tic prisons, "the hardness of some abbots in subsequent times, was carried to such an excess, that they mutilated the limbs of some monks who were guilty of great crimes, so that the monks obtained from Charlemagne, an especial decree for their protection. All the abbots being assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle, in 817, ordered that in each monastery there should be a retired house, domus semota, for the guilty, a chamber with a fire-place and an ante-chamber for work. This was ordained by all the abbots of the empire, France, Germany, and Italy. It was in subsequent times that Matthew Prior of St. Martin-des-Champs, according to the report of Peter the Venerable, invented a fearful kind of prison which was without light, and destined for those who were to be perpetually confined, and it was called the Vade in Pace. The abbot was guilty of this excess through his extravagant severity and hatred of sin; but he inflicted it upon only one criminal monk. Stephen, Archbishop of Toulouse, complained of these inventions to king John, “de horribili rigore quem monachi exercebant adversus monachos graviter peccantes." This led to measures of prevention in future; Mabillon expresses his astonishment at such inhumanity in monks, who ought to be models of all gentleness and compassion; but it should be remembered how rare and isolated were such instances in the long succession of ages; how solitary they stand in history, and unconnected with any part of monastic discipline; and that after all, the immunities of the religious, who were not subject to the civil power, made some provision for the punishment of great offenders absolutely necessary. As for the story of Constance, it is utterly defective in regard to history, inasmuch as the extension of such penalties to communities of women is a mere invention; and even if the author had adhered to limits within which he would have had some foundation, the unwarranted assertions, to use the gentlest expression, which are woven through the whole tissue of his poem, would, to any reader of moderate instruction, have destroyed all coloring of truth. This Matthew Prior of St. Martin-des-Champs, to whom he is so greatly indebted, was not to mankind but to sin a foe; ignorant it is true, but justifying no poet in the conclusion that he had retired into the cloister "for despite and envy;" or "that he joyed in doing ill." The whole abuse is to be ascribed to the extravagant zeal of some well-meaning men in times of great severity of principles ; and we find that there was no obstacle or delay in providing against it effectual remedies. CHAPTER V. E have already seen some of the works of mourning which were substituted for the solemn public penance of the ancient canons; but that which in a literary or poetical point of view, is the most interesting of these works, remains to be considered, which consisted in the pilgrimages either expressly prescribed or voluntarily undertaken for the correction of passions and the expiation of sins. Of the former, some were imposed for great offences as a more severe penalty than that which was enacted against them by the civil laws. Men who had committed homicide were ordered to go on pilgrimage to various holy places in foreign lands, bound all the while with iron chains, for in these ages capital punishment was rarely inflicted. These chains were worn round the neck and also on both arms; sometimes the pilgrims deserved to be freed from them, and then they were freed in the church.* The four miserable knights who murdered St. Thomas at Canterbury, after long wanderings, were enjoined to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and there to live as penitential converts on the black mountain. Some were to be condemned to pass the whole remainder of their lives on pilgrimage. Such were degraded priests who should have discovered the secret of confession. Deponatur, et omnibus diebus vitæ suæ ignominiosè peregrinando pergat." We read of others who were never to remain more than one night in the same place. At Rheims disputes and combats between the citizens, used generally to be terminated by the sheriffs, and the most usual penalty inflicted was a pilgrimage. The persons condemned were to set out on a fixed day, and to remain in the town indicated during three, six, or twelve months, and to bring back authentic certificates. It was generally a pilgrimage to St. James in Gallicia, to Tours, Toulouse, Marseilles, or Boulogne sur Mer. The two enemies were often condemned to travel, but in different directions, which, as Anquetil remarks, "was a simple and wise method of re-establishing peace between them, for time and new objects, and the interposition of friends to calm the minds of both parties, were always sure to heal the wounds."+ But the pilgrims who chiefly demand our attention at present belong to a different class from these: they were men who, without having rendered themselves amenable to human laws, had undertaken painful journeys * Mabillon, Præfat. in II. Sæcul. Benedict. Hist. de Rheims, lib. III. 155. in obedience to what was prescribed to them by religion, as affording the means of correcting vices, and of atoning in the sense required for the sins of their past life. The palmer differed from the pilgrim in having no fixed residence, but spending his life in visiting holy places, at the same time professing voluntary poverty. Spencer, without scorn, describes the former : "At length they chaunst to meet upon the way And often knockt his breast, as one that did repent."