Royal Monastery of the Escorial

“ After this a nunnery was founded, which in the tenth century became a Benedictine convent.
Ages rolled on, and it grew famous. When destroyed by the French it held as many as 900 monks: a great religious community, wealthy and powerful. But the mighty are fallen. The few remaining monks, more exclusive in their retirement than the great body of their predecessors, have a school attached to the monastery in which much time is given to the study of music. It is going far out of the world for instruction, but Nature herself should come to their aid. ”

“ We are apt to think of cloisters as gloomy, forbidding places, where half frozen monks with blue lips and hair shirts shiver about their religious tasks and wish—if they are human!—they had never been born. Of course, there are such cloisters—but not here in Monreale, where the glorious sunshine bathes all that is left of the monastery King William erected for his Benedictine monks beside the Cathedral. Pleasant cloisters these, warm and blooming and fragrant with ozone and the perfume of the flowers. ”

“ The Escorial reflects the genius of Spain at the period following upon the final emancipation from the sway of the Moors. It is an image, as it were, of the powerful monarch who founded it, and spent so many years of his life in superintending the construction and decoration of the building. The Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo del Escorial is a repository of many of the world’s masterpieces of art, a library of rare and costly manuscripts and volumes, a sumptuous hermitage, a college, and a sanctuary. ”

“ Lawrence a temple of divine magnificence, to his ancestors, a Christian mausoleum; to the Hieronymite recluses an august habitation; and to the world a structure which it can never sufficiently admire.’
In the eyes of the Spanish subjects of Philip, the Real Monasterio, or Real Sitio (Royal Residence) , constituted the ‘eighth wonder of the world.’ Such a magnificent palace had not been seen in Spain since the palmy days of the Moorish potentates of Granada and Cordova. In no sense, however, could the Escorial be likened to the buildings of Morisco genius. ”

“ The shades of evening were falling upon the earth, when a vast, grey edifice of gloomy majesty loomed ghostly in the twilight, resting under the shadows of a darkening mountain, and all alone amidst a region of wild and desolate grandeur. This was the Escorial, the grand convent-palace of Philip II., and the burial-house of the Spanish kings. Such an edifice, almost the vastest in the world, in such a spot, and seen for the first time at such an hour, impressed one with a feeling of wonder and awe. ”

“ France owes the institution of the monastic life to St. Martin, bishop of Tours, in the fourth century; who built the monasteries of Lugugé and Marmontier. The Council of Saragossa, in Spain, anno 380, which condemns the practice of clergymen, who affected to wear the monastical habits, is a proof that there were monks in that kingdom in the fourth century, before St. Donatus went thither out of Africa, with seventy disciples, and founded the monastery of Sirbita. ”

“ It was monastic rather than hierarchical, and a Celtic priest-abbot was a far more important person than a bishop who was not the ruler of an abbey, though in England the bishops were probably always abbots. In founding their sees they sought seclusion rather than good administrative centres, and [Pg 9] the bishop’s monastery was less a place of diocesan government than the headquarters of missionary effort. They had no regular diocesan system, and bishops and clergy ministered where they would. Their monasticism was of a specially ascetic character. ”

“ So the system developed until about the year 1000, when began, in Mercia, a new age of monasteries, not like the old royal abbeys which had mostly been destroyed, but houses that were filled with monks or nuns of the Benedictine order. These competed with the secular clergy in appropriating the endowments of the churches, and a jealousy began between the two systems which blazed continually, with greater or less heat, until the final overthrow of the monasteries by Henry VIII. at the beginning of the sixteenth century. ”

“ The Benedictine monasteries in England were colonised, or, where they were older than the conquest, received new blood from the monasteries of Normandy and France. We have seen that the rule of St Benedict was made for a special monastery: the order was a collection of independent houses which found the rule suitable to their needs. Thus each of the larger English Benedictine monasteries was a separate community, under the jurisdiction of the diocesan bishop, from whose visitations some powerful abbeys, such as St Albans, Evesham and Westminster, eventually obtained exemption. ”

“ Secular chapters were founded in the cathedral priories, and six abbey and priory churches, including Westminster, were raised to the rank of cathedrals. Thus, allowing for the inevitable change of use to which [37] the monastic buildings were put, at Canterbury, Chester, Durham, Ely, Gloucester, Norwich, Peterborough, Rochester, Westminster, Winchester and Worcester, the arrangements of a Benedictine monastery can be studied more or less satisfactorily, and at Bristol, Carlisle and Christ Church, Oxford, those of a house of Austin canons may be fairly well seen. ”

“ Portraits of the fathers of the Monastery are hung in the Upper Prior’s Chamber. The paintings are mostly by minor Spanish artists and Italians who worked at the Escorial. Sanchez Coello’s portrait of Padre Sigüenza, the earliest chronicler of the Monastery, has been copied and hangs here. In an ante-chamber are oil-paintings by Giordano and copies of pictures by Reni, Raphael, and Rubens. The ‘Conception’ is by Francisco Bayeu, a contemporary of Maëlla, who painted frescoes in many of the Castilian churches. Bayeu’s daughter, Josefa, was the wife of the brilliant Goya. ”

“ There was no court or open space within the convent; the only place where its inhabitants could have walked for exercise in the open air was upon the flat terrace of the roof, the deck of this ship of St Peter; for the White Monastery in some respects resembled a dismasted man-of-war, anchored in a sea of burning sand.
In modern times we are not surprised on finding a building erected at an immense expense, in which the architecture of the interior is totally different from that of the exterior. ”

