CANONS AND MONKS
[Sidenote: Secular canons.]
So far, in speaking of the attempted purification of the Church in the
eleventh century, we have dealt merely with the bishops and the
parochial clergy. But a movement which emanated from the monasteries
had a message also for those ecclesiastics who were gathered into
corporate bodies, and whom we have learnt to distinguish respectively
as canons and monks. Of these the canons were reckoned among the
secular clergy; for although they were supposed to live a common life
according to a certain rule, their duties were parochial, and they
were not bound for life to the community of which they were members.
The body of canons was called a chapter, and of chapters there were
two kinds--the cathedral chapter, whose members served the Mother
Church of the diocese, and, as we have seen, ultimately obtained the
nominal right of electing the bishop; and the collegiate chapter,
generally, though not always, to be found in towns which had no
cathedral, the members of which, like those of a modern clergy-house,
served the church or churches of the town. In the eighth century these
communities were subjected to a rule drawn up by Chrodegang, Bishop of
Metz, in accordance with which they were required to sleep in a common
dormitory, feed at a common table, and assimilate themselves as far as
possible to monks. But in the two succeeding centuries there was no
class of clergy which fell so far from the ideal as the capitular
clergy. They were important and they were wealthy, for the cathedral
chapters claimed to share with the bishop in the administration of the
diocese, and both kinds of chapters owned extensive lands. In some of
the more important chapters great feudal nobles had obtained for
themselves the titular offices; in nearly all such bodies some, if not
most or even all, of the canonries came to be reserved for younger
members of the noble families. The common property was divided into
shares, between the bishop and the body of the canons and between the
individual canons: many of the canons employed vicars to do their
clerical duty, and some even lived on the estates of the capitular
body, leading the existence of a lay noble. Even those who remained on
the spot had houses of their own round the cloister, where they lived
with their wives and children, using the common refectory only for an
occasional festival.
[Sidenote: Canons Regular.]
Thus no body of ecclesiastics stood in need of thorough reform more
than the capitular clergy, and no class proved so hard to deal with.
Attempts to substitute Cluniac monks for canons roused the opposition
of the whole body of secular clergy. More successful to a small degree
was the plan of Bishop Ivo of Chartres and others to revive among the
capitular bodies the rule of common life. But it was difficult to pour
new wine into old bottles, and the reformers found it more profitable
to leave the old capitular bodies severely alone, and to devote their
efforts to the foundation of new communities. To these were applied
from the very first a new rule for which its advocates claimed the
authority of St. Augustine. It laid upon the members vows of poverty,
chastity, and obedience, and placed them under an abbot elected by the
community of canons. Such was the origin of the Augustinian or Austin
Canons, who came to be distinguished as Regular Canons, and are to be
reckoned with monastic bodies, in comparison with the old cathedral
and collegiate chapters, who were henceforth known as Secular Canons.
These bodies of clergy, who combined parochial duties with what was
practically a monastic life, became exceedingly popular; and by
degrees not only were Secular Canons of collegiate churches, and even
of some cathedrals, transformed into Regular Canons, but even some
monastic houses were handed over to them. Instead of existing as
isolated bodies, like the old Benedictines, they took the Cluniac
model of organisation and formed congregations of houses grouped round
some one or other of those which formed models for the rest. Of these
congregations of Regular Canons the most celebrated were those of the
Victorines and the Premonstratensians.
[Sidenote: Victorines.]
The abbey of St. Victor at Paris was founded in 1113 by William of
Champeaux, afterwards Bishop of Chalons. The Order came to consist of
about forty houses, and its members strove to keep the Augustinian
ideal of a parochial and monastic life. But the chief fame of the
abbey itself comes from its scholastic work, and it became known both
as the stronghold of a somewhat rigid orthodoxy and as the home of a
mystical theology which was developed among its own teachers.
[Sidenote: Premonstratensians.]
