Inmates. Monastic Learning.
After a monk has taken the great vow "renouncing my parents, my
brothers, my friends, my possessions, and the vain and empty glory of
this world ... and renouncing also my own will for the will of God,
and accepting all the hardships of the monastic life," how is he to
be employed? For, as St. Benedict with great sagacity has written,
"_Idleness is the enemy of the soul_." The ancient hermits devoted
their entire time to contemplation, hoping for visions of angels; but
it is recorded too often that they had only visions of the devil.
"Therefore," continues the holy Rule, "at fixed times the brothers
ought to be employed with manual labor, and again at fixed times in
sacred reading." Thus, in general, the monks of St. Aliquis are busied
with two great things, _work_ in the fields and _study_, with the
copying or actual writing of profitable books.
[Sidenote: Bequests to Monasteries]
The monastery being passing rich, its administration constitutes a
great worldly care. Ever since the institution came into existence,
about the time that Heribert rendered the region fairly safe by
erecting his fortress, the monks have been adding to their property.
Church foundations never die. Mortmain prevents them from crumbling.
Income is obtainable from many sources, but probably the best lands
have come to the abbey through the reception of new members. Few
novices are received unless they make a grant of their entire
possessions to the institution, and, while most younger sons and
peasants have little enough to give, every now and then the abbey
receives a person of considerable wealth. Besides such acquisitions,
there is no better way for laymen to cancel arrears with the recording
angel than by gifts of land or money to an abbey. Some of these gifts
come during lifetime, sometimes on one's deathbed. Noblemen complain
that the monks thus defraud them of their possessions. "When a man lies
down to die," bewails the epic poem "Hervis de Metz," "he thinks not of
his sons. He summons the black monks of St. Benedict and gives them his
lands, his revenues, his ovens, and his mills. The men of this age are
impoverished and the clerics daily grow richer." Often, too, a person
when on his deathbed will actually "take the habit" and be enrolled as
a monk, thus, of course, conveying to the abbey all his possessions.
This, we are told, is "the sweetest way for a human conscience to
settle its case with God."
Property thus comes to an abbey from every direction. No gifts are
refused as "tainted money." Giving to Heaven is invariably a pious
deed, and ordinarily justifies whatever oblique means were used to
get the donation. So the monks of St. Aliquis have been accumulating
tillage lands, meadows, vineyards, and often the rentals for lands held
by others. These rentals are payable in wheat, barley, oats, cattle and
also in pasture rights. Some donations are given unconditionally, some
strictly on condition that the income be used in providing alms for the
poor, lodgings and comforts for the sick, or saying special masses for
the repose of the soul of the benefactor. Abbot Victor has therefore to
supervise many farms, forests, mills, etc., scattered for many miles
about. He also receives the tithe (church tax) for five or six parish
churches in the region, on condition that he appoint their priests and
support them out of part of this income.
For these lands the abbot owes feudal service, and over them he
exercises feudal suzerainty, possessing, therefore, an overlord and
also vassals, just as did the nobles who held these same fiefs before
they passed to the abbey. He is, accordingly, a regular seigneur,
receiving and doing homage, bound to do justice to his vassals, and
able to call them to arms whenever the secular need arises. By church
law he cannot, of course, lead them in person to battle, but has to
accept Conon as his advocate; and it is as advocate (or, as called
elsewhere, _vidame_) of the abbey of St. Aliquis, able to lead its
numerous retainers into the field and act in military matters as the
abbot's very self-sufficient lieutenant and champion, that the baron
owes much of his own importance.[96] For example, he gets one third
of all the fees payable to the abbey for enforcing justice among its
dependents, and when he is himself in a feud he will sometimes attempt
to call out the abbot's vassals to follow his personal banner, even if
the quarrel is of not the least concern to the monks.
Nevertheless, such an overpowerful champion is usually necessary to
a monastery. Despite the fear of excommunication, unscrupulous lords
frequently seize upon abbey lands or even pillage the sacred buildings,
trusting to smooth over matters later by a gift or a pilgrimage. The
temptation presented by a rich, helpless monastery is sometimes almost
irresistible.
[Sidenote: Monastic Industries and Almsgiving]
In nonmilitary matters, however, the monks control everything. They
direct the agriculture of hundreds of peasants. They maintain real
industries, manufacturing far more in the way of church ornaments,
vestments, elegant woolen tapestries, elaborate book covers, musical
instruments, enameled reliquaries, as well as carvings in wood, bronze,
and silver, than they can possibly use for their own church. All this
surplus is sold, and the third prior has just returned from Pontdebois
to report his success in disposing of a fine bishop's throne, which
Brother Octavian, who has great skill with his chisel, has spent three
whole years in making. The monks also maintain a school primarily for
lads who expect to become clerics, but which is open also to the sons
of nobles, and, indeed, of such peasants as can see any use in letting
hulking boys who do not expect to enter the Church learn Latin and
struggle with pothooks and hangers.
