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of the Parliament, a fifteen of all temporal goods, both of clerks and laity, levied in an unheard-of manner, even to the most extreme point, was by the king's command taken and corfiscated. To this levy the Cistercians contributed, as well as the rest of the nation. The exemptions, indeed, on which they so much prided themselves, were now being vigorously assailed. In 1281 Archbishop Peckham held a council at Lambeth, summoning thereto all the bishops and representatives of religious bodies, both non-exempt and exempt, the latter being summoned on the ground of the non-exempt churches which they held. The privileged orders, however, did not attend, whereupon the archbishop published a letter, severely censuring them for their contumacy. They think themselves free,' he writes, like the 'wild ass's colts, and have but little care for the troubles of 'their mother, to whose bowels they are rather a burden than an honour, being like Hagar, despisers of their mistress. We, however, desiring to correct such audacious presumption, strictly enjoin you, with regard to all the churches in your dioceses, which, being non-exempt themselves, are appropriated to exempt monasteries of any order, that you at once sequestrate them and keep them with the utmost strictness until you hear again from us.' Against this, of course, the Cistercians appealed to Rome; but we gather from the chronicle that the appeal was not very skilfully prosecuted, and the Archbishop would appear to have been in a great measure successful in enforcing obedience. He had, indeed, the strongest ground to stand upon with regard to the churches annexed to the monasteries. It had been one of the original professions of the Cistercian order, that they would appropriate no tithes. For'asmuch as they did not read, either in the rule or the life of 'S. Benedict, that that doctor had possessed churches, or altars, or oblations, or tombs, or tithes, or bakehouses, or mills, or 'farmhouses, or labouters, nor that women were allowed to enter 'his monastery; therefore they abjured all these things, saying, that Benedict testifies that a monk ought to be estranged from 'all secular acts. They said also, that tithes were divided by 'the holy fathers, whose statutes it is sacrilege to transgress, into four parts, namely, one part for the bishop, one for the 'priest, one for hospitality and charity, the fourth for the repair of the church. In this calculation they did not find anything for the monk; and therefore they refused unjustly to claim for 'themselves these things which belonged to others.' A curious

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1 Annales de Waverler, p. 386.

2 Ib. pp. 395-397.

3 Instituta Monastorum Cisterciensium Monasticon, vol v. p. 224.

comment upon the above is supplied by the history of the order, almost all the abbeys of which had large numbers of subject churches, whose tithes they enjoyed. The multiplication of altars also in the conventual churches is one great topic in the monastic annals. At Waverley we read of as many as five being dedicated at once. These were all for the purpose of attracting oblations, by putting forward the more popular saints, such as S. Thomas and S. Edmund of Canterbury, S. Francis, S. Robert, &c.

The institution of vicarages began in the thirteenth century. The chief author of this salutary arrangement seems to have been Hugh de Welles, bishop of Lincoln. His roll is still preserved, in which a large number of apportionments of vicarial tithes is to be found. This was vigorously followed up by his successor, Grosseteste, and became general throughout the country at this period; but until the bishops effectually interfered, the monks were the great swallowers up of the tithes throughout the land, and in a short time would have got everything into their hands. For those who were thus encroaching on the rights of the Church to refuse to be amenable to diocesan discipline, in respect of the churches which they had appropriated, was a grievous and unbearable presumption, and we fully sympathize with Archbishop Peckham in his attempts to put it down. The Cistercians, indeed, were no lovers of bishops, and their chroniclers do not lose any opportunity that presents itself for saying a hard thing of the heads of the church. Neither are they remarkable for being lovers of kings, and we shall find their writers almost universally (as, indeed, the majority of the monkish chroniclers,) taking the popular side on all questions. The Waverley chronicler is as strongly on the side of the barons as against King Henry, in which we can fully sympathize with him, and supplies many interesting details of the Barons' War. The Cistercians asserted that the requirements of visitatory discipline were satisfied by the regulation that all their monasteries were to be visited by abbots of their own Order. We have already quoted the testimony of the Abbot of Savigny, that this plan of visiting themselves was in reality a mere farce; and we know from Bishop Grosseteste's letters how bitterly he felt the evil of this obstruction to all good discipline, and how earnestly he strove at Rome to get the anomaly removed, but without success. We are bound; however, to produce from the Waverley Annals any traces which we can find of the reality of this discipline over the order in England. In the year 1187, Henry, the second Abbot of Waverley of that name, was dismissed from his office, it does not appear for what cause. In his time, the chronicle tells us, there were seventy

