The evening ended with the service of compline, which being concluded, the brethren all retired to rest in the dormitory until the midnight bell for mattins and lauds summoned them to begin the round again.

occupations.

The bare record of this customary routine suggests a life of severe monotony, which we are apt to imagine must have become wearisome to many, if not intolerable. It Variety of interests and may have been so in some instances, but probably not in many. For the majority of monks in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were either men of deep and genuine devotion, or so weary of the world that security and peace were all they asked for. And, moreover, the monk's life, especially in a large house, was by no means devoid of its excitements and diversions. Some of the brethren accompanied the abbot when he went on progress to visit the estates; the condition of the lands, the buildings, and the tenants would supply interesting topics for discussion on their return. The travellers whom they entertained at the monastery brought news and gossip from various parts of the world. Then there were often exciting disputes, or lawsuits, either with the bishop about his right of visitation, or with the burghers of the town which had grown up round the monastery about tolls, dues, and rights claimed by the monastery as the original owner of the ground on which the town was built. These disputes frequently involved journeys of some of the brethren to Rome. There was the daily interest of the chapter-meeting, with its disclosures of peccadillos or worse offences, for which penances had to be inflicted, perhaps a flogging administered. Often there was the interest of watching the progress of some addition to the church or the conventual buildings, or the elaboration of some fine piece of carving, or metal-work, or book-illuminating. The cultivation of the gardens was a healthful recreation, and the game of bowls was in some houses an allowable pastime. The periodical bleeding also, which was for centuries a regular practice considered essential to health, was a delightful time of relaxation to the monk; then, for a few days, he was exempted from the daily services in the church, he was allowed various comforts and food not permitted at other times, and more freedom of conversation with his brethren.

XIV

THE MILITARY ORDERS

271

There were two religious Orders which owed their origin to the Crusading movement. The "Knights Hospitallers," instituted in 1092, ministered to the needs of pil- Knights grims who were disabled by illness, or rendered Hospitallers and Templars. destitute by the expenses of their journey, or by robbery on the way.

The "Knights Templars," so called because their earliest abode was in rooms near the Temple at Jerusalem, were founded in 1118 to guard the roads traversed by pilgrims. Both Orders were for many years held in such esteem and reverence that they received rich gifts of lands from royal and noble benefactors in all parts of Christendom. In England the chief house of the Knights Hospitallers was established in 1100 near Clerkenwell. The first house of the Templars was somewhere in Holborn, whence it was transferred in 1185 to the New Temple, as it was called, in Fleet Street, where the church still abides, a beautiful and interesting specimen of the architecture of the period. Both Orders had small houses, commanderies or preceptories, as they were called, on their estates, which were scattered over England. The rule adopted by these two Orders, so far as it was compatible with their military duties, was that of the Austin Canons. Knights Hospitallers, or of St. John of Jerusalem, wore a black habit with a white cross upon the left shoulder; the Templars wore a white habit with a red cross. Both these Orders in their best days did noble military service.

The

Hospitals of various kinds, some being of the nature of inns for pilgrims and travellers, others asylums for the aged and impotent, others infirmaries for the sick, were Hospitals. established during this period in such abundance in all parts of the country that it would be impossible to enumerate or describe a quarter of them within the limits of this work. Perhaps none has survived with so little change to the present day as the Hospital of St. Cross, the noble foundation of the great Bishop of Winchester, Henry of Blois, established in the green meadow beside the clear stream of the swift-flowing Itchen, a mile south of Winchester, to be the home in perpetuity of thirteen poor men, too aged and feeble to work. The original charter was granted in 1136, and still the thirteen bedesmen worship daily in the stately church

which, in its main substance, abides as it was built in the time of Bishop Henry; still they wear the old black cloak significant of the rule of St. Austin, adorned on the breast with the silver croix pattée dating from the days when the hospital was placed by the founder under the care of the Knights Hospitallers. All hospitals in these times were more or less of the nature of religious houses. The foundation, however small, always included a church or chapel for the inmates, and the whole institution was generally placed under the management of a master or prior, with a few chaplains or canons, who lived in accordance with some rule, most frequently that of the Augustinians, or some modification of it.

