[5] If a child was to be received his hand was wrapped in the hanging of the altar, “and then,” says the rule of St. Benedict, “let them offer him.” The words are “Si quas forte de nobilibus offert filium suum Deo in monasterio, si ipse puer minore ætate est, parentes ejus faciant petitionem et manum pueri involvant in pallu altaris, et sic eum offerunt” (c. 59). The Abbot Herman tells us that in the year 1055 his mother took him and his brothers to the monastery of which he was afterwards abbot. “She went to St. Martin’s (at Tournay), and delivered over her sons to God, placing the little one in his cradle upon the altar, amidst the tears of many bystanders” (Maitland’s “Dark Ages,” p. 78). The precedents for such a dedication of an infant to an ascetic life are, of course, the case of Samuel dedicated by his mother from infancy, and of Samson and John Baptist, who were directed by God to be consecrated as Nazarites from birth. A law was made prohibiting the dedication of children at an earlier age than fourteen. At f. 209 of the MS. Nero D. vii., is a picture of St. Benedict, to whom a boy in monk’s habit is holding a book, and he is reading or preaching to a group of monks.
[6] Engraved in Boutell’s “Monumental Brasses.”
[7] Probably this means that he had “clocks”—little bell-shaped ornaments—sewn to the lower margin of his tippet or hood.
[8] Mrs. Jameson, “Legends of the Monastic Orders,” p. 137.
[9] Viollet le Duc’s “Dictionary of Architecture,” vol. vi. p. 104.
[10] Ibid. vi. 107.
[11] Ibid. vi. 112.
[12] Ibid. vi. 112.
[13] All its houses were called Temples, as all the Carthusian houses were called Chartereux (corrupted in England into Charterhouse).
[14] Of the four round churches in England, popularly supposed to have been built by the Templars, the Temple Church in London was built by them; that of Maplestead, in Essex, by the Hospitallers; that of Northampton by Simon de St. Liz, first Norman Earl of Northampton, twice a pilgrim to the Holy Land; and that of Cambridge by some unknown individual.