monks and one hundred and twenty lay brethren of the house.1 Probably there may have been at this period some general complaints of slackness or want of discipline among the English Cistercians, for in the same year there appears to have been a general visitation of their houses, by visitors sent by the Chapter, held at Citeaux. In this visitation two abbots were removed, William, abbot of Tintern, and William, abbot of Bordesley; and it is very remarkable that, twelve years later, the successor of the latter abbot was also removed, which would seem to indicate that there was some scandal in the house difficult to abate.2

There is also an instance recorded in the Waverley Annals of a punishment inflicted upon a monastery for an offence against the Cistercian rule of not suffering a woman to enter a house of the order. S. Bernard was so strict an enforcer of this rule that he would not suffer his own sister to come within the walls of Clairvaux, and we must say that, in the instance we are about to mention, only the most exaggerated strictness could find anything to blame in the conduct of the monks. It appears that in the year 1245, the Church of King John's Abbey of Beaulieu was consecrated, and Henry III. with his Queen Eleanor, and the young Prince Edward, were present at the ceremony. Immediately on its conclusion the young heir apparent was taken dangerously ill, and his mother, doing the duty of an affectionate nurse, stayed with him in the abbey for the space of three weeks. For this hospitality, which, indeed, was almost forced upon them, the prior and cellarer of Beaulieu were deposed, as they had consented to the Queen remaining in the abbey, it being further objected to them that at the feast of the Dedication they had allowed laymen to partake of flesh.. Was this churlish and Pharisaic strictness a real and genuine exercise of Cistercian discipline, or was it a piece of petty spite against the king, who claimed contributions from the favoured Order, and does not appear to have been very liberal in his donations towards them? It is very remarkable, that, just before this is told us, we are informed that the Princess Eleanor, wife of Simon de Montfort, had, with her husband, her two sons, and three female attendants, been staying at Waverley; but then this princess was a good benefactress to the abbey, and accordingly she is recorded to have lodged there by the indulgence of the chief pontiff.'4 Now, as it is quite impossible that a message could have been dispatched to Rome for the express purpose of knowing whether Waverley Abbey might receive

'Annales de Waverleiâ, p. 244.

2 Ib. pp. 244, 245, 252. 4 Ib. p. 336.

3

Ib. P. 337.

within its wall the Countess de Montfort, we may take the words, per indulgentiam summi Pontificis, to mean that a pious and munificent princess was welcome, but that one who merely represented authority without gifts, could on no account be received. The other charge against the prior and cellarer of Beaulieu, for allowing the seculars to eat flesh at the Dedication, was also, probably, only a bit of affected purism. It could not be seriously supposed, even by the most ascetic of the White Brethren, that nobles and squires would come to do honour to their ceremonial without receiving in return the ordinary attentions of hospitality. We can only account for the fault found with the officials at Beaulieu, by imputing it to a desire. to parade the professed strictness of the Order, and perhaps to excuse the visitors for the insult offered to the queen and prince, and through them to the king. We cannot gather from these annals that anything like a real and effective discipline was kept up over the Cistercian order in England. They gloried in their exemptions and immunities; they professed to aim at, and reach a higher standard than the ordinary religious. It is scarcely to be wondered at if they were not very ready to bring their short comings before the eyes of the profane laity, and there was certainly a strong temptation to the visiting abbots to palliate and excuse rather than to severely condemn any matters of which the outer world could be cognisant. And if the tendency of the exemption system was to impair discipline, it had also another effect which was most injurious to doctrine, and which, perhaps, more than any other one cause, was at the bottom of the strange growths of medieval religion. We read in these Annals of constant changes and developments in the religious services of the Cistercian order. At one time it is determined to adopt S. Francis as a saint of the order, then to patronise the 1100 virgins; again the Cistercians decide on having twelve lectios for S. Edmund of Canterbury; in another place we have a form of prayer against the Tartars, which the order were to use. Now this is altogether irrespective of what the Church may direct or approve the Cistercians were a Church of themselves. What to them were synods, canons, or bishops? They settled their own affairs, only in subordination to the pope. If they did not approve of a saint they would not take him any the more because the Church had adopted him. They claimed to select and judge for themselves. It was the same with the other orders which made specially strict professions. The Dominicans had one religion, the Franciscans another.

