How far were monastic institutions in general, and those of London in particular, homes of learning and literature? The question can be answered by inference from what we know of other monasteries, not in London, and by the examples of scholars and writers who sprang from those Houses. In the first place, by far the greater number of scholars and writers, for eight hundred years, worked in the Religious Houses. If we run through a list, however imperfect, we shall see that, especially in the writing of histories, monks and later friars are conspicuous. Such a list is instructive and suggestive.
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For instance, Bede was a monk of Durham; Egbert, Archbishop of York, was a monk of Hexham; Alcuin, of York; John Scotus or Erigena was a monk; Eadmer, who wrote the life of Anselm, was a monk of Canterbury; the Saxon Chronicle was carried on by monks; Astern, another monk of Canterbury, wrote the lives of St. Dunstan and St. Alphege; Lucian, monk of Eberburgh, wrote an account of Chester; Colman, monk of Worcester, wrote the life of Bishop Wulstan of that see; Turgot, monk of Jarrow, wrote the history of the Monastery of Durham; the famous Ordericus Vitalis was a monk of St. Evroult, Normandy; the great historian, William of Malmesbury, belonged to the monastery of that town; Geoffrey of Monmouth was a monk in the monastery of the town he is called after; Henry of Huntingdon, another well-known historian, was a monk at Romsey; Ailred of Rievaulx was a Cistercian; Hilarius, who wrote the miracle plays, was an English monk; Walter of Evesham was a monk of that place; Layamon was a priest; Roger Bacon was a Grey Friar—as was also Duns Scotus; Roger of Wendover was a monk of St. Albans; of the same monastery was Matthew Paris; Bartholomew Cotton was a monk of Norwich; Matthew of Westminster was a Benedictine, probably of St. Peter’s; Ralph, or Ranulf, Higden was a monk of St. Werburgh’s; Robert of Brunen was a canon of the Gilbertine Order; Nigel Wireker, author of “Brunellus,” was precentor in the Benedictine Monastery of Canterbury; John of Salisbury, author of De Nugis Curialum was a monk in La Celle, in the French diocese of Troyes; Thomas of Ely, who wrote a Chronicle, was a monk of Ely; Jocelin of Brakelonde was a monk of Bury St. Edmunds; William Newburgh was an Augustinian monk; Roger of Hoveden was at one time under vows, since he was employed to go from one Abbey to another, as a kind of visitor or receiver; Benedict, author of a Chronicle, was Abbot of Peterborough; Ralph de Diceto was Dean of St. Paul’s; Alexander Neckham was Abbot of Cirencester; Gervase, the herdman, was a monk of Canterbury; Robert Holcot, theologian, was a Dominican. This long list, which might be enlarged, is sufficient to prove that the pursuit of learning was encouraged, and held in honour in the monasteries. A few of the names quoted above are those of scholars, most of them are the names of chroniclers, and many of contemporary chroniclers. Now the practice followed in one House was observed in every other House obedient to the same Rule. If at St. Albans we find one monk after another writing contemporary history, it is reasonable to suppose that at Westminster and at Holy Trinity Priory, and at Bermondsey, other monks were employing their time in similar pursuits. We do not, in other words, hear of many learned men coming from the London Houses, but since it is certain that at other Houses of the same Rule there were scholars and writers; since it is certain, for instance, that the Dominicans produced fiery champions for the true faith; since, further, it is certain that some of the greatest men of learning were Franciscans, it seems childish to doubt that the same studies, the same incentives to study, were found in the London Houses. Further, out of the great mass of learned doctors, monks, and friars who preached, wrote, and disputed at Oxford, Cambridge, and elsewhere, since only one or two names have survived, there should be little cause for surprise if, for any given House, not one single man should survive of all those who adorned the Rule and advanced its name for learning during the long centuries of its existence. We must remember that although the monks and friars were savagely attacked for pride, luxury, and incontinence, their enemies seldom ventured to attack them for lack of interest in learning or zeal for study. If it is true that the learned and studious life had become discouraged, or had been allowed to die out, which I cannot believe, there would have been this additional crime alleged against them.
Stanley mildly laments that he can find no mention of any great scholar among the Benedictines of St. Peter’s. The same lament may, with equal justice, be made over the Houses of Bermondsey, the Holy Trinity, the Cistercians of Eastminster, and any other London House. Nay, a similar lament may be made over many a college of Oxford and Cambridge in the present century, where, with every possible encouragement to learning, so few great scholars can be found belonging to any single College. I imagine that these desks, these closed cabins, in the north cloister, of which we read, where the monks sat and studied, were never empty, generation after generation; there must always have been some to whom the quiet of the cloister was a special gift of Heaven enabling them to study; and there must always have been also the majority, who had no gift for scholarship. To them was assigned the practical management of the House, or some other work, to save them from vacuity. In truth, for such men as these, the atmosphere of the House was distinctly prejudicial to study, cut up as the day was by service, by forms, and rules.
And lastly, as regards the monastic learning, we must not forget the masses of papers and parchments destroyed in the Dissolution of the Houses and the Dispersion of the Libraries; we do not know, we can have no conception, what treasures were destroyed and scattered. Bale says, “To destroye all without consideracyon is, and will be unto Englande for ever, a most horrible infamy among the grave seniors of other nacyons. I know a merchante that boughte the contentes of two noble lybraryes for XL shyllyngs pryce, a shame it is to be spoken. Thys stuffe hath he occupy in the stede of paper by the space of more than these X yeares.”
For eight hundred years the monks of St. Peter’s, Westminster, had worked in their cloister. What had they done? Where were the Chronicles, the scholastic disputations, the treatises they had compiled? They were never taken out of the library; they never saw the light at all; they were burned when the House perished. In common candour, let us acknowledge that in all these generations of monks some must have done good work.
As regards the literature of the people, we are not without specimens of their songs, though these do not date, for the greater part, before the fifteenth century. Yet London was always a City for music, song, and dancing. Probably the songs that have been preserved for us had older forms. There are the religious songs, as that in the Annunciation, beginning:
“Tyrle, Tyrle, so merylye the shepperdes began to blow.” There are the moral songs lamenting the vices of the age:—