered little until the time of the Civil War, when a band of the Parliament army destroyed it, after using it as a shelter. In those instances where man has not wreaked his vengeance, time and the elements have effected a slow but sure ruin.
Such was the sudden collapse of these powerful and at one time useful institutions. Whatever may have been the faults and drawbacks of their later existence, they were in earlier periods of immense service to the country, as they conserved within them all that was best and highest in literature, arts, and civilisation. They kept the lamp of knowledge burning throughout the dark ages, ready for a time when its light could be more generally diffused among the nations. And one thing they did which ought to be held in grateful remembrance: they were the chief promoters of the abolition of serfdom, and the manumission of the slaves, both in England and Scotland. When giving the rites of the church to the dying landowner, the monks, although anxious for their own share of his property, never forgot to plead for the slaves. And so it came about that, by the close of the fifteenth century, slavery was virtually abolished, not by Act of Parliament, but by the monastic Orders.