A Short History of Monks and Monasteries

by Alfred Wesley Wishart

But the chaos created by the irruption of the barbarous nations at this period seriously affected the moral character and influence of the clergy and the monks. The church seemed unequal to the stupendous undertaking of converting the barbarians. The monks, as a class, were lawless and vicious. Benedict himself testifies against them, and declares that they were "always wandering and never stable; that they obey their own appetites, whereunto they are enslaved." Unable to control their own desires by any law whatsoever, they were unfitted to the task before them. It was imperative, then, that unity and order should be introduced among the monasteries; that some sort of a uniform rule, adapted to the existing conditions, should be adopted, not only for the preservation of the monastic institution, but for the preparation of the monks for their work. Therefore, although the Christianity of that time was far from ideal, it was, nevertheless, a religion within the grasp of the reckless barbarians; and subsequent events prove that it possessed a moral power capable of humanizing manners, elevating the intellect, and checking the violent temper of the age.

Excepting always the religious services of the Benedictine monks, their greatest contribution to civilization was literary and educational[[E]]. The rules of Benedict provided for two hours a day of reading, and it was doubtless this wise regulation that stimulated literary tastes, and resulted in the collecting of books and the reproduction of manuscripts. "Wherever a Benedictine house arose, or a monastery of any one of the Orders, which were but offshoots from the Benedictine tree, books were multiplied and a library came into existence, small indeed at first, but increasing year by year, till the wealthier houses had gathered together collections of books that would do credit to a modern university." There was great danger that the remains of classic literature might be destroyed in the general devastation of Italy. The monasteries rescued the literary fragments that escaped, and preserved them. "For a period of more than six centuries the safety of the literary heritage of Europe,--one may say of the world,--depended upon the scribes of a few dozen scattered monasteries."

The literary services of the earlier monks did not consist in original production, but in the reproduction and preservation of the classics. This work was first begun as a part of the prescribed routine of European monastic life in the monastery at Vivaria, or Viviers, France, which was founded by Cassiodorus about 539. The rules of this cloister were based on those of Cassian, who died in the early part of the fifth century. Benedict, at Monte Cassino, followed the example of Cassiodorus, and the Benedictine Order carried the work on for the seven succeeding centuries.

Cassiodorus was a statesman of no mean ability, and for over forty years was active in the political circles of his time, holding high official positions under five different Roman rulers. He was also an exceptional scholar, devoting much of his energy to the preservation of classic literature. His magnificent collection of manuscripts, rescued from the ruins of Italian libraries, "supplied material for the pens of thousands of monastic scribes." If we leave out Jerome, it is to Cassiodorus that the honor is due for joining learning and monasticism.

"Thus," remarks Schaff, "that very mode of life, which, in its founder, Anthony, despised all learning, became in the course of its development an asylum of culture in the rough and stormy times of the migration and the crusades, and a conservator of the literary treasures of antiquity for the use of modern times."

Cassiodorus, with a noble enthusiasm, inspired his monks to their task. He even provided lamps of ingenious construction, that seem to have been self-trimming, to aid them in their work. He himself set an example of literary diligence, astonishing in one of his age.

Putnam is justified in his praises of this remarkable character when he declares: "It is not too much to say that the continuity of thought and civilization of the ancient world with that of the middle ages was due, more than to any other one man, to the life and labors of Cassiodorus."

But the monk was more than a scribe and a collector of books, he became the chronicler and the school-teacher. "The records that have come down to us of several centuries of medieval European history are due almost exclusively to the labors of the monastic chroniclers." A vast fund of information, the value of which is impaired, it is true, by much useless stuff, concerning medieval customs, laws and events, was collected by these unscientific historians and is now accessible to the student.

At the end of the ninth century nearly all the monasteries of Europe conducted schools open to the children of the neighborhood. The character of the educational training of the times is not to be judged by modern standards. A beginning had to be made, and that too at a time "when neither local nor national governments had assumed any responsibilities in connection with elementary education, and when the municipalities were too ignorant, and in many cases too poor, to make provision for the education of the children." It is therefore to the lasting credit of Benedict, inspired no doubt by the example of Cassiodorus, that he commanded his monks to read, encouraged literary work, and made provision for the education of the young.

The Benedictines rendered a great social service in reclaiming deserted regions and in clearing forests. "The monasteries," says Maitland, "were, in those days of misrule and turbulence, beyond all price, not only as places where (it may be imperfectly, but better than elsewhere) God was worshipped,... but as central points whence agriculture was to spread over bleak hills and barren downs and marshy plains, and deal its bread to millions perishing with hunger and its pestilential train." Roman taxation and barbarian invasions had ruined the farmers, who left their lands and fled to swell the numbers of the homeless. The monk repeopled these abandoned but once fertile fields, and carried civilization still deeper into the forests. Many a monastery with its surrounding buildings became the nucleus of a modern city. The more awful the darkness of the forest solitudes, the more the monks loved it. They cut down trees in the heart of the wilderness, and transformed a soil bristling with woods and thickets into rich pastures and ploughed fields. They stimulated the peasantry to labor, and taught them many useful lessons in agriculture. Thus, they became an industrial, as well as a spiritual, agency for good.