[43] See Part I., "Religious Architecture."
But a kindred field of study offers itself in the
abbeys themselves, their organisation and adaptation to the domestic needs of their be-frocked inmates.
132. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. CLOISTER (THIRTEENTH CENTURY. FROM A DRAWING BY ED. CORROYER)
Monastic institutions date from the Roman era. The first abbeys were those established in France in the fourth century, by St. Hilary of Poitiers and St. Martin of Tours. These religious associations or corporations, which eventually became so powerful, by reason not only of their numbers, but of the spirit which animated them, must be reckoned as among the most beneficent forces of the Middle Ages. Even from the philosophical side alone of the religious rule under which they flourished, by virtue of which enlightened men wielded supreme power, they were admirable institutions.
To instance one among many, the so-called Rule of St. Benedict is in itself a monument, the basis of which is discipline, the coping-stone labour. These are principles of undying excellence, for they are the expression of eternal truths. And from them our modern economists, who so justly exalt the system of co-operation, might even in these latter days draw inspiration as useful and as fruitful as that by which men were guided in the days of Benedict.
Three great intellectual centres shed their light on the first centuries of the Middle Ages. These were Lérins, Ireland, and Monte Casino. Their most brilliant time was from the fourth century to the reign of Charlemagne, by which period they may be said to have prepared the way for successive evolutions of human knowledge, by assiduous cultivation of the sciences and arts, more especially architecture, in accordance with the immutable laws of development and progress.
Lérins.—St. Honoratus and his companions, when they landed in the archipelago, built on the principal island a chapel surrounded by the cells and buildings necessary for a confraternity. This took place about 375-390 A.D. The members of the budding community were learned monks, who had accepted the religious rule which had now become their law. They instructed neophytes sent them from the mainland, and their reputation grew so rapidly that Lérins soon took rank as a school of theology, a seminary or nursery whence the mediæval church chose the bishops and abbots best fitted to govern her.
The school of Lérins was so esteemed for learning that it took an active part in the great Pelagian controversy which agitated Christendom at the time,[44] and zealously advocated the doctrines of semi-pelagianism, but this tendency was finally subdued by St. Vincent of Lérins, whose ideas were more orthodox. The theological teaching of Lérins seems to have dominated, or at least to have directed religious opinion in Gaul down to the sixth century.