Monasteries were called inrjenua if exempt from their fomulation, or libera if the grant or privilege had been matle subsequently. Those which were not exempt were compelled to render to the bishop obedience ; an- nual fees called jus synodale, or circadas; procurations, or the provision of entertainment; solemn processions, and the right of celebrating mass in their minsters. All abbots, however, despite their repugnance, certainly after the 9th century, were compelled to make the pro- fession of canonical obedience to the diocesan when re- ceiving his benediction, and this implied his right to give holy orders, consecrate churches, altars, and ceme- teries, and grant chrism and dismissory letters when the abbots travelled out of the diocese.
5. In their lirst institution, and in their subsequent uses, there can be no doubt that monasteries were among the most remarkable instances of Christian munificence, and they certainly were, in the so-called Dark Ages, among the beneficial adaptations of the talents of Chris- tians to pious and charitable ends. The foundation of the monastery was the dictate of religious motives in the youth of the Church, but the reward of piety was tem- poral also ; the estates of the founder were im|)roved, the vassals educated, order introduced, the sick and aged tended, and handicraft and useful arts taught. "The services," says Blunt, " that monasticism has rendered to civilization in the transition of society from ancient times to the Middle Ages have been most important. Monks were the skilled agriculturists of the period ; and many terms in rural life, and in the fauna and botany of all Northern Europe, may be traced back througli them to Greek and Latin terms; e. g. 'hawky,' ciici, harvest-home ; and ' ranny,' arunea, a shrew-mouse ; ' chervil,' \t]p6<pv\\ov. The belladonna, which is now found indigenous, was introduced first among the phar- maceutical herbs of tlie convent-gardens, for the monks were the physicians of the period. As men of letters also and energetic missionaries they kept the lamp of knowledge and civilization from expiring in the verj' darkest j)eriods ; and whatever was done in the way of educating the young was carried on within the walls of the monastery." ^lonasteries, indeed, were the sole preservers of learning in the Dark Ages. Tlie Bene- dictines, bound by the rides of their order to mental as well as bodily labor, performed a work that has been of priceless value. That anything at all has come down to us from classical antiquity is owing in great part to their diligence as transcribers. Gerbert, an al)bot, and afterwards po|)e Silvester II (999), speaks of liis care in collecting books, and of the host of copiers that were fouml in every town : " Tu sai ecu quanta premura io
raccolga da ogni parte libri; tu sai quanti scrittiri e nelle cittii e nelle ville d'ltalia in ogni luogo s'incontri- no" (Muratori, Lit. It. Ill, i, 29). Desiderius, abbot of Monte Casino, and subsequently pope Victor III, em- ployed many copyists, " antiquarii," as they were called (Muratori, Stor. IV, ch. xxviii; Mabillon, Act. J.'tiied.). Three offsets from the Benedictine stock have also n n- dered invaluable sersices to literature; the Clugniac monks, dating from the early part of the 10th century; the Carthusians (1084); and the Cistercians (1090). They created a craving for the luxury of books, beauti- fully written and sumptuously illuminated; and libra- ries, gradually increasing in size, soon grew up from their labors. " It was their pride to collect, and their business to transcribe books" (Hallam, Literature of the Middle Ages, i, 82); and their collections were the "germ whence a second and more glorious civilization" should in due time spring (Macaulay, Hist, of Jiiu/land, ch. i). But the evils which grew out of these societies more than counterbalanced the good. Being often ex- empted from all civil or foreign ecclesiastical authority, they became hotbeds of insubordination to the state and of corruption to the Church. The temptations arising out of a state of celibacy, too often enforced in the first instance by improper means, and always bound upon the members of these societies by a religious vow, were the occasion of great scandals. ^Moreover, the enormous wealth with which some of them were en- dowed brought with it a greater degree of pride and ostentation and luxury than was becoming in Chris- tians ; and still more in those who had vowed a life of religious asceticism. Thus it came that tlie intrigues of the friars, the accumulation of wealtli, and the decay of discipline wrought the fall of the monasteries. See Monasticism ; Monk. The monasteries of England were the first to feel the displeasure of the outside world. Corruption had become so apparent in the 8th century as to call for the founding of the Clugniac order on British soil. But this order, in turn, though begin- ning in the 10th century with a strict rule, sank into lux- ury in the 12th ; the Cistercians then started to shame them, but soon lost all moral vigor; next the Franciscan mendicants appeared, but they degenerated more com- pletely in the first quarter of a centurj- after their intro- duction into England than other orders had in three or four centuries (comp. Matt. Paris, A.D. 1243 ; see Brake- lond, Chron. A bb. IS. Edmundi ; Tho. Elmham. JJist. Man. St. Any. Cantuar. ; Hugh de Poitiers, Monast'ere de Ve- eelai). No wonder, then, that an opposition found ready utterance and prompt organization, and, led successively by the greatest of Anglican schf)lars and divines, as Wykeham, Fisher, Alcock, Chichely, Beckington, the countess of Salisbury, and cardinal Wolsey, claimed the monastic endowments for university foundations. "What, my lord," said Oldham to Fox in 1513, "shall we build houses and provide livelihoods for a com- pany of bussing monks, whose end and fall we may live to seeV" See Kkfok.mation, English. Thus it was not reserved for the period of the Keformation to inaugurate opposition to monasteries. Their dissolu- tion was commenced in England as early as 1312. when the Order of Temjilars was suppressed, and a portion of their possessions given to the Knights of St. .John of .Jerusalem. During the 15th century many other houses were dissolved, and their revenues transferred to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Henry VIII obtained an act of Parliament for the dissolution of the monasteries, and the transfer of their revenues to tlie crown. Kome itself had furnished a precedent for Hen- ry's attack on the monastic institutions. About the year 1517 cardinal Wolsey was desirous of building and endowing two splendid colleges — one at Ipswich, the place of his birth ; the other at Oxford, the jdace of his academical education. For this purpose Clement VII granted him a bidl, which empowered him to visit and supjiress certain monasteries. A number of tliese, vari- ously stated at from uinelceu to forty, were consequently