THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 275
The Authentic ‘Rule of St. Augustine’ and Other Monastic Traditions
18.7. The Authentic ‘Rule of St. Augustine’ and Other Monastic Traditions
It was in the form initiated by Eusebius at Vercelli that the monastic life was introduced into Africa by St Augustine on his return from Italy in 388. In 391 he was ordained presbyter at Hippo and established a community of clerics living together according to rule; and when in 396 he became bishop of Hippo, he continued to follow the same manner of life along with his clerics. Several bishops went forth from this community to other sees, and in most cases they established similar monasteries of clerics in their episcopal cities. This union of the clerical and monastic lives was widely prevalent in Africa, and it became the exemplar both of the institution of secular canons in the Carolingian reform, and of that of canons regular, or Augustinian canons, in the Hildebrandine.
Monasteries of the type normal in those days also arose in Africa. In the times of Tertullian and Cyprian veiled virgins were recognised; but it is doubtful whether they had developed into a proper monastic system before St Augustine's time. During his episcopate there certainly were many nunneries, one being presided over by his sister; and his Letter 211 — the only authentic "Rule of St Augustine" — was written for the guidance of a nunnery. Thus in the early years of the fifth century monachism was strong and flourishing in the African Church.
The beginnings of Spanish monachism are obscure, and the records scanty. The first reference is a canon of the Council of Zaragoza in 380, forbidding clerics to become monks; this shews that the monastic institute must by that date have spread considerably in Spain; but there seems to be no extant evidence of the existence of a monastery in Spain till the beginning of the sixth century. There is a tradition that then one Donatus carried monasticism from Africa into Spain; but the names to be associated with early Spanish monachism are Martin, bishop of Braga, a Pannonian and the apostle of the Arian Sueves, who died in 580, and Fructuosus, also bishop of Braga, about a century later. The latter was the great organiser and propagator of monachism in the Peninsula, establishing several monasteries and writing two rules for their guidance.
It is chiefly from these rules that we get glimpses of the earlier Spanish monachism. It seems to have been a common practice for a man to call his house a "monastery," and to live in it with his wife, children and servants: against this abuse, and others, St Pructuosus legislates. One feature of his Rule is unique : it contains a pact between the abbot and monks, whereby the latter bind themselves to the performance of the duties of the monastic life under the abbot, and empower him to inflict specified punishments for certain offences; and on the other hand reserve to themselves, in case the abbot should act in an arbitrary or tyrannical way, the right of appeal to other abbots or to the bishop.
St Fructuosus lived a century after St Benedict's death; but throughout the Gothic period there is no trace of Benedictine monachism in Spain. In the extant rules of Spanish origin — those of Leander, of Isidore, and of Fructuosus — it is possible to discern certain reminiscences which betray a knowledge of the Benedictine Rule; b ut Mabillon greatly exaggerates their significance. These rules are in no sense declarations or commentaries on St Benedict's, and Spanish monachism was no't at all Benedictine before the time of the Christian Reconquest. Early Spanish monachism was indigenous, and it retained its individuality till the fall of the Gothic kingdom. Our only glimpses of it have to be obtained through these later rules, and so it has been necessary to carry our view forward beyond the strict limits of this survey. It may be doubted whether monasteries were numerous in the Gothic period; the Councils of Toledo throughout the seventh century used to be attended by fifty or sixty bishops; but there were never more than ten abbots present, and often only six, or five, or four.
We have little information concerning the origins of monachism in the Keltic lands, though the system played a prominent part in the Christianising of most of them. It seems that the earliest Keltic monasteries were missionary stations, closely connected with the tribal system. St Patrick, who had passed some years as a monk in Lerins, built up the Irish Church in large measure on a monastic framework, and this initial tendency became more and more accentuated, till the bishops came to be subordinated to the abbots of the great monasteries. Our first definite knowledge of an organised cenobitical life in Ireland comes to us from the sixth century, during the course of which several great monasteries were established in various parts of the island, some of them counting more than a thousand monks
But any full knowledge of early Irish monachism has to be gathered, not on Irish soil, but from the documents connected with St Columba, who towards the end of the sixth century established a great monastery in the island of lona or Hy, the missionary influence whereof spread over southern Scotland and northern England; and from the documents connected with St Columbanus, who early in the seventh century founded a number of Irish monasteries in Central Europe. St Columbanus’s Rule is the only Irish monastic rule, properly so called, that has come down, to us from the early period of Irish monachism: it was not composed in Ireland, but undoubtedly it embodies the Irish traditions of monasticism and ascetical discipline. Irish cenobitical life as seen in these documents, was one of extreme rigor and austerity.
At all times the eremitical life had a great vogue in Keltic monachism; and in spite of all difficulties of climate, the Irish hermits successfully rivalled in their extraordinary penances and austerities and vigils, the hermits of Egypt, and even those of Syria In Ireland, where the population continued purely Keltic, the Irish rules and Irish monasticism maintained themselves throughout the Middle Ages; but in England and on the Continent, where they came into contact with populations Teutonic or teutonised, they succumbed before the Roman Rule of St Benedict.
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