§ 61. THE REVIVAL OF MONASTICISM. 309
IV. 84-311. — J. C. ROBERTSON: View of Europe during the Middle Ages, in introd. to his Life of Chas. V. — H. Vox EICKEN: Gesch. und System der mittelalter lichen Weltanschauung, Stuttgart, 1887. — A. JKS- SOPP : The Coming of the Friars, London, no date, 7th ed., chap. Daily Life in a Med. Monastery, 113-166. — HARXACK : Monasticism, Giessen, 1882, 5th ed. 1901, trans, by C. R. GILLETT, N.Y., 1895. — STE PHENS : Hist, of the Engl. Church, chap. XIV. (Monastic Orders').— HAUCK, III. 441-516, IV. 311-409. — LITTLEDALE : Monachism, in Enc. Brit.— DENIFLE: Luther und Lutherthum, Mainz, 1904 sq., draws in his treat ment of monasticism, upon his great resources of mediaeval scholarship.
THE glorious period of monasticism fell in the Middle Ages, and more especially in the period that is engaging our attention. The convent was the chief centre of true reli gion as well as of dark superstition. With all the imposing movements of the age, the absolute papacy, the Crusades, the universities, the cathedrals and scholasticism, the monk was efficiently associated. He was, with the popes, the chief promoter of the Crusades. He was among the great builders. He furnished the chief teachers to the universi ties and numbered in his order the profoundest of the Schoolmen. The mediaeval monks were the Puritans, the Pietists, the Methodists, the Evangelicals of their age.1 All these classes of Christians have this in common, that they make earnest with their religion, and put it into zealous practice.
If it be compared with the monachism of the earlier period of the Church, the mediaeval institution will be found to equal it in the number of its great monks and to exceed it in useful activity. Among the distinguished Fathers of the Post-Nicene period who advocated monasticism were St. Anthony of Egypt, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and Benedict of Nursia. In
1 Thomas Aquinas, Summa, II. (2), 188, 6 sqq., Migne, III. 1372 sqq., combines the active and contemplative features of the monastic life, as did Benedict of Nursia, but laying more stress than the latter upon the active feature. It must be remembered that Thomas was a Dominican, and had had full experience of the practical activity of the two great mendicant orders.
310 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
the Middle Ages the list is certainly as imposing. There we have Anselm, Albertus Magnus, Bonaventura, Thomas Aquinas, and Duns Scotus among the Schoolmen, St. Ber nard and Hugo de St. Victor, Eckart, and Tauler among the mystics, Hildegard and Joachim of Flore among the seers, the authors of the Dies irce and Stabat mater and Adam de St. Victor among the hymnists, Anthony of Padua, Bernar dino of Siena, Berthold of Regensburg and Savonarola among the preachers, and in a class by himself, Francis d'Assisi.
Of the five epochs in the history of moriasticism two be long to the Middle Ages proper.1 The appearance of the hermit and the development of the eremite mode of life be long to the fourth century. Benedict of Nursia of the sixth century, and his well-systematized rule, mark the second epoch. The development of the Society of Jesus in the sixteenth century marks the last epoch. The two between are represented by the monastic revival, starting from the convent of Cluny as a centre in the tenth and eleventh cen turies, and the rise and spread of the mendicant orders in the thirteenth century. Cluny was for a century almost the only reforming force in Western Europe till the appearance of Hildebrand on the stage, and he himself was probably trained in the mother convent. Through its offshoots and allied orders Cluny continued to be a burning centre of re ligious zeal for a century longer. Then, at a time of monas tic declension, the mendicant orders, brought into existence by St. Francis d'Assisi and Dominic of Spain, became the chief promoters of one of the most notable religious revivals that has ever swept over Europe.
The work done by men like William of Hirschau, Bruno and Norbert in Germany, Bernard and Peter the Venerable
1 This is the classification of Harnack, Monasticism, 44 sqq. Denifle, Luther und Lutherthum, I. 199 sqq., who fiercely combats Harnack, says "it is the height of misunderstanding, Understand, to speak of Jesuitism as monastic."