But by far the most important congregation of Canons Regular was that
of the Premonstratensians. Their founder, Norbert, a German of noble
birth, in response to a sudden conversion, gave up several canonries
of the older kind with which he was endowed; but finding that a
prophet has no honour in his own country, he preached in France with
astonishing success, and ultimately, under the patronage of the Bishop
of Laon in 1120, he settled with a few companions in a waste place in
a forest, where he established a community of Regular Canons and gave
to the spot the name of _Prémontré--pratum monstratum--_the
meadow which had been pointed out to him by an angel. Almost from its
foundation the Premonstratensian Order admitted women as well as men,
and at first the two sexes lived in separate houses planted side by
side. The Order also began the idea of affiliating to itself, under
the form of a third class, influential laymen who would help in its
work. The Premonstratensian houses assimilated themselves to monastic
communities more than did the Victorines: their work was missionary
rather than parochial. The Order spread with great rapidity not only
in Western Europe, but, even in its founder's lifetime, to Syria and
Palestine, and for purposes of administration it came to be divided
into thirty provinces.
[Sidenote: St. Norbert in Germany.]
Meanwhile Norbert had come under the notice of the Emperor Lothair II,
who forced him into the archbishopric of Magdeburg. Here he
substituted Premonstratensians in a collegiate chapter for canons of
the older kind, and he eagerly backed up Lothair's policy of extending
German influence upon the north-eastern frontier by planting
Premonstratensian houses as missionary centres and by founding new
bishoprics. Norbert, in fact became Lothair's chief adviser and was an
European influence second only to that of St. Bernard in all the
questions of the day.
[Sidenote: Knights Templars.]
It was upon the model of the Canons Regular that the great military
Orders of the religious were organised. In the year 1118 a Burgundian
knight, Hugh de Payens, with eight other knights, founded at Jerusalem
an association for the protection of distressed pilgrims in Palestine.
From their residence near Solomon's Temple they came to be known as
the Knights of the Temple. They remained a small and poor body until
St. Bernard who was nephew to one of the knights, took them under his
patronage and drew up for them a code of regulations which obtained
the sanction of Honorius II at the Council of Troyes in 1128. From
that moment the prosperity of the Templars was assured. Their numbers
increased, and lands and other endowments were showered upon them in
all parts of Europe. As monks they were under the triple vow of
poverty, chastity, and obedience, and the regulations of the Order
which governed their daily life were among the most severe. As knights
it was their duty to maintain war against the Saracens. For
administrative purposes the possessions of the Order were grouped in
ten provinces, each province being further subdivided into
preceptories or commanderies, and each of these into still smaller
units. Each division and subdivision had its own periodical chapter of
members for settling its concerns, and at the head of the whole Order
stood the Grand Master with a staff of officers who formed the general
chapter and acted as a restraint upon the conduct of their head. In
addition to the knights the Order contained chaplains for the
ecclesiastical duties, and serving brethren of humble birth to help
the knights in warfare. Their possessions in Western Europe were used
as recruiting-grounds for their forces in the East; but it was only in
towns of some importance that they erected churches on the model of
the Holy Sepulchre in connection with their houses.
[Sidenote: Knights Hospitallers.]
The Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem was a reorganisation
of a hospital dedicated to St. John the Baptist. This had been erected
for poor pilgrims by the merchants of Amalfi before the Crusades
began. But it remained merely a charitable brotherhood living under a
monastic rule and attracting both men and endowments, until the
example of the Templars caused the then master, Raymond du Puy, to
obtain papal sanction some time before 1130 for a rule which added
military duties without superseding the original object of the Order.
Their possessions were divided into eight provinces with subdivisions
of grand priories and commanderies, and the other administrative
arrangements differed in little, except occasionally in name, from
those of the Templars.
[Sidenote: Privileges of the military Orders.]
Both these Orders obtained not only extensive possessions from the
pious, but wide privileges from the Pope. They were subject to the
spiritual jurisdiction of the Pope alone; they could consecrate
churches and cemeteries on their own lands without any interference of
the local clergy; they could hold divine service everywhere.