The monks, too, have another great care and expense--the distribution
of alms, even more lavishly than at the castle. The porter is bound
always to keep small loaves of bread in his lodge, ready to give to the
itinerant poor. Every night swarms of travelers, high and low, have to
be lodged and fed by the guest master, with none turned away unless he
demands quarters a second night--when questions will be asked.[97] In
bad years the monasteries are somehow expected to feed the wretched by
thousands. All this means a great drain upon the income, even if the
monks themselves live sparely.
There is often another heavy demand made on the abbot's revenues.
Having so many and such varied parcels of land, he is almost always
involved in costly lawsuits--with rival church establishments claiming
the property, with the heirs of donors who refuse to give up their
expected heritages, with creditors or debtors in the abbey's commercial
transactions and with self-seeking neighboring seigneurs. "He who
has land has trouble" is an old proverb to which Victor cheerfully
subscribes. He is not so litigious as many abbots; but his time seems
consumed with carnal matters which profit not the soul.
The activities in a large, well-ordered monastery are ample enough to
give scope to the individual genius of about all the brethren, although
every abbey is likely to have its own special interests. Some South
French monasteries make and export rare cordials and healing drugs.
Others boast of their horticulture, the breeding of cattle, or the
manufacture of various kinds of elegant articles, as already noted.
However, the mere cultivation of the fields, where the brethren toil
side by side with the lay helpers, although also acting as overseers,
consumes the energies of much of the convent. The remainder of the time
of most monks is devoted to forms of learning. The great establishment
of Cluny sets the proper example. There every brother, at least while
he is young, must practice humility by digging, pulling weeds, shelling
beans, and making bread. But this work is largely for discipline.[98]
If he has the least inclination he will soon be encouraged to devote
himself to copying manuscripts, studying books, perfecting himself in
Latin, and finally, in actually writing original Latin works himself.
[Sidenote: Manuscript Copying and Study]
All day long, save at the times for chanting the offices, the older
brethren and many of the younger are in the little alcoves round the
cloister, conning or copying huge volumes of parchment or vellum,
or whispering together over some learned problem. All the formal
literature is in Latin. It was, until recently, something of a disgrace
to prove oneself unclerkly by using the vulgar tongue, "Romance" being
accounted fit only for worldly noblemen and jongleurs.[99]
[Illustration: A PIECE OF FURNITURE SERVING AS A SEAT AND A READING DESK
Restored by Viollet-Le-Duc from a thirteenth-century manuscript. At
the left of the writing table is placed an inkstand; near the seat is
a circular lectern which holds the chandelier and can be turned at the
will of the reader.]
At St. Aliquis, as in every convent, monks still are wont to argue
among themselves, "How far is it safe to study pagan rather than
Christian writers?" Undoubtedly Horace, Ovid, and Livy are a delight
to any student who can read Latin. What wealth of new ideas! What
marvelous vigor of language! What vistas of a strange, wonderful world
are opened to the imagination! Unfortunately, however, all these
authors died worshiping demons; their souls are in hell, or at least
in limbo, its uppermost and least painful compartment. Did not Pope
Gregory I write to a bishop who was fond of classical studies, "It
behooves not that a mouth consecrated to the praise of God should
open for those of Jupiter"? Did not Odilon, abbot of Cluny, renounce
his beloved Virgil (the most favored of all heathen writers) after a
warning dream, beholding therein a wondrous antique vase, which as he
reached to grasp it, proved full of writhing serpents? Nevertheless,
the pagan authors are so seductive that the monks persist in studying
them, although always with a guilty feeling that "stolen waters are
sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant."
In the monastery school advanced instruction is given to the younger
monks, as well as to the very few laymen who have been through the
primary instruction in the _trivium_--grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics
(the art of reasoning) all taught, of course, in Latin. Apt pupils are
then encouraged to continue under one or two monks of superior learning
in the _quadrivium_--astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, and music.
Systematic instruction is hardly ever given in anything else, although
odds and ends of certain other sciences can be absorbed around St.
Aliquis.
