There
was room for ambition, and, I am bound to add, room for a good deal
of petty scheming, on the one hand, and truckling to the abbot, on
the other; but it all went towards relieving the monotony of the life
in the cloister--a monotony which has been very much over-stated by
those who have never studied the subject. To begin with, it does not
follow that what would be very dull to us would be dull and insipid
to the men of the thirteenth century. Before a man offered himself
for admission to a monastery, he must have had a taste for a quiet
life, and in many instances he had grown tired of the bustle, the
struggle, and all the anxious wear of the work-day world. He wanted
to be rid of _bothers_, in fact; he was pretty sure to have had
a fair education, and he was presumably a religious man, with a taste
for religious exercises; sometimes, and not unfrequently, he was a
disappointed man, who had been left wifeless and childless;
sometimes, too, he was one whose career had been cut short suddenly
by some accident which incapacitated him for active exertion and made
him long only for repose and obscurity. Moreover, in those distant
times the instinct of devotion was incomparably stronger than it is
now, and people found a real and intense delight in the services of
the sanctuary, to say nothing of their entire belief in the spiritual
advantages to be derived from taking part in those services.
Pages:
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140