Beneficial

Even such a slight survey as it has been possible to give here of the religious Orders established in England in the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries may influence of help the reader to form an adequate idea of their monasteries. influence and power. They were large landowners, and this was in many ways a benefit to the people. The monks were continually resident, whereas the bishops and many of the lay proprietors were frequently called away from their estates on public affairs, and so hindered from looking closely after the welfare of their tenants. In districts where the towns were rare and small, the monastic houses must have been inestimable boons, not only to the traveller, who could obtain food and shelter there, but to the resident poor in the neighbourhood. The condition of the people in many a secluded village or hamlet would have been wretched and barbarous in the extreme but for some monastic house which had the means of remunerating labour and relieving distress. And although there were disadvantages in the appropriation of parish churches to monastic communities, their vicars being often underpaid and only occasional visitors, until the bishops insisted upon residence and an adequate stipend; yet on the other hand the secular priest living in solitude on a remote country benefice had more temptations to sink into ignorance and indolence, if not vice, than the member of a brotherhood, who was responsible to it for the discharge of his trust, and might from time to time be refreshed by a visit to the monastic house, or by visitors from it.

XIV

MONASTICISM

273

AUTHORITIES.-Dugdale's Monasticon; "Decreta pro ordine Sti. Benedicti," in Lanfranc's Works, ed. Giles; Chronicle of Battle Abbey; Freeman's Norm. Cong., vol. iv. p. 408 seq. On the early history of Lewes Priory see a careful paper derived from original documents, some of which are not in Dugdale, by W. H. Blaauw, in vol. ii. of the Sussex Archæolog. Journal; Monuments primitifs de la Règle Cistercienne, by Ph. Guignard, Dijon, 1878, containing the "Rule of St. Benedict," the "Origin of the Cistercian Order" ("Exordium Cisterciensis Cenobii "), and the "Customs" ("Consuetudines "); "Life of St. Stephen Harding," in Lives of Saints, ed. J. H. Newman, Obedientiary Rolls of St. Swithun's, Winchester, ed. Dean Kitchin (Hants Record Society); Accounts of the "Obedientiars" of Abingdon Abbey (Camden Society); Annales Monastici, esp. Waverley, Margan and Meaux (Rolls series); Memorials of Fountains Abbey, 2 vols., ed. J. R. Walbran (Surtees Society); Customs of St. Giles Priory, Barnwell, ed. J. W. Clark, M.A., Cambridge; Magna Vita Sti. Hugonis (Rolls series); Bp. Stubbs's Preface to Epist. Cantuarienses (Rolls series); "The Settlement of the Cistercians in England," Miss A. M. Cooke; The Historical Review, October 1893; Montalembert's Monks of the West, ed. Gasquet, vols. v. and i. Introduction.

T

Norman

bishops.

CHAPTER XV

BISHOPS, CLERGY, FRIARS

THE relation of bishops to the people could not be so close for some time after the Norman Conquest as it had been before that event. The Norman bishop could hardly be the spiritual father of his flock in the same degree as his English predecessor; not only because he was a foreigner, but also because he was a great baron of the realm, subject to feudal obligations, often absent from his diocese in attendance on the king, or employed on the business of the State. And when he was in his diocese he resided less in his country manor-houses than in some strong castle, within or hard by the fortified city of his see, especially after the removal of sees from villages to towns. It is significant of the altered relation that after the Norman Conquest the tribal designation of the bishop is dropped. He is no longer called after the name of the people,-bishop of the West Saxons, South Saxons, Sumorsetan, or the like, but by the name of the city in which his see was fixed.

On the other hand, the moral and intellectual standard of the Norman bishops, speaking generally, was higher than that of their English predecessors.1 William was careful and conscientious in his appointments. Lanfranc was of course an exceptional man, combining in a rare degree legal and scholastic learning with consummate practical wisdom and strict integrity. But many of the other prelates appointed in the reign of the Conqueror were men of great ability and learning, and all were, to say the least, of respectable character.

1 On the character of English bishops in the first half of the eleventh century, see vol. i. pp. 390, 391.