Chapter LV: Section 3: The Monastic Orders

Monastic orders, though not by any means an invention of the Middle Ages, may yet fairly be said to have attained their height, both of prosperity and of usefulness, during this period of Church History. [Sidenote: Early rise of monasticism.] We may trace the origin of Christian monastic life to very early times, when persecution drove many Christians to a life of loneliness and privation in desert places. The mode of life thus begun from necessity was afterwards continued from choice, and in the hope of more complete self-devotion to God's service; and the solitary hermits and anchorites of primitive ages became the forerunners of an elaborate system of religious communities of men and women.

[Sidenote: Later influences brought to bear on it.]

St. Basil, in the fourth century, brought monasticism into a more definite form, and St. Athanasius during the same century introduced it into Europe from the East. In the West the religious life spread and flourished under the fostering care of such men as St. Augustine and St. Gregory the Great, whilst by St. Benedict in the sixth century it was developed into the famous Benedictine rule, to which, with few exceptions, all the European monasteries conformed, and which was the parent of various minor orders or subdivisions[1].

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[Sidenote: Beneficial results of monasticism.]

It is not easy to estimate the vast amount of good which the labours of the Benedictine monks conferred on the Church of the Middle Ages, good which has left many traces to the present day. Not only did they provide in a vast number of instances for the spiritual wants of the parishes in and near which they lived, as well as for the education of the young, both rich and poor, but they were also the philosophers, the authors, the artists, and the physicians, nay, even the farmers and the mechanics of Mediaeval times. They built cathedrals and churches, made roads and bridges, copied books when writing stood in the place of printing, and were in general the props and pioneers of civilization. Amongst the very large number of men who embraced the monastic life, it is no marvel that some were not all they professed to be, or that occasional causes for scandal arose, but the popular idea of the universal corruption of the inhabitants of the monasteries is unsupported by facts, and much of what helped to give rise to this false notion is traceable to the doings of the mendicant or preaching friars. These begging orders were offshoots from the regulars, and were but too often very unworthy representatives of the parent stock[2].