Interdicts and excommunications had no terrors or even inconveniences
for them. They were free from payment of tithes and other imposts
levied on the clergy. There is no doubt that but for these Orders the
Crusaders would have fared far worse than they did. The Templars and
Hospitallers were the one really reliable element in the crusading
forces. This is no very high praise, and their effectiveness was
largely discounted by their bitter quarrels with each other and with
the local authorities, both secular and ecclesiastical, alike in the
east and the west. They scandalously abused the extensive privileges
accorded to them, by such acts as the administration of the Sacrament
to excommunicated persons, to whom they would also give Christian
burial. In 1179, at the second Lateran Council, Alexander III was
moved by the universal complaints to denounce their irresponsible
defiance of all ecclesiastical law, and subsequent Popes were obliged
to speak with equal vigour. After the destruction of the Latin power
in Palestine (1291) the Hospitallers transferred their head-quarters
to Cyprus till 1309, then to Rhodes, and finally to Malta. The
Templars abandoned their _raison d'être_, retired to their
possessions in the west, and placed their head-quarters at Paris,
where they acted as the bankers of the French King. Their wealth
provoked jealousy: they were accused of numberless and nameless
crimes, and their enemies brought about their fall, first in France,
then in England, and finally the abolition of the Order by papal
decree in 1313. Such of their wealth as escaped the hands of the lay
authorities went to swell the possessions of the Hospitallers.
[Sidenote: Teutonic Knights.]
There were many other Orders of soldier-monks besides these two. The
best known are the Teutonic Knights, who originated during the Third
Crusade at the siege of Acre (1190) in an association of North German
Crusaders for the care of the sick and wounded. The Knights of the
German Hospital of St. Mary the Virgin at Jerusalem--for such was
their full title--gained powerful influence in Palestine; their Order
was confirmed by Pope Celestine III (1191-8), and in 1220 Honorius III
gave them the same privileges as were enjoyed by the Hospitallers and
Templars. Their organisation was similar to that of the older Orders.
Their prosperity was chiefly due to the third Grand Master, Herman von
Salza, the good genius of the Emperor Frederick II, and a great power
in Europe. Under him the Order transferred itself to the shores of the
Baltic, where it carried on a crusade against the heathen Prussians,
and here it united in 1237 with another knightly Order, the Brethren
of the Sword, which had been founded in 1202 by the Bishop of Livonia
for similar work against the heathen inhabitants of that country.
[Sidenote: Other military Orders.]
The Knights of the Hospital of St. Thomas of Acre was a small English
Order named after Thomas Becket and founded in the thirteenth century.
They, together with those already mentioned as founded for work in
Palestine, belonged to the Canons Regular. For convenience, however,
mention should be made here of the great Spanish Orders which were
affiliated to the Cistercian monks. These were founded in imitation of
the Templars and Hospitallers for similar work against the Saracens of
the Peninsula. The Order of Calatrava, founded by a Cistercian abbot
when that city was threatened by the Saracens in 1158, and the Order
of St. Julian, founded about the same time, which ultimately took its
name from the captured fortress of Alcantara, were amenable to the
complete monastic rule; while the Portuguese Order of Evora or Avisa,
founded a few years later, was assimilated rather to the lay brethren
of the Cistercians, and its members could marry and hold property.
There was one of the Spanish Orders, however, which was not connected
with the Cistercians. The Knights of St. James of Compostella
originated in 1161 for the protection of pilgrims to the shrine of
Compostella. Their rule was confirmed by Alexander III in 1175, and
the Order of Santiago became the most famous of the military Orders in
the Peninsula.
[Sidenote: New Monastic Orders.]
The revival and reorganisation of the common life among cathedral and
collegiate bodies roused the jealousy of the monastic houses. The
absolute superiority of the monastic life over any other was an
article of faith to which the obvious interests of the monks could
allow no qualification; and the close imitation of the monastic model
adopted by the Regular Canons was sufficient proof that the Church
generally acquiesced in this view. The great reform movement of the
eleventh century had emanated from the monks of Cluny; but just as the
degradation of the monastic ideal by the Benedictines had called into
existence the Order of Cluny with its reformed Benedictine rule, so
now the failure of the Cluniacs to live up to the expectations and to
minister to the needs of the most fervent religious spirits caused the
foundation of a number of new Orders. In each such case the founder
and his first followers strove, by the austerities of their personal
lives and by the severity of the rule which they enjoined, to embody
and to maintain at the highest level that ideal of contemplative
asceticism which was the object of the monastic life. Such was the
origin of the Order of Grammont (1074) and of Fontevraud (1094) and of
the better known Orders of the Carthusians (1084) and the Cistercians
(1098).
