There remains one question which may suggest itself to our minds as
it has often suggested itself to others. From what class or classes
in society were the monks for the most part taken? This is one of the
most difficult questions to answer. The late Dr. Maitland, who
perhaps knew more, and had read more, about monks and monasteries
than any Englishman of his time, professed himself unable to answer
it; and my friend Dr. Luard--whose labours in this field of research
have gained for him a European reputation, and whose wonderful
industry, carefulness, and profound knowledge, qualify him to speak
with authority on such a point, if any one might pronounce upon it--
hesitates to give a decided opinion. The impression that is left upon
my own mind is, that the thirteenth-century monk, as a rule, was
drawn from the gentry class, as distinguished from the aristocracy on
the one hand, or the artisans on the other. In fact, _mutatis
mutandis_, that the representatives of the monks of the thirteenth
century were the Fellows of Colleges of the nineteenth before the
recent alteration of University and College statutes came into force.
An ignorant monk was certainly a rarity, an absolutely unlettered or
uneducated one was an impossibility, and an abbot or prior who could
not talk and write Latin with facility, who could not preach with
tolerable fluency on occasion, and hold his own as a debater and man
of business, would have found himself sooner or later in a very
ridiculous and very uncomfortable position, from which he might be
glad to escape by resignation.
Pages:
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161