The habits of the monks brought them into close contact with nature. Even the animals became their friends. Numerous stories have been related of their wonderful power over wild beasts and their conversations with the birds. "It is wonderful," says Bede, "that he who faithfully and loyally obeys the Creator of the universe, should, in his turn, see all the creatures obedient to his orders and his wishes." They lived, so we are told, in the most intimate relations with the animal creation. Squirrels leaped to their hands or hid in the folds of their cowls. Stags came out of the forests in Ireland and offered themselves to some monks who were ploughing, to replace the oxen carried off by the hunters. Wild animals stopped in their pursuit of game at the command of St. Laumer. Birds ceased singing at the request of some monks until they had chanted their evening prayer, and at their word the feathered songsters resumed their music. A swan was the daily companion of St. Hugh of Lincoln, and manifested its miraculous knowledge of his approaching death by the most profound melancholy. While all the details of such stories are not to be accepted as literally true, no doubt some of this poetry of monastic history rests upon interesting and charming facts.
A fuller discussion of the permanent contributions which the monk made to civilization is reserved for the last chapter. I have somewhat anticipated a closer scrutiny of his achievements in order to present a clearer view of his life and labors. His religious duties were, perhaps, wearisome enough. We might tire of his monotonous chanting and incessant vigils, but it is gratifying to know that he also engaged in practical and useful employments. The convent became the house of industry as well as the temple of prayer. The forest glades echoed to the stroke of the axe as well as to hymns of praise. Yes, as Carlyle writes of the twelfth century, "these years were no chimerical vacuity and dreamland peopled with mere vaporous phantasms, but a green solid place, that grew corn and several other things. The sun shone on it, the vicissitudes of seasons and human fortunes. Cloth was woven and worn; ditches were dug, furrowed fields ploughed and houses built."
The Spread of the Benedictine Rule
It is generally held that Benedict had no presentiment of the vast historical importance of his system; and that he aspired to nothing beyond the salvation of his own soul and those of his brethren.
But the rule spread with wonderful rapidity. In every rich valley arose a Benedictine abbey. Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, France and Spain adopted his rule. Princes, moved by various motives, hastened to bestow grants of land on the indefatigable missionary who, undeterred by the wildness of the forest and the fierceness of the barbarian, settled in the remotest regions. In the various societies of the Benedictines there have been thirty-seven thousand monasteries and one hundred and fifty thousand abbots. For the space of two hundred and thirty-nine years the Benedictines governed the church by forty-eight popes chosen from their order. They boast of two hundred cardinals, seven thousand archbishops, fifteen thousand bishops and four thousand saints. The astonishing assertion is also made that no less than twenty emperors and forty-seven kings resigned their crowns to become Benedictine monks. Their convents claim ten empresses and fifty queens. Many of these earthly rulers retired to the seclusion of the monastery because their hopes had been crushed by political defeat, or their consciences smitten by reason of crime or other sins. Some were powerfully attracted by the heroic element of monastic life, and these therefore spurned the luxuries and emoluments of royalty, in order by personal sacrifice to achieve spiritual domination in this life, and to render their future salvation certain. But whatever the motive that drew queens and princes to the monastic order, the retirement of such large numbers of the nobility indicates the influence of a religious system which could cope so successfully with the attractions of the palace and the natural passion for political dominion.
Saint Gregory the Great, the biographer of Benedict, who was born at Rome in 540 A.D. and so was nearly contemporaneous with Benedict was a zealous promoter of the monastic ideal, and did as much as any one to advance its ecclesiastical position and influence. He founded seven monasteries with his paternal inheritance, and became the abbot of one of them. He often expressed a desire to escape the clamor of the world by retirement to a lonely cell. Inspired by the loftiest estimates of his holy office, he sought to reform the church in its spirit and life. Many of his innovations in the church service bordered upon a dangerous and glittering pomp; but the musical world will always revere his memory for the famous chants that bear his name.
Gregory surrounded himself with monks, and did everything in his power to promote their interests. He increased the novitiate to two years, and exempted certain monasteries from the control of the bishops. Other popes added to these exemptions, and thus widened the breach which already existed between the secular clergy and the monks. He also fixed a penalty of lifelong imprisonment for abandonment of the monastic life.
Under Gregory's direction many missionary enterprises were carried on, notably that of Augustine to England. The story runs that one day Gregory saw some men and beautiful children from Britain put up for sale in the market-place. Deeply sighing, he exclaimed: "Alas for grief! That the author of darkness possesses men of so bright countenance, and that so great grace of aspect bears a mind void of inward grace!" He then asked the children the name of their nation. "Angles," was the reply. "It is well," he said, "for they have angelic faces. What is the name of your province?" It was answered, "Deira." "Truly," he said, "De-ira-ns, drawn from anger, and called to the mercy of Christ. How is your king called?" They answered, "Ælla, or Ella." Then he cried "Alleluia! it behooves that the praise of God the Creator should be sung in those parts." While it is hard to accept this evidently fanciful story in its details, it seems quite probable that the sale of some English slaves in a Roman market drew the attention of Gregory to the needs of Britain.