366 FOURTH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
with the example of Solomon, asked Nilus, whether that wise king was not saved, the monk replied : " We have nothing to do with Solomon's fate ; but to us it is said, l Every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart/ We do not read of Solomon that he ever repented like Manasseh." To questions of idle curiosity he returned no answer, or he answered the fool accord ing to his folly. So when one wished to know what kind of an apple Adam and Eve ate, to their ruin, he said that it was a crab-apple. In his old age he was driven from Calabria by invaders, and founded a little convent, Crypta Ferrata, near the famous Tusculum of Cicero. There he died peacefully when about ninety-six years old, in 1005.1
ST. ROMUALD, the founder of the order of Camaldoli, was born early in the tenth century at Ravenna, of a rich and noble family, and entered the neighboring Benedictine convent of Classis, in his twentieth year, in order to atone, by a severe penance of forty days, for a murder which his father had com mitted against a relative in a dispute about property. He prayed and wept almost without ceasing. He spent three years in this convent, and afterwards led the life of a roaming hermit. He imposed upon himself all manner of self-mortification, to defeat the temptations of the devil. Among his devotions was the daily repetition of the Psalter from memory ; a plain her mit, Marinus, near Venice, had taught him this mechanical performance and other ascetic exercises with the aid of blows. Wherever he went, he was followed by admiring disciples. He was believed to be endowed with the gift of prophecy and miracles, yet did not escape calumny. Emperor OthoIII. paid
1 Acta Sanctorum, vol. XXVI. Sept 26 (with the Greek text of a biography of the saint by a disciple). Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, Sept. 26. Neander, III. 420 sqq. (Germ. ed. IV. 307-315). The convent of Crypta Ferrata possesses a valuable library, which was used by distinguished antiquarians as Mabillon, Montfaucon, Angelo Mai, and Dom Pitra. Among its treasures are several MSS. of parts of the Greek Testament, to which Dean Burgon calls attention in The Revision Revised (Lond. 1883), p. 447.
2 84. THE CONVENT OF CLUNY. 367
him a visit in the year 1000 on an island near Ravenna. Romuald sent missionaries to heathen lands, and went himself to the border of Hungary with a number of pupils, but re turned when he was admonished by a severe sickness that he was not destined for missionary life. He died in the convent Vallc de Castro in 1027.1
According to Damiani, who wrote his life fifteen years after his death, Romuald lived one hundred and twenty years, twenty in the world, three in a convent, ninety-seven as a hermit.2
The most famous of Romuald's monastic retreats is Campo Maldoli, or Camaldoli in the Appennines, near Arczzo in Tus cany, which he founded about 1009. It became, through the influence of Damiani, his eulogist and Hildcbrand's friend, the nucleus of a monastic order, which combined the cenobitic and eremitic life, and was distinguished by great severity. Pope Gregory XVI. belonged to this order.
§ 84. The Convent of Cluny.
MARRIER and DTTCHESXE : Bibliotheca Cluniacensis. Paris 1014 fol. HOLSTEX. : O>d. Rcfjul. Mon. II. 176. LORAIX : Essay kistorique sur r abbaye de Cluny. Dijon 1830. NEAXDER III. 417 sqq. 444 sq. FRIEDR. HURTER (Frot. minister in Scliaffhausen, afterwards R. Cath.) : Gesch. Papst Linocenz des Dritten (second ed. Hamb. 1844), vol. IV. pp. 22-55.
After the decay of monastic discipline during the ninth and
1 His death occurred June 19, but his principal feast was appointed by Clement VIII. on the seventh of February. "His body/' says Alban Butler, "was found entire and uneorrupt five years after his death, and again in 1466. But his tomb being sacrilegiously opened and his body stolen in 1480, it fell to dust, in which state it was translated to Fabriano, and there deposited in the great church, all but the remains of one arm, sent to Camaldoli. God has honored his relics with manv miracles.''
2 Vita S. Romualdi, c. 60, in Damiani's Opera II. f. 1006, in Migne's edition (Patrol. Tom. 145, f. 95,3-1008). He adds; " Ifunc inter vivos ccekstis Hiernsalem lapidcs ineffabiliter rutilat, cum ignitis becitornm spirituum turmis exidtat, candidissimi stoJa immortalitatis induitur, et ab ipso rege reyum vibrante in perpetuum diademate coronatur."