[Sidenote: Grammont.]
Thus Stephen, the founder of the Order of Grammont, was the son of a
noble of Auvergne, who, in the course of a journey in Calabria, was so
impressed by the life or the hermits with which the mountainous
districts abounded, that he resolved to reproduce it, and lived for
fifty years near Limoges, subjecting himself to such rigorous
devotional exercises that his knees became quite hard and his nose
permanently bent! Gregory VII sanctioned the formation of an Order,
but Stephen and his first followers called themselves simply _boni
homines_. After his death the monastery was removed to Grammont
close by, and a severe rule continued to be practised; but the
management of the concerns of the house was in the hands, not of the
monks, but of lay brethren, who began even to interfere in spiritual
matters, and the Order ceased to spread.
[Sidenote: Carthusians.]
The founder of the Carthusians, Bruno, a native of Koln, but master of
the Cathedral school at Rheims, also took the eremitic life as his
model for the individual. To this end he planted his monastery near
Grenoble, in the wild solitude of the Chartreuse, which gave its name
to the whole Order and to each individual house. In addition to a very
rigorous form of asceticism his rule imposed on the members an almost
perpetual silence. The centre of the life of the Carthusian monk was
not the cloister, but the cell which to each individual was, except on
Sundays and festivals, at the same time chapel, dormitory, refectory,
and study. The Carthusian rule has been described as "Cenobitism
reduced to its simplest expression"; but despite the growing wealth of
the Order, the rigour of the life was well maintained, and of all the
monastic bodies it was the least subjected to criticism and satire.
[Sidenote: Fontevraud.]
A different type of founder is represented by Robert of Arbrissel, in
Brittany, who, although he attracted disciples by the severity of his
life as a hermit, was really a great popular preacher, whose words
soon came to be attested by miracles. He was especially effective in
dealing with fallen women, and the monastery which he established at
Fontevraud, in the diocese of Poitiers, was a double house, men and
women living in two adjacent cloisters; but the monks were little more
than the chaplains and the managers of the monastic revenues, and at
the head of the whole house and Order the founder placed an Abbess as
his successor. The rule of this Order imposed on the female members
absolute silence except in the chapter-house.
[Sidenote: Cluniac Congregation.]
The foundation of these Orders, greater or less, did not exhaust the
impetus in favour of monasticism. Single houses and smaller Orders
were founded during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, of which
many attained a merely local importance. The common feature of the
great Orders was that each of them formed a Congregation, that is to
say, an aggregate of numerous houses scattered over many lands, but
following the same rule and acknowledging some sort of allegiance to
the original home of the Order. The invention of this model was due to
Cluny, although even among the Cluniacs the organisation of the
Congregation, with its system of visiting inspectors who reported on
the condition of the monasteries to an annual Chapter-General meeting
at Cluny, was not completed until the thirteenth century. From the
first, however, the Abbot of Cluny was a despot; with the exception of
the heads of some monasteries which became affiliated to the Order he
was the only abbot, the ruler of the Cluniac house being merely a
prior. All the early abbots were men of mark, who were afterwards
canonised by the Church. The fourth abbot refused the Papacy; but
Gregory VII, Urban II, and Pascal II were all Cluniac monks. The real
greatness of the Order was due to its fifth and sixth abbots, Odilo
who ruled from 994 to 1049, and Hugh who held the reins of office for
an even longer period (1049-1109); while the fame of the Order
culminated under Peter the Venerable, the contemporary of St. Bernard.
[Sidenote: Its decay.]
But the history of the abbot who came between Hugh and Peter shows the
strange vicissitudes to which even the greatest monasteries might be
subjected. Pontius was godson of Pope Pascal II, who sent to the newly
elected abbot his own dalmatic. Calixtus II visited Cluny, and while
reaffirming the privileges granted by his predecessors, such as the
freedom of Cluniac houses from visitation by the local bishop, he made
the Abbot of Cluny _ex officio_ a Cardinal of the Roman Church,
and allowed that when the rest of the land was under an interdict the
monks of Cluny might celebrate Mass within the closed doors of their
chapels. But as a consequence of these distinctions Pontius' conduct
became so unbearable as to cause loud complaints from ecclesiastics of
every rank. Ultimately the Pope intervened and persuaded Pontius to
resign the abbacy and to make a pilgrimage to Palestine. Meanwhile
another abbot was appointed. But Pontius returned, gathered an armed
band, and got forcible possession of Cluny, which he proceeded to
despoil. Again the Pope, Honorius II, interfered, and Pontius was
disposed of.
