MONK NILUS AVOIDING SAINTHOOD (A.D. 900-1005).
The monk Nilus, who was reputed to be the wisest man of his age, was grieved that his friend John, Archbishop of Placenza, should be so much inclined to meddle in politics, and warned him rather to retire from the world. John would not be warned, and was punished for joining a conspiracy against the Pope by having his eyes put out, his tongue cut off, and being cast into a dungeon. Nilus was so shocked at this news that he left his monastery near Gaeta and journeyed to Rome, and begged the Emperor then to let him join the archbishop, that they might do penance together for their sins. But the Pope and Emperor, instead of this, ordered further punishments for the archbishop. Nilus then told them both plainly that, as they had shown no mercy to the poor prisoner who had been committed to their hands, neither could they expect any mercy from the Heavenly Father for their own sins. The young Emperor Otho III. was rather pleased with his plain speaking, and invited Nilus to ask any other favour he pleased; but Nilus answered, “I have nothing to ask of you but the salvation of your own soul; for though you are an emperor, you must die like other men, and then must give account of your deeds, be they good or bad.” The Emperor on hearing this burst into tears, took the crown off his head, and begged the man of God to give him his blessing. When Nilus had reason to know that when he died the Governor of Gaeta intended to bring his body to Gaeta for public burial, and to preserve his bones as a patron saint to Gaeta, Nilus was shocked, and protested that he would rather let no one know where he would be buried. So in his old age he took leave of his monks and set off towards Rome, telling them, as they wept, that he was going to prepare a monastery where they should all meet once more. On reaching Tusculum, he rode into a small convent of St. Agatha, saying, “Here is my resting-place for ever.” He would not leave the spot, and charged the monks not to bury him in a church nor build any arch or monument over his grave; but if they wished some token, then to make it a resting-place for pilgrims, for he had been a pilgrim all his life.
THE MONK NILUS AS AN ADVISER (A.D. 990).
The monk Nilus, who lived in the tenth century, was dedicated in his infancy to the service of God, and at an early age was delighted to read of the monks St. Antony and St. Hilarion and St. Simeon Stylites, and developed a turn for an ascetic life. This led to his being consulted by men of all ranks, who put to him puzzling questions. One day a noble, who lived a loose life, put some unbecoming queries, when a priest, to divert the conversation, asked Nilus of what kind was the forbidden fruit which Adam tasted in Paradise. Nilus answered, “A crab-apple.” Whereupon the party laughed. He then rebuked them. “Laugh not; such a question deserves such an answer. Moses has not told us precisely what tree it was: why should we wish to know what the Holy Scriptures have concealed?” Another day Nilus was visiting a castle, when he met a Jewish physician, who professed to fear that Nilus’s habits of fasting might bring on epileptic fits, and gave him a medicine that would save him from all diseases. Nilus only replied, “One of your own countrymen, a Hebrew, has told us that it is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. We have a great Physician of our own—the Lord Jesus Christ; in Him we trust, and do not need your remedies.” Nilus was once sent for to advise a rich duchess who had incited her two sons to murder her nephew, and her conscience was ill at ease. The bishops had prescribed for her to repeat the Psalter three times a week and to give alms to the poor. But she could not rest till she took the advice of Nilus. After thinking a little he said to her, “Give one of your sons to the relations of the murdered man, to do with him what they please, for the Lord has said, ‘Whoso sheddeth man’s blood his blood shall be shed again.’” The widow said she could not do that, for they might kill her son. She then wept bitterly, and gave money to Nilus that he might purchase from God a forgiveness of her sins. This excited the anger of Nilus, who hurried away, determined to be no partaker in her sins.
THE MONASTERY OF BEC, FOUNDED A.D. 1034.
The chronicle Beccense thus describes the origin of the famous monastery of Bec: “In the year 1034 Herluinus, at the inspiration of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Author of all good things, casting aside the nobility of the world, for which he had been not a little conspicuous, having thrown off the girdle of military service, betook himself with entire devotion to the poverty of Christ, and that he might be free for the service of God alone, through the single love of God, assumed with great joy the habit of a monk. This man, who had been a passionate warrior, and who had gotten himself a great name and favour with Robert, the son of the second Richard, and with the lords of different foreign countries, first built a church on a farm of his, which was called Burnevilla. But because this place was on a plain and lacked water, being admonished in a dream by the Blessed Mother of God, he retired to a valley close to a river, which is called Bec, and there began to build a noble monastery to the honour of the same St. Mary, which God brought to perfection for the glory of His name, and to be the comfort and salvation of many men. To which Herluinus God, according to the desire of his heart, gave for his helpers and counsellors Lanfranc, a man every way accomplished in liberal acts; then Anselm, a man approved in all things, a man affable in counsel, pitiful, chaste, sober in every clerical duty, wonderfully instructed—which two men through God’s grace were afterwards consecrated Archbishops of Canterbury. And to this same Bec, which began in the greatest poverty, so many and such great men, clerical as well as lay men, resorted, that it might fitly be said to the holy abbot, ‘With the riches of thy name hast thou made thy house drunk, and with the torrent of the wisdom of thy sons hast thou filled the world.’”