[Sidenote: Books of Learning]
The fundamental textbooks are Donatus's grammar for instruction in
Latin, and then for almost everything savoring of real learning, Latin
translations of Master Aristotle. For a long time the monks have had
to content themselves with the logical Works of the famous Grecian,
explaining the processes of argumentation, but by 1200 they can enjoy
the enormous advantage of using Latin versions of the Physics, the
Metaphysics, and the Ethics--the great works of The Master of Those
Who Know (to quote Dante, writing eighty years later). Some of these
books have come directly from the Greek, but others have been distorted
by passing through an Arabic version that in turn has been made over
into Latin. There are also various Arabic commentaries of considerable
value. Curious it doubtless is that Heaven, who has denied salvation
alike to Greek and to Moslem, should suffer unbelievers to possess a
worldly wisdom surpassing that of good Christians, but the Bible truly
says, "The children of this world are in their generation wiser than
the children of light." On all secular matters, indeed, Aristotle is
a final authority. "Thus says Aristotle" is the best way to silence
every hostile argument. Only very rarely can a man hope by his own
cogitations to overthrow the dicta of this wonderful sage of Athens.
A great deal of the monkish student's time is taken up with abstract
problems of philology and logic. Nevertheless, the abbey contains many
parchments widening to one's knowledge of the world. For example, you
can read in Vincent de Beauvais's _Mirror of Nature_ a minute account
of the universe and all things within it. You can learn the astonishing
fact that the world is a kind of globe suspended at the center of the
cosmos. Many other wonderful things are described--as, for example,
lead can be transmuted into gold, and all kinds of wonders which defy
ordinary experience, but which are not to be doubted, since God can,
of course, do anything. Or one can turn to Hugues de St. Victor's
treatise _On Beasts and Other Things_ and learn all about the habits of
animals--concerning how stags can live nine hundred years and how the
dove "with her right eye contemplates herself, and with her left eye
God." There are books also on medicine, parts of which contain sober
wisdom, worthy of attention by the murderous physicians, but elsewhere
giving such directions as that since autumn is "the melancholy season,"
people should then eat more heartily than in summer and should refrain
from love affairs.
As for the more abstract sciences, in music the monks know the four
principal and the four secondary sounds--the _do_, _re_, _mi_, of the
scales, the seven modulations and the five strings of the viol. In
geometry they can, with the aid of a stick, "lying on the ground find
the height of walls and towers." In arithmetic they can multiply and
divide with great facility and keep accounts like a king's treasurer.
In astronomy they understand the motion of the planets and their
qualities--Saturn, which is "proud, wise, and ambitious," and Mars,
"malevolent and bad, provoking strife and battles," and how the sun is
hung in the midst of the planets, three above and three below, and much
more similar wisdom; although one must proceed carefully in astronomy,
for its connection with astrology is close, and from astrology to the
black art is not a long journey.
[Sidenote: Scientific Studies and Chronicle Writing]
The good monks have perhaps made their best progress in botany and
geology. Some of the brethren have gathered collections of curious
minerals, of herbs, and also of dried bird and animal skins; although
the interest seems to be in the healing qualities of various substances
rather than in the nature of the things themselves. Thus it is certain
that figs are good for wounds and broken bones; aloes stops hair from
falling; the root of mandrake will make women love you; and plenty of
sage in a garden somehow protects the owner from premature death. As
for geology, that consists of the collecting and arranging of curious
stones. It is of course settled in Genesis that the world was made in
a very few days. The infidel Avincenna has indeed advanced the theory
that mountains are caused by the upheaval of the earth's crust and by
action of water. One must hesitate, however, about believing this. It
seems hardly compatible with Holy Writ.
On the other hand, the books on animals unhesitatingly tell about
remarkable creatures which are mentioned in Aristotle or in Pliny or
by the Arabs. Unicorns, phoenixes, and dragons are well understood,
likewise sea monsters, as, for example, great krakens, which drag
down ships with their tentacles, sirens or mermaids, and finally "sea
bishops" (probably a kind of seal) which piously "bless" their human
victims before devouring them.
Besides the study of these older books, the monks are writing certain
books themselves. The most important is the great chronicle, begun some
years ago by the learned Brother Emeri. It commences with the creation
of the world and Adam and Eve, tells about the Greeks and Romans and
Charlemagne and his heirs, and then in much greater detail gives the
recent history of the Duchy of Quelqueparte, the happenings at the
abbey, and also much about the barons of St. Aliquis. Emeri is now
dead, but the chronicle is continued from year to year. It is really
a compendium of varied learning. From it, for example, you learn all
about the wars of Julius Cæsar, the Crusades, the great lawsuit of ten
years ago over some of the abbey lands, the feud between Conon and
Foretvert, and how in 1216 a two-headed calf was born on a neighboring
barony, and in 1217 a meteor struck near Pontdebois.