[Sidenote: Criticism of St. Bernard.]
But such an episode was only too characteristic of the decay which
seemed inevitably to fall on each of the monastic Orders. The wealth
and privileges of Cluny made its failure all the more conspicuous. A
few years after the expulsion of Pontius, St. Bernard wrote to the
Abbot of the Cluniac house of St. Thierry a so-called apology, which,
while professing a great regard for the Cluniacs Order and pretending
to criticise the deficiencies of his own Cistercians, is in reality a
scathing attack upon the lapse of the former from the Benedictine
rule. He attacks their neglect of manual work and of the rule of
silence; their elaborate cookery and nice taste in wines; their
interest in the cut and material of their clothes and the luxury of
their bed coverlets: the extravagance of the furniture in their
chapels, and even the grotesque architecture of their buildings. He
especially censures the magnificent state in which the abbots live and
with which they travel about, and he declares himself emphatically
against that exemption of monasteries from episcopal control which was
one of the most prized privileges of the Cluniac Order. Something may
perhaps be allowed for exaggeration in this attack; but that there was
no serious overstatement is clear from the letters written some years
later by Peter the Venerable to St. Bernard, in answer to the
accusations made by the Cistercians in general. He justifies the
departure from the strict Benedictine rule partly on the ground of its
severity, partly because of its unsuitability to the climate; but his
defence clearly shows how far, even under so admirable a ruler, the
Cluniacs had fallen away from the monastic ideal.
[Sidenote: Cistercians.]
The Cistercian Order, no less than the Orders already mentioned, owed
its origin to the desire to revive the primitive monastic rule from
which the Cluniacs had fallen away. The wonderful success which it met
with made it the chief rival of that Order. The parent monastery of
Citeaux, near Dijon, was founded by Robert of Molesme in 1098 under
the patronage of the Duke of Burgundy. But the monks kept the rule of
St. Benedict in the strictest manner, and their numbers remained
small. In 1113, however, they were joined by the youthful Bernard, the
son of a Burgundian knight, together with about thirty friends of like
mind, whom he had already collected with a view to the cloister life.
At once expansion became not only possible but necessary, and the
abbot of the day, Stephen Harding, by birth an Englishman from
Sherborne in Dorsetshire, sent out four colonies in succession, which
founded the abbeys of La Ferte (1113), Pontigny (1114), Clairvaux and
Morimond (1115). The first general chapter of the Order was held in
1116: the scheme of organisation drawn up by Stephen Harding was
embodied in _Carta Caritatis_, the Charter of Love, and received
the papal sanction in 1119. By the middle of the century (1151) more
than five hundred monasteries were represented at the general chapter,
and despite the resolution to admit no more houses, the number
continued to increase until the whole Order must have contained
upwards of two thousand.
[Sidenote: Mode of life.]
The entire organisation of the Cistercian Order made it a strong
contrast to the Cluniacs, both in the mode of life of its members and
in the method of government. The Cluniacs had become wealthy and
luxurious: their black dress, the symbol of humility, had become
rather a mark of hypocrisy. In order to guard against these snares the
Cistercians, to the wrath of the other monastic Orders, adopted a
white habit indicative of the joy which should attend devotion to
God's service. Their monasteries, all dedicated to the Blessed Virgin
Mary, were built in lonely places, where they would have no
opportunity to engage in parochial work. This indeed was strictly
forbidden them as detracting from the contemplative life which should
be the ideal of the Cistercian. For the same reason they were
forbidden to accept gifts of churches or tithes. The monastic
buildings, including the chapel, were to be of the simplest
description, without paintings, sculpture, or stained glass; and the
ritual used at the services was in keeping with this bareness. The
arrangements of the refectory and the dormitory were equally meagre.
