Christianity among the Anglo-Saxons was a missionary undertaking, therefore it encouraged the foundation of organizing centres; but these seem at first to have rather taken the form of bishoprics than abbeys; still, information as to the early Church in England does not exist sufficiently in detail to permit us to state clearly the actual religious work or its method of working.
Later on the Saxon abbeys partook rather of the nature of large training colleges, where learning was carried on.
The mission of St. Augustine extended the monastic system, and spread Christianity to a wider extent. It also encouraged the resort hither of foreign monks. Great rivalry existed between the English bishops and these foreign missionary priests, a feud which never seems entirely to have died out. The largest number of English abbeys sprang up after the Norman Conquest. The invaders manifested their religion by bestowing large grants of lands as votive offerings and in token of gratitude, while Duke William’s honest repayment of the loans given him for the equipment of his armada brought over hundreds of priests and monks to take possession of their new territories. Church building was a religious work often undertaken for the expiation of sins. Voluntary work is always the best of its kind. To this day the remains of the old Norman abbeys surprise us with their solidity of structure and elegance of design. They must, indeed, have been beautiful when the interiors were fitted up with corresponding magnificence. At first the monks were poor—they were given land, not always of the best, often in wild and unfrequented regions; but by frugality, skill and industry, they soon brought it into a fertile state, and lived on its produce and the gifts of their patrons. The Cistercians were great wool-dealers, and we know how much English cloth was prized at home and abroad for its goodness of quality. In course of time the monks, by their labours, became rich. The need for toil being over, they sank into indolent affluence; instead of hard-working communities, they became wealthy landowners. The abbots were miniature kings, ruling over their vassals and dependents, living in almost royal state, surrounded by their court. The history of monastic England extends over very many centuries, even if its commencement is only placed at the arrival of St. Augustine in A.D. 597, or later still, with the Norman invasion.
Changes of all kinds took place in those long centuries. Large abbeys had sunk into poverty, and others arisen in their places. The monks had been subdivided into orders, each having its own peculiar rules. The oldest of these was the Benedictine, or Black Monks, who held most of the largest monasteries—as many as 156 in number. From this Order arose the Cistercians, even more severe in their regulations—popular in England, probably from having had an Englishman as their founder, Stephen Harding, head of the Monastery of Citeaux (Cistercium) about the year 1125. This order had been approved by the Pope twenty-five years previously. Gasquet gives the names of 86 Cistercian houses in England, the Cluniac as 26, and Carthusian as 9. These lesser orders had each its own distinctive rules, but, as the above figures show, were less popular than the older orders of monks. The number of nunneries was also very large (Gasquet gives 140). These were principally of the Benedictine Order. I have seen it stated that there was only one house of White Nuns in England, that of Grace Dieu, in Leicestershire, but this is not correct.
As the old Benedictine Order relaxed in severity, the Cistercians came forward, and when these were no longer conspicuous for piety and austerity, there arose the wandering missionaries known as Friars, who were also eloquent preachers, a marked contrast to the half-educated clergy. These friars were mendicants, bound by oath neither to possess land nor money, nor to enjoy luxury. They went about preaching throughout the country; it was the old story of the ‘house divided against itself being unable to stand.’ The friars preached against the monks, and the monks opposed the clergy, ending in the downfall of the three rivals under Henry VIII.
The first order of friars was of Spanish origin, founded by Dominic A.D. 1204, and confirmed in 1215. They wore a brown habit of coarse hair-cloth. A few years later St. Francis of Assisi founded the Grey Friars, called after him Franciscans. These came to England A.D. 1224, where they became very popular. Like the monks, lesser orders arose out of these. The Premonstratensians gained little ground in England, but the Augustinian or Austin Friars had many followers, both men and women.
Henry VIII.’s first attack on religious houses was made upon those whose yearly incomes did not exceed £200. But the work thus begun did not end here. It is said that 376 small monasteries were doomed; of these 123 escaped immediate dissolution. Throughout 1535 and the succeeding five years the work of suppression was carried on. During that time the monks foresaw that ultimately they were doomed, and had time to sell or hide their choicest possessions before the Commissioners appeared to claim them. Then no doubt many valuable manuscripts and papers were destroyed, or else either hidden or removed out of the country. In several places some of these buried treasures have come to light after being concealed for a long time. In this way a beautiful copy of the Reading Abbey Chartulary was preserved for two hundred years, having been concealed in a secret chamber adjoining a chimney-stack in an old manor-house at Shinfield, only discovered by workmen during some repairs in the eighteenth century.
READING ABBEY CHARTER.
(Photographed by Mr. A. A. Harrison, of Theale. Kindly lent by Lord Fingall.)