on the subject; for in 782 the humble wooden buildings made way for a splendid monastery. The church was adorned with marble pillars; there were several costly chapels; and all that belonged to the furniture and to the services was of unusual magnificence." Charlemagne, who had contributed to the expense, exempted the monastery from all taxes, and from the jurisdiction both of bishops and of counts." X Benedict became a man of great note and influence. His name has already come before us, as one of the commissioners employed by Charlemagne to reclaim the adherents of Felix of Urgel;t Louis the Pious, while king of Aquitaine, employed him to reform the monasteries of that country; and the effect of his institutions was widely felt." He collected in two books the monastic rules of the east and of the west; in a third book he added the rules for nunneries; and from the whole he composed a "Harmony of the Rules," in which the precepts of St. Benedict on every subject are illustrated by those of other monastic legislators. In his reforms he was content to enforce the Benedictine system, which experience had shown him to be better suited for general use than the rigours of oriental monachism. In his own practice, he was obliged to abate somewhat of the violence with which he had begun; but his life continued to be strictly ascetic, and he shared with his monks in the labours of ploughing, digging, and reaping. Soon after the accession of Louis to the empire, he resigned the abbacy of Aniane, and removed to a new royal foundation on the bank of the Inda, near Aix-la-Chapelle; and, after having played an important part during the earlier years of his patron's reign, he died at the age of seventy, in 821.b a In England, monachism fell into decay from the earlier part of the eighth century. The monasteries were often invaded and occupied by secular persons, and, although a canon of Cloveshoo was directed against this evil, the terms which are used significantly prove that the council had little hope of being able to suppress it.a Boniface in his letters to Archbishop Cuthbert, and to Ethelbald, 222 DECAY OF MONACHISM IN ENGLAND-NUNNERIES. BOOK III. king of Mercia, complains that the English monasteries are oppressed beyond any others in Christendom; that their privileges are violated, that they are heavily and unjustly taxed, that they are ruined by the expense of entertaining the king and his hunting train; that the monks are forced to labour at the royal buildings and other works. f But much blame is also laid on the communities themselves. The monks are often charged with riotous living and with drunkenness, which Boniface describes as a peculiarly national vice; and the fondness for gay clothing, which was another characteristic of the English, defied all monastic rules. Boniface complains of it to Cuthbert; the council of Cloveshoo censures it in clergy, in monks, and in nuns, denouncing especially in men the affectation of a laical head-dress, and the fashion of adorning the legs with fillets of various colours; the council of Chalchythek desires monks and canons to use the same habit with those of the continent,m "and not dyed with Indian dye, or very costly." But some years later Alcuin is found continuing the complaint against such vanities; and the love of them was not to be overcome." In addition to the causes which have been mentioned-the secular oppression to which the monks were subjected, and their own unwillingness, when the first period of fervour had passed away, to bear the 'restraints of the monastic rule-the introduction of the canonical life contributed to the decline of English monachism. The occupants of religious houses became canons instead of monks; and about the middle of the ninth century the Benedictine order was almost extinct in England." The regulations of this period as to female recluses correspond in general character with those for monks. Abbesses are required to be subject to their bishops; they are censured for interfering with the sacerdotal function by presuming to veil virgins, and to give benedictions and imposition of hands to men-apparently by The cost of entertaining sovereigns was also complained of elsewhere. See Ducange, s. v. Gista. f Ep. 62 (Patrol. lxxxix. 761); Ep. ad Cudberct. c. 11, ap. Bed. ed. Hussey, 353. This passage does not appear in Dr. Giles' edition of Boniface, or in the Patrologia (Ep. 63), but was edited by Spelman from a MS. Dr. Giles gives it in his Anecdota Bedæ, &c.' Lond. 1851, p. 16. Ep. ad Cudb. 10; Conc. Clovesh. c. 21; Lingard, A. S. C. i. 232-3. h C. 9. There are way of ordination to the lower grades of the ministry. frequent complaints of dissolute life in nunneries, and the abbesses themselves are sometimes charged with a share of the guilt. Other canons are directed against the practice of allowing widows to take the veil during the first agitation of their bereavement, as it had been found that such nuns often relapsed into worldly business or gaieties, and endeavoured to secure at once the privileges of the monastic and of the secular life." The Benedictine rule was adapted to the use of female societies; and towards the end of the period the example of Chrodegang's rule led to the institution of canonesses, who lived together under a less rigid code than nuns, and without being obliged to give up their private property. X V. Rites and Usages. (1.) Throughout the West, Latin had from the first been used as the language of Divine service. As it was spoken in all the western provinces of the empire, there was no necessity for translating the liturgy into other tongues; and, after the barbarian conquests, Latin remained as the language of superior civilisation, and especially as that of the clergy, whose ranks were for a long time generally filled from among the Romanized inhabitants." It was the medium by which nations carried on their official intercourse; it alone remained stable, while the dialects of the invaders were in a course of fluctuation and change; and, where new languages were formed on its basis-a process in which the ecclesiastical use of the Latin contributed greatly to secure its predominance the formation was gradual, so that it would have been