THE GREAT FIRE AT CROYLAND MONASTERY (A.D. 1091).
Ingulph, abbot of Croyland, describes the fire of 1091 thus: “Our plumber, who had been employed on the tower of the church, one night, with fatal madness, covered his fire over with dead cinders, so that he might be more prepared to begin work next morning, and left for supper. Some hours after, when all were buried in slumber, and a strong north wind blowing, the inhabitants of the town, seeing great flames in the belfry, began to shout and batter at the gates. The clamour of the populace awoke me, and I could discern, as clear as noonday, the servants of the monastery shouting, wailing, and rushing hither and thither. As I rushed to the dormitory I was severely burnt with the drippings of molten lead and brass. I called and shouted to the brethren, still plunged in sleep, and on recognising my voice they leaped from their beds in terror in their nightdresses and half naked, many being wounded and maimed in the hurry of escape. I attempted to regain my own chamber to get the clothes which I had there, and distribute them in case of necessity. But the heat was so excessive and the streams of molten lead so copious that even the boldest of the young men dared not to enter. I then found that the infirmary had been caught with the flames, invincible in their fury; and even the green trees, ashes, oaks, and osiers, growing near, were scorched. The tower of the church soon fell on the southern side; and I, terrified at the crash, dropped upon the ground half dead in a swoon, and lay till I was rescued by my brethren. At dawn of day the brethren, weeping and depressed, some of them pitiably mangled in the limbs, performed in common Divine service with mournful voices and woful accents in the hall of our great master. After having fully completed the daily and nightly hours of Divine service, we proceeded to examine the state of the whole monastery. The fire still raged and destroyed the granary and stable. We searched the choir, which had been reduced to ashes, and found that all the books of the Divine service, both the antiphoners and graduals, had perished. Entering the vestry, we found that all our sacred vestments, the relics of the saints, and some other valuables there deposited, were uninjured by the fire. Some of the muniments in the charter room were shrivelled up by the heat; and our beautiful writings, ornamented with golden crosses, paintings, and ornamented letters, were destroyed in this night of blackness. Besides these our whole library, containing more than three hundred original volumes, besides the lesser volumes, numbering more than four hundred, perished. By that casualty we lost a very beautiful tablet, admirably constructed of every kind of metal to represent the various stars and signs of the zodiac, each of a different colour—a gift from the King of France to Turketul. Our dormitory, as also the necessary house, the infirmary, and washing house, the refectory and all its contents except a few dark-coloured cups, and the cross cup of the late King of the Mercians, were, together with the kitchens and all their contents, reduced to ashes. Our cellar and the very casks full of beer were destroyed. The abbot’s hall also, and his chamber, and the court of the monastery perished in the conflagration, the flames of which, burning as it were with Greek fury, overran them on all sides. A few of the huts of the almsmen, the feeding houses of our beasts of burden, and the sheds of the other animals, which were separated by stone walls, alone remained unburnt. This conflagration was prognosticated by many signs and portents. Repeated visions by night predicted it; all were understood after the occurrence of the fact. The words of our holy Father Turketul in his last moments, earnestly warning us to guard diligently our fire; the words of our blessed Father Ulfran, bidding me in a nightly vision at Fontenelle to preserve well the fire of the hospice and the three saints Guthlac, Neot, and Waldeve,—of all these plain warnings I now understand and recognise the meaning; but I do so unprofitably and too late. I now indulge in vain complainings, and pour forth those lamentations and inconsolable tears righteously exacted by my faults. Many nobles contributed to our wants, and in the long list of benefactors let not the sainted memory of a poor woman, Juliana of Weston, be forgotten, who gave us of her poverty her whole substance—namely, a great quantity of reels of cotton wherewith to sew the vestments of the brethren of our monastery.”
THE MONKS OF VALLOMBROSA (A.D. 1039).
The constant desire to reform the ways of monks brought forward John Gualbert, a Florentine of noble birth. When a youth he was ordered by his father to avenge a kinsman’s death; and meeting the murderer on Good Friday in a narrow pass, he was about to fall upon him and slay him, when suddenly the murderer threw himself from his horse and placed his arms in the form of a cross, as if expecting certain death. The avenger, however, in token of the holy sign and sacred day, spared him. Another time Gualbert halted to pay his devotions in the monastic church of St. Minian’s, near Florence, when he noticed that the crucifix inclined its head towards him. This turned his thoughts to holy things. He entered a monastery, and after ten years’ experience he resolved to found one of his own at Vallombrosa, in 1039. He drew together a society of hermits and cœnobites. But his great discovery was the introduction of lay brethren, whose business it was to practise handicrafts, and to manage the secular affairs of the community, while by these labours the monks were enabled to devote themselves wholly to spiritual contemplation. The system established was rigorous. A novice had to undergo a year’s probation, doing degrading work, such as keeping swine and daily cleaning out the pigsty with bare hands. The monks of Vallombrosa were attired in grey; but afterwards this was changed to brown, and then to black. Gualbert died in 1093.