Lewis Sergeant

“ Most of the brotherhoods originating in the thirteenth century seem to have owed their institution to the revival of religious fervour by the crusades or otherwise, and to a spirit of moral innovation due to the plethoric abuses of many Benedictine houses. It is not clear that any other Order had the subtlety of purpose which undoubtedly belonged to the Dominicans, though many of the Franciscans were evidently made of the same stuff, and were equally intellectual and highly-trained men. ”

“ For the natural and necessary development of one of the chief factors of pure Christianity was seen to be in direct conflict with the teaching and practice of the Papacy. If the Spiritual Franciscans were right, the Pope, the superior clergy, the monks, the Dominicans themselves, were all unapostolic, not to say anti-Christian. ”

“ With the accumulation of wealth and privileges, it was inevitable that abuses and corruptions should find their way into the monasteries, and that an intense jealousy should be aroused against these privileged communities, both amongst the secular clergy and amongst the people at large. The unquestioned annals of the time show that there was ample ground for the protests raised on all hands against the immunities as well as the morals of the monks. ”

“ It is not to be wondered at that the secular qlergy, the hierarchy, and even the universities remonstrated against the privileges and favours which Rome continued to shower upon her new missionaries.
The doctrine of poverty was an essential part of the constitution of St. Francis. When the Franciscans began to hold houses and lands of their own, to live like Benedictine monks in their convents, and to relax their apostolical fervour as well as their evangelical poverty, they ceased to fulfil the purposes for which they were founded. ”

“ The Benedictines were so widely spread, so wealthy, and so powerful in the social relations which they maintained with the laity, that if they had continued to bring a balance of advantage to the Church and its rulers there would have been no need for the institution of new Orders. ”

“ From the earliest systematic introduction of Christianity into England the Benedictines played an active part in the conversion of the people. They accumulated vast wealth, and secured for themselves a strong vantage-ground by the establishment of abbeys and monasteries. ”

“ Both set the stamp of their vigorous personality upon many succeeding ages; and the brotherhoods which they founded have done as much as any other single cause to determine the character of their Church in its relations with the world. It is in the ideas which underlie their institutions that the contrast becomes marked and significant. ”

“ The Benedictine monasteries, brotherhoods and sisterhoods alike, were in the first place essentially refuges from the world. In the case of Benedict himself, and of his immediate followers, the refuge was sought not only against a turbulent and vicious world, but also against the formal and unsatisfying character of the teaching and worship of the day. The English monasteries retained to some extent their specially defensive and social features; men and women resorted to them in order to live a peaceful, regular, and reasonably holy life ”

“ No one who wishes to bring that picture clearly before his mind can afford to leave out of sight the striking figures of the monks and friars by whom the path of the earlier and later Reformers was beset. Still less could the career of Wyclif be appreciated by one who has not made himself in some degree familiar with the Schoolmen whose teaching Wyclif imbibed at Oxford, and whose progressive ideas and ardent love of truth he interpreted to the humblest of his fellow-countrymen. ”

“ The general contempt into which so many worldly, idle, and vicious monks had fallen in every country could not fail to weaken the hold of religion on the popular mind. Innocent III. and his successors appear to have been convinced that a crusade in Christendom was quite as necessary as a crusade against the avowed infidels, and that the most effective weapons for the new crusaders would be those of apostolic poverty and fervour. Nor was it only, or even mainly, as a corrective against the corruption of the monks that the Mendicant Friars were sent forth. ”

“ A clergyman of the nineteenth century does not frequent ale-houses, attend cock-fights and boxing-matches, or rule the roost at boisterous convivialities. He does not even hunt with a good conscience, and if he dices or plays cards he does not indulge the taste in a mixed company, or in places of public resort. All these things were done freely and openly by jovial monks and seculars in the fourteenth century. ”

“ The abounding charity of the monastic bodies has never been denied, and that something less than justice has been done to their average and relative morality is at once a natural supposition and capable of proof. ”

“ And it is further stated that in the course of a few years he had as many as five thousand friars at his disposal, who had been moved by his example to similar acts of renunciation. In any case it is certain that the Dominicans and Franciscans were, and continued to be recruited by, picked men, socially and intellectually on a level with the men whom they would meet at Oxford and Cambridge. And of course they would not be long in England before the main body of their members were drawn from the university students, although the general direction of the Orders came from Rome. ”

“ A century before the birth of Wyclif, the monks were confronted with dangerous rivals, who, whilst they began by carrying back the minds of men to the earlier models of ascetic discipline, with marvellous promptitude imitated and surpassed the evil examples of their predecessors. ”