This Rule, all things considered, was mild, flexible, and general; with order, proportion, and regularity, yet brief, concise, and well tempered to the needs of western Europe[215:1]; hence like Aaron's rod it soon swallowed up the other rules in use. Before 600 it was supreme in Italy. In 788 the Council of Aachen ordered it and no other to be used throughout the kingdom of Charles
the Great. In the ninth century it superseded the Isidore rule in Spain. It embraced likewise the Columban rule in western Europe and by the tenth century prevailed everywhere. Under it the Benedictines had a remarkable history. At one time they had 37,000 monasteries and altogether produced 24 Popes, 200 cardinals, 4000 bishops, and 55,505 saints.[216:1] The Benedictine monasteries differed from later monastic bodies in the fact that they were quite independent of each other and had no common head. After the thirteenth century they were surpassed by the Begging Orders and devoted themselves mostly to literary pursuits, soon becoming "more noted for learning than piety." Their edition of the Church Fathers is a monument of scholarly industry.[216:2] The order still exists, chiefly in Austria and Italy, and is noted mostly for its classical learning. They boast of 16,000 distinguished writers.
These early monasteries were like swarming bees in planting monastic societies in every part of western Europe. The passion grew until it became a veritable madness which seized the pious and lawless alike. Popes like Gregory I. praised the institution and promoted its interest in every possible way. Even kings like Carloman of the Franks, Rochis of the Lombards, great statesmen like Cassiodorus, and others voluntarily became monks. Louis the Pious, the Roman Emperor, was prevented from that course only by his nobles.[216:3] The monk was the leader and pattern of the Middle
Ages. Every father was ambitious to have his son enter that holy calling. To the quiet and peaceful abode of the monastery, therefore, went not only the pious, but the student, those who disliked the soldier's life, the disconsolate, the disgraced, the disappointed, the indolent, and the weary. And this powerful organisation was utterly under the control of the great Roman Bishop and his subordinates.
The remarkable growth of monasticism brought great wealth and political power, which were used in large measure to strengthen the Church. Kings and nobles made large grants of lands—especially Charles the Great and Louis the Pious. Besides many monks brought their possessions as gifts to the monastery and not infrequently powerful abbots took lands by force. Monasticism thus gradually became secularised and also feudalised. Monasteries were often used as prisons for deposed kings, criminals, and clergy convicted of crime. The abbots were virtually secular lords who ruled as local sovereigns, claimed immunity from tolls and taxes, went hunting and hawking, and even fought at the head of their troops. As a result the office of abbot became a coveted prize, for the younger and the illegitimate sons of nobles.[217:1] What effect this secularisation had upon the high ideals may be easily seen. Soon only certain ceremonies distinguished the monks from the secular clergy.
The monks as such belong to the laity. Monasticism was viewed as a lay institution as late as the Council of Chalcedon (451)[217:2] when the legal authority of the bishop over the monks of his diocese was recognised. The monks were called religiosi in contrast to the
seculares, the priests. The monks were the "regulars" who formed the spiritual nobility and not the ruling class in the hierarchy. They formed another grade in the hierarchy between the clergy and the laity. But after the fifth century the difference became less marked. Since monasticism was considered the perfection of Christian life, it was natural to choose the clergy from the monks. Gregory the Great was the first monk to be elected Pope. Monasteries were the theological seminaries to supply priests for the Church, hence the ignorant clergy looked up to the educated monks. Still monks at first, because not ordained, could not say mass nor hear confession. Each monastery kept a priest or an ordained monk to fulfil these duties. Abbots were usually in priestly orders.[218:1] In time, however, monks assumed the dress of priests and became ambitious for priestly powers,[218:2] especially after the Council of Chalcedon, backed by the state, gave bishops jurisdiction over cloisters. Often monasteries applied to the Pope for independence from episcopal jurisdiction and were taken under the immediate protection of the Bishop of Rome. By the sixth century monks were classed in the popular mind with the clergy. In 827 a council at Rome ordered that abbots should be in priests' orders. Monks now began to sit in and to control Church synods, and to exercise all the rights of the secular clergy, even to having parishes,[218:3] and thus became powerful rivals of the established priesthood.
The crystallisation of ascetic ideals into monastic
institutions was attacked by heathenism and did not meet the unanimous approval of Christendom. Before Constantine the pagans denounced the hermits because they were guilty of the treasonable act, from a Roman view, of fleeing from social and civic duties. After Constantine, when monasticism became the "fad," it was assailed by the aristocratic pagan families, who lost sons, and especially wives and daughters, in the maelstrom of enthusiasm, because it broke family ties and caused the neglect of obvious responsibilities. Julian, the imperial pagan reactionist, called it fanaticism and idolatry. Pagan poets like Libanus and Rutilius denounced it as an institution "hostile to light."
Within Christendom hostility came from Christian rulers like Valens, because monasticism withdrew civil and military strength from the state, when all was needed against the barbarians, and because it encouraged idleness and unproductiveness instead of useful activity and heroic virtue[219:1]; from Christians of wealth and indulgence who felt rebuked by the earnestness, poverty, and holy zeal of an ascetic life; from the clergy who did not comprehend the significance of monasticism[219:2]; and from the liberal party in the Church who took a saner view of salvation and ethics. Jovinian (d. 406), like Luther, first a monk and then a reformer, held these five points according to Jerome: (1) that virgins, widows, and wives are all on an equality if good Christians; (2) that thankfully partaking of food is as efficacious as fasting; (3) that spiritual baptism is as effectual in overcoming the devil as baptism;