Benedict died in 543, and by that time his order had made its way into France, Spain, and Sicily. It soon drew into itself all the monks of the west, and was divided into a number of branches, which all looked up to Benedict as their founder; and, although it would be a sad mistake to wish for any revival of monkery in our own days, we ought, in justice, to see and to acknowledge that through God's providence these monks became the means of great benefits to mankind. Not only were their services important for the maintenance of the Gospel where it was already planted, and for the spreading of it among the heathen, but they cleared forests, brought waste lands into tillage, and did much to civilize the rude nations among whom they laboured. After a time, learning began to be cultivated among them, and during the troubled ages which followed, it found a refuge in the monasteries. The monks taught the young; they copied the Scriptures and other ancient books (for printing was as yet unknown); they wrote histories of their times, and other books of their own. To them, indeed, it is that we are mainly indebted for preserving the knowledge of the past through many centuries.
NOTES
CHAPTER XXX.
END OF THE SIXTH CENTURY.
PART I.
We must not suppose that the conversion of the western barbarians was of any very perfect kind. They mixed up a great deal of their own barbarism with their Christianity, and, besides this, they took up many of the vices of the old and worn-out nations, whose countries they had conquered and occupied. Much heathen superstition lingered among them: it was even a common saying in Spain, that "if a man has to pass between heathen altars and God's Church, it is no harm if he pay his respects to both." The clergy were very wealthy and prosperous, but did not venture to interfere with the vices of the great and powerful; or, if they did, it was at their peril. For instance, when a bishop of Rouen had offended the Frankish queen Fredegund, she caused him to be murdered in his own cathedral, at the most solemn service of Easter-day.
Religion became a protection to crime; murderers were allowed to take refuge in churches, and might not be dragged out until after an oath had been made that their lives should be safe. It had been the ancient custom of the Germans to let all crimes be atoned for by the payment of money: if, for example, a person had killed another, he had no more to do than to pay a certain sum to the dead man's relations. And this way of making up for misdeeds was now brought into the Church; it was thought that men might make satisfaction for their sins by paying money, and that the effect would be the same if others paid for them after their death. We may understand how this worked, from another story of queen Fredegund, who seems to have been a perfect monster of wickedness. She set two of her pages to murder a king, named Sigebert; and, by way of encouraging them, she said that she would honour them highly, if they came off with their lives; but that, if they were slain, she would lay out a great deal of money in alms for the good of their souls!
As might naturally have been expected among such people, it came to be very commonly thought that the observance of outward worship and ceremonies was all that religion required. Pretended miracles were wrought in great numbers, for the purpose of imposing on the ignorant; and all, from the king downwards, were then ignorant enough to be deceived by them. The superstitions which had begun in the fourth century[54] continued to grow on the Church; such as the reverence paid to saints, and especially to the Blessed Virgin, so that people allowed them a part of the honour which ought to have been kept for God alone. Among other such corruptions were the reverence for the relics of saints (that is, for parts of their bodies, or for things which had belonged to them), and the religious honour paid to images and pictures. These and other evils increased more and more, until, at length, they could be borne no longer, and, in many countries, they caused the great religious change which is called the Reformation.