A Forgotten Hero; Or, Not for Him

by Emily Sarah Holt

The Priory of Ashridge—of the Order of Bonihomines—which Earl Edmund had founded a few years before, was the only one of its class in England. The Predicant Friars were an offshoot of the Dominican Order; and the Boni-Homines were a special division of the Predicant Friars. It is a singular fact that from this one source of Dominicans or Black Monks, sprang the best and the worst issues that ever emanated from monachism—the Bonihomines and the Inquisition.

The Boni-Homines were, in a word, the Protestants of the Middle Ages. And—a remarkable feature—they were not, like all other seceders, persons who had separated themselves from the corruptions of Rome. They were better off, for they had never been tainted with them. From the first ages of primitive Christianity, while on all sides the stream was gradually growing sluggish and turbid, in the little nest of valleys between Dauphiné and Piedmont it had flowed fresh and pure, fed by the Word of God, which the Vaudois (Note 2) mountaineers suffered no Pope nor Church to wrench or shut up from them.

The oldest name by which we know these early Protestants is Paulikians, probably having a reference to the Apostle Paul as either the exponent of their doctrines, or the actual founder of their local church. A little later we find them styled Cathari, or Pure Ones. Then we come on their third name of Albigenses, derived from the neighbouring town of Alby, where a Council was held which condemned them. But by whatever name they are called they are the same people, living in the same valleys, and holding unwaveringly and unadulterated the same faith.

It was by their fourth name of Boni-Homines, or Good Men, that they took advantage of the preaching movement set up by the Dominicans in the thirteenth century. They permeated their ranks, however, very gradually and quietly—perhaps all the more surely. For shortly after the date of this story, in the early part of the fourteenth century, it is said that of every three Predicant Friars, two were Bonihomines.

The Boni-Homines were rife in France before they ever crept into England; and the first man to introduce them into England was Edmund, Earl of Cornwall. A hundred years later, when the Boni-Homines had shown what they really were, and the leaven with which they had saturated society had evolved itself in Lollardism, the monks of other Orders did their best to bring both the movement and the men into disrepute, and to paint in the blackest colours the name of the Prince who had first introduced them into this country. In no monkish chronicle, unless written by a Bonus Homo, will the name of Earl Edmund be found recorded without some word of condemnation. And the Boni-Homines, unfortunately for history, were not much given to writing chronicles. Their business was saving souls.

Most important is it to remember, in forming just estimates of the character of things—whether men or events—in the Middle Ages, that with few exceptions monks were the only historians. Before we can truthfully set down this man as good, or that man as bad, we must, therefore, consult other sources—the chronicles of those few writers who were not monks, the State papers, but above all, where accessible, the personal accounts and private letters of the individuals in question. It is pitiable to see well-meaning Protestant writers, even in our own day, repeating after each other the old monkish calumnies, and never so much as pausing to inquire, Are these things so?

Late on the evening of the following day the Prior and monks of Ashridge stood at the gate ready to receive their founder. The circumstances of his coming were unknown to them, and they were prepared to make it a triumphal occasion. But the first glance at his face altered all that. The Prior quietly waved his monks back, and, going forward himself, kissed his patron’s hand, and led him silently into the monastery.

Poor Sir Reginald found himself condemned to all the sorrows he had anticipated, down to the sorrel soup—for it was a vigil—and the straw mattress, which, though considerably softer than the plank beds of the monks, was barely endurable to his ease-loving limbs. He looked as he felt—extremely uncomfortable and exceedingly cross.

The Prior wasted no attentions on him. Such troubles as these were not worth a thought in his eyes; but his founder’s face cost him many thoughts. He saw too plainly that for him had come one of those dread hours in life when the floods of deep waters overflow a man, and unless God take him into the ark of His covenant mercy, he will go down in the current. It was after some hours of prayer that the Prior tapped at the door of the royal guest.

Earl Edmund’s quiet voice bade him enter.