The Latin in this chronicle is, on the whole, very good, sometimes
almost equal to Livy's, and the story is embellished by constant
citations not merely of Virgil and Horace, but of Homer and Plato. One
would suppose from this that the authors were familiar with Greek.
Such, however, is by no means the case. All the quotations from Greek
authors and many of their Latin ones are taken from commonplace books.
Nevertheless, the narrative seems the more elegant for this borrowed
learning. The monks are proud of their chronicle and never fail to
boast how much more complete, accurate, and erudite it is than similar
works compiled at the rival institutions.
When the monks are not actually studying, they are often copying. St.
Aliquis has more than two hundred volumes in its library. Parchment
is very expensive, but very durable. When the abbot sees his way to
procure material for another volume, he is likely to send to some
friendly convent to borrow a book which his monks do not yet possess.
Then some of the most skillful brethren are put to work making a copy,
if possible more beautiful than the original. In from six months to a
year the work will probably be finished, although, if a duplicate is
to be made of a work already on hand, there will be less haste and the
process may extend over years.[100]
Copying is an excellent means of propitiating Heaven. St. Bernard said
emphatically, "Every word which you write is a blow which smites the
devil," and Cassiodorus, much earlier, asserted: "By the exercise of
the mind upon the Holy Scriptures you convey to those who read a kind
of moral instruction. You preach with the hand, converting the hand
into an organ of speech--thus, as it were, fighting the arch-fiend with
pen and ink."
Parchment, we have said, is a costly article. To provide a single book
scores of sheep must die. A new style of writing material, however, is
just coming into vogue. Paper, a substance made of linen cloth, now
is being produced in small quantities in France, although, as usual,
it seems to have been an invention of the Arab Infidels. Some day,
perhaps, paper will become so plentiful and cheap that books can be
multiplied in vast numbers, but as yet practically everything has to
be on parchment, which is certainly far less destructible than paper,
whatever the cost.[101]
[Sidenote: Elegant Manuscripts and Binding]
In the cloister alcoves a dozen copyists are pursuing their task
with infinite patience. Their question is not "how fast?" but "how
well?"--for they are performing "a work unto God." As a rule, they
write their sheets in two columns, making their characters either in
roundish minuscule or in squarer Gothic. The initials are in bright
colors--some with a background of gold. Here and there may be painted
in a brilliant miniature illustration. The work of the best copyists
is beautifully legible. The scribes put their heart and soul into
their productions. They expect the volumes will be memorials to their
faithfulness and piety scores of years after they are departed.
When the sheets are completed, the book is bound in leather much the
same as in other ages, although sometimes the sides are of wood. In
any case, there are likely to be metal clasps and bosses of brass upon
the covers. A few of the most precious volumes are adorned with plates
of silver or carved ivory. So year by year the library grows. It need
not be remarked that every copy is _read_ and _reread_ with devoted
thoroughness. What the learning of the Feudal Age, therefore, lacks in
breadth is somewhat compensated for by intensity. The older and more
studious monks know almost by heart _all_ the facts in their entire
collection. The younger brethren revere them as carrying in their
own heads practically everything significant in the way of worldly
wisdom.[102]
Thus we catch some glimpse of the superficial and material side of a
typical monastic establishment. Into its spiritual and intellectual
atmosphere we cannot find time to penetrate. Our present duty is to
"return to the world" and to examine the oft-mentioned but as yet
unvisited Good Town of Pontdebois.
FOOTNOTES:
[96] Abbots and their advocates were continually having friction over
their respective prerogatives. If Victor and Conon got along in fair
harmony, they were somewhat exceptional both as prelate and as seigneur.
[97] See also p. 319.
[98] A great abbey like Cluny would have so many lay servitors that
it could dispense with manual labor by the monks, save where personal
aptitude was lacking for anything else.
[99] The result was that French was able to develop as a very forceful,
expressive language, unspoiled by pedantry, before many serious books
were written in the vernacular. The same was somewhat true also of
English, German, and other modern tongues.
[100] This would be especially true of copies of the Bible, of which
every abbey would have at least one example; and additional specimens
would be prepared very deliberately with the intention of making the
new work just as beautiful and permanent as possible.
[101] The introduction of paper was, of course, absolutely necessary,
if the invention of printing were to have any real value.
[102] It is perhaps proper to say that Dante (1265-1321), a person, of
course, of remarkable intellect, was able to master the _entire fund_
of learned information and science available in his time. This was not
true of the next great mediæval scholar, Petrarch (1304-71). By his
period the supply of human knowledge had become too vast for any one
brain. Petrarch had to become a specialist.