1

'Annales de Waverleiâ, 338, 351, 352.

None of these were bound by the general laws of the Church. They were above law and custom. Thus there were systems within systems, rival eclecticism, and rival developments, which tended to produce a strange congeries of doctrine and practice. The extreme claims made by the Cistercians for exemption from all interference, not only for themselves but also for all those with whom they were brought in contact, is well illustrated by an account given in the Waverley Annals:

'One Easter time, a certain young man, by trade a shoemaker, was taken into our shop to work. In process of time, it being known that he was kept there, a certain officer was sent from the king, with many attendants, to arrest him as guilty of homicide, and to bring him away. When then we heard that he was arrested, and that he was taken out of our shop and put in bonds, the Lord Abbot, with the seniors of the house, went to the officers and forbade them, under his anathema, to attempt an outrage of this sort, alleging our privileges, which make all our premises as free and secure as the altars of churches. They, however, without paying any regard to God or our holy religion, carried with them the young man bound in chains, and committed him to prison. We, therefore, were struck with amazement at such an enormous crime, especially on account of the danger which threatened our whole order (because if men could be thus arrested with impunity, in spite of the liberties of the order, and put in bonds in our monasteries or our farm-houses, there would henceforth be no difference between the premises of secular and religious men, but thus our houses would become a common place of entrance, like the courts of law in the State.) Wherefore, having held a consultation of the elder brethren our joy was straightway turned into grief, because the solemn rites of the Mass and the divine mysteries ceased in our abbey. With all speed the Lord Abbot went to the Legate, who at this time was in England, explained to him the outrage, praying him to protect our privileges, and to preserve the liberties of the order uninjured. But the Legate, only putting him off, and acting slackly in the matter, the Abbot went to the king, and brought before him his complaint, with many sighs and tears, showing that the liberty and peace of our holy church and our holy religion was disturbed, and that there could be no other satisfaction made to God and the Order, unless he who was scandalously and irreverently dragged away from our abbey, were by his command brought back and restored to the sacred place. This request the king could have granted at once, had not his council opposed it, and as men of great influence demanded it, the Abbot had a day assigned to him for bringing forward the privileges of the Order and the charters of our liberty. But when the king had heard of our suspension from divine offices, although he did not object to it having been at first resorted to in such a crisis, yet he would not have it to be continued. Accordingly, the Lord Abbot on the morrow, which was the day of S. Laurence, commanded the holy offices to be celebrated. The Abbot followed up the important cause in which he was embarked, and on the day appointed, and on other days after, exhibited our privileges and read our liberties before the king and council. Some there were, however, so perverse, as out of malice to interpret the apostolical writings not in favour of the order, but against it, so that the Lord Abbot, with great grief and bitterness of soul, had to contend for his liberty. At length, by God's mercy, after much toil and fatigue, some true and religious men who rightly understood our privileges, showed plainly to the king and his council that the enclosures of our abbeys and granges were

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