“ The most modern part of the Monastery is to-day in the hands of private owners, but in such a dilapidated condition that it is almost unsafe to venture among its tottering walls. These buildings, erected during a period of the institution’s greatest prosperity, suffered more at the Revolution than the older parts of the Abbey. If the florid eighteenth-century buildings were all removed, they would be little loss to the place from an architectural{168} point of view, for their features strike a discordant note among the simple early Gothic surroundings. ”

“ Only those who live completely isolated from the rest of mankind, as did St. Anthony, are entitled to the former designation, which, in common with the term Monastery, comes from the Greek monos, alone. Consequently, a Religious House is incorrectly described as a Monastery unless each individual within its walls occupies a separate cell, both by night and by day, and never suffers himself to have the least communion with his neighbour. Failing compliance with such a rule, the term Convent, derived from the Latin con, together, and venire, to come, is more fittingly applicable. ”

“ The natural place for the curia was on the west side of the church and cloister, and in Cistercian monasteries, where the site was unencumbered by other buildings, it is usually found in this position. On the other hand, as at Durham and Worcester, where the site was longer from north to south than from east to west, the curia was on the south side of the cloister. Again, where a monastery was founded on the north side of a town, as at Canterbury, Chester and Gloucester, it was convenient that the cloister should be on the north side of the church, where seclusion and quiet were possible. ”

“ Between 1777 and 1780 the old chapel was destroyed, and replaced by a new building designed by Essex, in a style in which, to say the least, there is certainly nothing to remind the modern student of the old hall of the Grey Friars’ Monastery, where for three centuries of stirring national life the Franciscan monks had kept alive, let us hope, something of the mystic tenderness, the brotherly compassion, the fervour of missionary zeal, which they had learnt from their great founder, Saint Francis of Assisi. ”

“ It is now frequently so crowded at high mass that it is difficult for an individual entering it after the commencement of the service to find even standing room. In the meantime the monastery itself, if that is the proper term, was completed—a splendid appearance it presents— and we believe is now fully occupied. ”

“ Monasteries and convents are found in every large city in England, and often enough as one glides through our loveliest shires one sees from the train, nestling in the quiet valleys as in days of old, the severe quadrangular structure of some modern monastery. Any important ecclesiastical function in London attracts numbers of monks in their quaint mediæval costumes. After three long centuries they have started from their graves and are walking amongst us once more. ”

“ It was during the rule of this abbot that one of the most interesting changes was effected in the monastery: the windows until this time had been "stuffed with straw," to keep out the cold and the rain; and, at an immense expense, he had thirty-nine of them adorned with glass, which enterprise gained for him a considerable amount of fame and esteem. Not content with this change in his own monastery, he extended his generosity to other parts, and built a chancel to the church at Oxney. He was confirmed by the king at Winchester, and received the benediction of the Bishop of Lincoln. ”

“ The labourers were the monks themselves, assisted by their neighbours, some of whom were hired, while others gave their day’s work as an investment in the securities of heaven. It is interesting to find that the little company of poor monks, rich in faith, laid out the foun{30}dations of their church upon the great lines on which it stands to-day. Other generations built the chapel of the nine altars and raised the noble tower, but the vast nave with its transepts was both planned and completed by the men who began the monastery. ”

“ Turning to the right hand by a dark path a man reaches broad daylight, and the principal door of the monastery, which is not made of the rock itself, only it seems that in ancient times it was a great hall, and the form is of a church with screens: [217] it is very light and spacious, because it has many windows over the river, and there are few friars. Many people of the Court used to come here to receive the communion, as they have much devotion for this house and its friars, because they say that they lead good lives, and suffer much injury from the bad neighbours they have. ”

“ On the east and the two remaining sides of the cloister were the buildings necessary to the daily life of the convent, the chapter-house being invariably at the back of the east walk and the refectory or frater at the back of the walk opposite the church. The entrance from the outer court varied in position according to the site of the monastery: in many houses, as at Torre, it was a passage through or at one end of the western range, but at Durham, Worcester and some of the larger Benedictine houses it was a vaulted entry at the end of the east walk furthest from the church. ”

“ Jerome, "We have erred when young; let us amend now we are old." Finally, who can sufficiently extol his conduct, who, though not a very rich bishop, yet built so noble a monastery; in which nothing appears defective, either in the beauty of the lofty edifice, the elegance of its ornaments, or in the piety and universal charity of its monks. ”

“ Like the clergy the monks were subject to the control of the bishop, and the abbots received consecration from the diocesan. Till a late period in fact, there is little reason to suppose that any English monastery succeeded in obtaining exemption from episcopal visitation: though on the other hand it is probable that monasteries founded by powerful and wealthy laymen did contrive practically to establish a considerable independence. ”

“ It is evidently planned in compliance with the Benedictine rule, which enjoined that, if possible, the monastery should contain within itself every necessary of life, as well as the buildings more intimately connected with the religious and social life of its inmates. It should comprise a mill, a bakehouse, stables and cow-houses, together with accommodation for carrying on all necessary mechanical arts within the walls, so as to obviate the necessity of the monks going outside its limits. ”

“ There can be no doubt, however, that during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the life of monks and canons regular became generally more lax and easy, while the numbers of those who embraced the monastic life decreased. In the twelfth century the monasteries had been full to overflowing: each newly-founded house was a sign that the parent [33] monastery had no more room. In the middle of the thirteenth century the numbers were still large but not unwieldy. ”