Hard manual work, strict silence, and one daily meal gave the inmates
every opportunity of conquering their bodily appetites.
[Sidenote: Organisation.]
The method of government adopted for the Cistercian Order is also a
contrast by imitation of the Cluniac arrangements. It was an essential
point that a Cistercian house should be subject to the bishop of the
diocese in which it was situated. The episcopal leave was asked before
a house was founded, and a Cistercian abbot took an oath of obedience
to the local bishop. The actual organisation of the whole Order may be
described as aristocratic in contrast with the despotism of the Abbot
of Cluny. The Abbot of Citeaux was subject to the visitation and
correction of the abbots of the four daughter houses mentioned above,
while he in turn visited them; and each of them kept a similar
surveillance over the houses which had sprung from their houses. In
addition to this scheme of inspection, an annual general chapter met
at Citeaux. The abbots of all the houses in France, Germany, and Italy
were expected to appear every year; but from remoter lands attendance
was demanded only once in three, four, five, or even seven years.
[Sidenote: Decay.]
The Cistercians certainly wrested the lead of the monastic world from
Cluny, and until the advent of the Friars no other Order rivalled them
in popularity. But no more than any other Order were they exempt from
the evils of popularity. The very deserts in which they placed
themselves for protection, and the agricultural work with which they
occupied their hands, brought them the corrupting wealth; in England
they were the owners of the largest flocks of sheep which produced the
raw material for the staple trade of the country. They accepted
ecclesiastical dignities; they became luxurious and magnificent in
their manner of life; they strove for independence of the
ecclesiastical authorities, until in the middle of the thirteenth
century one of their own abbots quotes against them the saying that
"among the monks of the Cistercian Order whatever is pleasing is
lawful, whatever is lawful is possible, whatever is possible is done."
[Sidenote: Grant of privileges.]
This degeneracy of the monastic Orders was due in no small measure to
the policy of the Papacy. The monasteries, in their desire to shake
themselves free from the jurisdiction of the bishop of the diocese,
appealed to Rome; and the Pope, in pursuit of his policy of
superseding the local authorities, encouraged the monks to regard
themselves as a kind of papal militia. Thus from the time of Gregory
VII, at all events, all kinds of exemptions and privileges were
granted to the monastic communities in general and to the abbots of
the greater houses in particular. Exemption from the visitation of the
local bishop was one of the most frequent grants, until the great
Orders became too powerful to be afraid of any interference. This
carried with it the right of jurisdiction by the abbot and general
chapter over all churches to which the monastic body had the right of
presentation. This was an increasingly serious matter, for pious
donors were constantly bequeathing churches and tithes to favourite
Orders and popular houses, and the abbot attempted with considerable
success to usurp the definitely episcopal authority by instituting the
parish priest. Nor was this the only matter in which the abbot
substituted himself for the bishop. The monastic community might build
a church without any reference to the local ecclesiastical authority,
and the abbot might consecrate it and any altar in it. It is true that
if any monk of the house or secular clergyman serving one of the
churches in the gift of the house desired ordination to any step in
the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the abbot was limited to choosing a
bishop who might be asked to perform the duty; but in the course of
the thirteenth century, in some cases at least, the Popes gave to
certain abbots the privilege of advancing candidates to the minor
Orders. Probably Gregory VII began the grants of insignia which marked
the episcopal office to abbots of important houses. The Abbot of St.
Maximin in Trier certainly obtained from him permission to wear a
mitre and episcopal gloves. Urban II granted to the Abbot of Cluny the
right to appear in a dalmatic with a mitre and episcopal sandals and
gloves.
[Sidenote: Forged claims.]
What could be gained by favour could also be obtained by payment or
claimed by forgery. The expenses of the Roman Curia increased; the
monastic Orders were wealthy. Moreover, the critical faculty was
slightly developed. Certain monasteries became notorious for the
manufacture of documents in their own favour, St. Augustine's at
Canterbury being especially bad offenders; and certain individuals
from time to time supplied such material to all monasteries which
would pay for them; while, finally, in return for well-bestowed gifts,
the Roman Curia was often willing to recognise the authenticity of a
spurious claim.