As the regular associations became permanently settled in the towns, they began to construct for their use dormitories, cells, workshops, granaries or sheds for their provisions, and built handsome churches with long cloisters and vast chapter-rooms. Each community made a point of having within its own boundary a library, a study, a lecture-room, schools, a cemetery, some shady walks for meditation, as well as a fruit and kitchen garden, the cultivation of which was a healthy and agreeable recreation. In this vast aggregation of monastic buildings and appurtenances (Fig. 244), we have a holy city in the heart of the secular town, a retreat for the peaceful, the devout, and the abstinent, amidst the troubles and vanities of the world.
Fig. 242.—Abbatial Ring and Cross (front and back) of St. Waudru, patroness of Mons, who died in 670. The cross is in silver, with gold relief, and studded with precious stones.—Relics preserved in the Church of St. Waudru, at Mons.
Fig. 243.—The Offering of a Child to an Abbot.—From a Miniature in a Manuscript published at the Close of the Thirteenth Century (Burgundian Library, Brussels).
Fig. 244.—Priory of the Benedictines at Canterbury (Twelfth Century), plan in relief drawn by Edwin, a monk, about the year 1530.—A, belfry; B, fountain; C, cemetery; D, reservoir, with conduit pipes; E, Canterbury Cathedral; F, vestry; G, crypt; H, chapter-house; I, prior’s house; J, infirmary and annexes; K, kitchen-garden, with well, pumps, and water-pipes; L, cloister; M, cellar; N, dormitory; O, refectory; P, kitchens; Q, parlour; R, house for the guests and the poor; S, water-closets; T, baths; U, granary; V, bakehouse and brewery; X, the chief entrance; Y, Z, fortified wall of the abbey and the city.—From an Engraving in vol. i. of the “Architecture Monastique,” by M. Albert Lenoir.
The endowment of each monastery was generally made up of the property belonging to the monks who had fixed their abode there. If the novice was an adult, he was obliged to distribute all his goods to the poor, or to make a solemn grant of them to the abbey, before he could be admitted to the minor orders. If he was a child whose parents devoted him to the service of God (Fig. 243), the parents either made no gift to the community which received the young novice, or they ceded the income of the lands and the property by deed of transfer to the monastery. Enriched by these successive donations, the monasteries, especially those which had acquired a wide renown for learning or piety, acquired still more wealth through the largesses of princes, great nobles, and bishops, through the economical management of the abbots, and the annual produce of the agricultural and commercial labour of the monks. To the various arts and trades which were at first carried on by the monks with a view to do honour to the cause of religion, those of the West afterwards added others of a more lucrative and worldly character. In the sixth century we find that they spun and wove their own silk; that they possessed numerous receipts for preparing liqueurs and drugs; that they practised medicine, surgery, and the veterinary art. Pepin the Short, suffering from incurable dropsy, went first to the monastery of St. Martin at Tours, and afterwards to the abbey of St. Denis, that “the servants of God” might give him relief by means of their skill as well as by their prayers.
The Church was very sorely tried during the reign of Charles Martel, and monastic institutions were also exposed to many difficulties. In order to win back the secular clergy to the habits of communal life, the wisest of the bishops grouped around them the clergy who had remained faithful to their cause, and laid down a code of regulations for their guidance.
Charlemagne, in the Capitularies, added the following excellent amendments to the rules of monastic institutions:—“Young men destined to monastic life must first pass their novitiate, and then remain in the monastery to learn the rules, before they are sent forth to fulfil their duties outside. Those who give up the world in order to avoid the king’s service shall be compelled to serve God in good faith, or else to resume their former occupation. All clerks shall be required to make their choice between clerical life in conformity with the canons, and monastic life in conformity with the regulations. The abbeys shall not receive too large a number of serfs, so that the villages may not be depopulated; no community shall have more members than can be properly looked after by one superior. Young women shall not take the veil until they are of an age to choose their own career in life. Laymen are to be disqualified for governing the interior of a monastery, nor shall they fill the post of archdeacon.” Charlemagne and Louis the Good-natured became members of the royal monastery of St. Denis under the title of “conscript brothers” (fratres conscripti)—an academical rather than a religious title, but one which nevertheless admitted them to certain liturgical privileges. The Emperor Lothair, in imitation of his father and ancestor, also got himself invested with this title by the monastery of St. Martin-lez-Metz.