impossible to fix on any time at which the ancient Roman tongue should have been disused as obsolete.y The closer connexion established with Rome by Pipin and Charlemagne confirmed the use of Latin in the Frankish church. And thus an usage which 9 Capit. A.D. 789, c. 75. E. g. a capitulary of 789 (Pertz, i. 68, c. 3) forbids nuns to write or to send amatory verses (winileudos. See Rettb. i. 452; ii. 695). There are prohibitions of intercourse between monks or clergy and nuns (Rettb. ii. 695). The Council of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 836, states that many nunneries have become lupanaria, and this, in some cases, because the abbesses starved their nuns into temptation (cc. 12-3). Abbesses are ordered to take care that there be not many dark corners in their houses, as originally arose out of circumstances, came at length to be regarded as necessary, and at a later time to be justified by theoretical argument, although confessedly as contrary to the practice of the early church as it appears to be to reason. Charlemagne, however, notwithstanding his attachment to the Roman ritual, combated the growing opinion on this point. "Let no one," it is said in his capitulary at the council of Frankfort, "suppose that God may not be prayed to except in three languages; forasmuch as in every tongue God is worshipped, and man is heard if he ask the things which are right." b C The chanting was now left to the choir, and the people joined only in the Kyrie eleëson. But Charlemagne and others were careful that preaching-which by means of missions regained an importance which it had once appeared likely to lose—should be frequent, and in the vulgar tongue. His measures for the instruction of the people in the Creed and the Lord's Prayer have been noticed in a former chapter. e d In England, Latin was employed as the ritual language, not only by Augustine and his followers, but by the Scotch and Irish teachers, who had been accustomed to it in their native churches.f The Epistle and Gospel, however, were read in the vernacular tongue, and in it sermons were delivered." The Scotch or Irish Neand. v. 175. Fleury (Disc. ii. 23) and Dr. Lingard (A. S. C. i. 308) allege, in favour of Latin service, that, but for the necessity of learning the language for this purpose, the clergy of the dark ages would have altogether neglected it, and consequently would have allowed the remains both of pagan and of Christian antiquity to perish. But this argument from a supposed result, whatever it may be worth in itself, has obviously nothing to do with the justification of using an unknown tongue in service-much less of retaining it, when the dark ages were at an end. alias omnes ad laudem et gloriam e Giesel. ii. 279; Rettb. ii. 779. There is a curious passage in the 27th canon of Cloveshoo, as to those who sing without understanding the wordsexhorting them to suit their own thoughts and desires to them. See Johnson's note, i. 259. d Conc. Arel. A.D. 813, c. 10, &c.; Rettberg, ii. 772-4. See above, p. 146. Such sermons of the time as remain are Latin; but they were either the originals or translations of the German or "rustic Roman," which was preached to the people. Rettb. i. 775-7. See p. 145. f Johnson, I. xiii.-xiv.; Lingard, A. S. C. i. 302. Lingard, i. 307-8. liturgy was suppressed by the council of Cloveshoo in those parts of southern England where it had before been used; but, notwithstanding the influence of Wilfrid, it kept possession of the church of York until the time of Alcuin, who is found recommending that it should be abandoned. It would, however, seem that, in the adaptation of the Roman ritual for England, some use was made of that license of selection from other quarters which had been granted by Gregory to Augustine.k In the East, Greek had been the usual language of the Church, and continued to be so under the Mahometan rule, where Arabic was used for the ordinary business of life. The Monophysites of Egypt, however, employed the Coptic in their service, and the Nestorians the Syriac." (2.) The use of organs was now brought into the service of the Latin church. The earliest mention of such instruments (as distinguished from the ancient hydraulic organ, of which the invention is ascribed to Archimedes ") is perhaps in a passage of St. Augustine. Venantius Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers about the year 600, compares the voices of boys and men in a choir to the smaller and the larger pipes of an organ respectively, but does not speak of the instrument itself as used in churches; so that his words are not inconsistent with the opinion which ascribes the introduction of organs into churches to Pope Vitalian (A.D. 657-672.) It appears from the testimony of Aldhelm that they were known in England at the beginning of the eighth century; but it would seem that, after the age of Venantius, the organ had again become a novelty to the Franks when one was sent by Constantine Copronymus as a present to Pipin in 757. The St. Gall biographer of Charlemagne tells us that a similar instrument, emulating at once the roar of thunder and the sweetness of the h Cc. 13, 15 (A.D. 747). des-Prés, at Paris, had an organ in the time of Venantius; but it will be seen i Ep. 171, ad Symeonem. Lingard, A. S. C. i. 294-5. (See that this is a mistake. above, p. 18.) m Fleury, Disc. ii. 7. n Plin. Hist. Nat. vii. 38; Tertull. de Anima, 14; Claudian. de Consul. Mall. Theod. 315. See Ducange, s. v. Organum. Enarr. in Psalm. lvi. 16; cf. Isid. Hispal. Etymol. ii. 21. P Hic puer exiguis attemperat organa cannis Inde senex largam ructat ab ore tubam." Miscellanea, ii. 13 (Patrol, lxxxviii.). This seems to be the passage to which M. de Montalembert refers (ii. 291) as proving that the church of St. Germain "Ut quidam volunt." Platina, 96. Aldh. de Laudibus Virginum (Patrol. lxxxix. 240); Turner, Hist. Anglos. iii. 457-8; Lingard, A. S. C. ii. 375-6. Einhard, A.d, 757. The author of the article Organ in the Encyclopædia Britannica' (xvi. 709) supposes that the word organa here may mean "various musical instruments." But there is no ground for seeking so to explain it, more especially as the best MSS., ac cording to Pertz, read “ organum." Q |