* The Church had introduced the custom of assigning a journey to the holy land as an efficacious penance; and there are not wanting even modern writers separated from its communion who can discern and point out the wisdom of what was thus recommended. "I know of nothing," says one of these, "so likely to bow down a proud spirit, and soften it into deep and purifying thought, as a long distant journey. There is no heart proof against the solemn influence of solitude among strange and impressive scenes. The confidence which it has in itself, and in which its contempt for the future was intrenched, gradually gives way among them. The new forms under which nature presents herself, are so many proofs that there is an existence and a power, of which, in the thoughtless uniformity of the past, it had received no idea, and with that new consciousness, rushes in at train of feelings, which, if not the same, are nearer than most others to those inspired by religion. For this effect of the long and often perilous journey which he prescribed, the priest might look with some degree of confidence; and no doubt experience taught him, that the hardiest of his penitents was not likely to come back from Syria with a mind unimpressed with the sentiments he wished to inspire. Other advantages also presented themselves in favor of this kind of penance. To the natural influence of the journey through wild and distant countries, was added that of the example of many devout and enthusiatic wanderers. At every stage of his route, the traveller was sure to meet one or more of these humble palmers, either hastening to, or returning from, the holy city. Their humility, self-denial, and constant prayer, were powerful appeals to the haughty souls of the unwilling pilgrim. Generally also he was, by the nature of his expedition, far separated from his former companions: for his proud knights and splendid retinue no longer followed him as a gay and gallant noble ; and if they accompanied him, it was to be worshippers, like himself, at the holy tomb. He was thus led to form asso * F. Q. I. 1. ciations which materially aided the purposes for which the penance was imposed, and the priest knew that his instructions and exhortations to repentance would be repeated as many times as there were leagues between his parish and the sacred walls of Jerusalem. Nor are reasons of another kind wanted to justify the preference of pilgrimages over other penances. What could be more proper than to send him, who had broken the laws of Christ, to contemplate the scenes which had been hallowed by his sufferings? What could better persuade to repentance, than the sight of objects which recalled to mind all he had done for the sake of mankind, and to bring them under the dominion of love and peace? The guilty violator of divine laws could not tread the streets of the holy city, without feeling as if the very stones cried out against him, to remind him, as his eyes turned towards the heights of Calvary, that he had 'crucified the Son of God afresh.'" So far this writer. But the moral advantages of this discipline were well understood and explained with greater clearness at the time when it received the highest sanction. In all ages, many of those who thought seriously about their salvation, used at times to leave their home and family to have leisure to follow God, disengaged from domestic cares, going out of their own country like the Magi, to repair to Christ. We read of many saints who, by the inspiration of God, have abandoned houses, and riches, and friends, to travel like pilgrims through strange nations, in order to serve him more at ease and freedom. In this conduct, they imitated not only Abraham but the apostles. They felt that the distractions and ties of a multitude of friends and riches, and worldly concerns, left them not sufficient leisure to attend to the interests of their souls, and the fruits of such pilgrimages were so notorious that it became a proverb. "Exeat aula qui volet esse pius.” Many remarkable examples of this kind are found in the records of the middle age. Frodoard, in his history of the Church of Rheims relates, that in the time of Foulques Archbishop, who had succeeded Hincmar, there came into the province of Rheims, seven brothers, Gibrian, Helan, Tresan, Germain, Veran, Atran, and Petran, with their three sisters, Fracia, Promptie, and Possenna, come from Ireland in pilgrimage, for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ; and they established themselves each in a separate place on the banks of the river Marne. Gibrian, who was a priest, inhabited the village of Cosse, where he lived many years soberly, justly, and piously, applying himself till the end of his life to combat for his salvation.* In the seventh century, St. Giles seeing that he could not lead an obscure and retired life in his own country, where his piety and learning made him the object of general admiration, resolved to leave it to avoid the applause of men; he, therefore, passed into France, and chose for his dwelling a hermitage in the desert, which was near the mouth of the Rhone. Thence he removed into a place called Garde, and thence into a forest in the diocese of Nismes. The Saxon chron * Lib. IV. cap. 9. pro icle relates, that in the year 891, "three Scots from Ireland came to King Alford in a boat without any oars; they had stolen away because they would live in a state of pilgrimage for the love of God, they recked not where. The boat in which they came was made of two hides and a half; and they took with them visions for seven nights, and within seven nights they came to land in Cornwall, and soon after went to King Alford. They were named Dubslane, Macbeth, and Mælinman." From the same motives monks came from Rome, into Ireland, being also drawn thither by the desire of a stricter life, or the love of sacred learning.* Bede relates of St. Hilda, "that after dedicating herself wholly to the service of God, she intended, from the province of the East Angles, to pass over if possible into France, forsaking her native country and all that she had, and there to live a stranger for our Lord, in the monastery of Celles, that so she might the more easily merit the eternal country of heaven." These motives were expressly approved of by the greatest philosophers of the middle ages. "Change of place," says St. Bonaventura, "is sometimes favorable to the spiritual health of novices. In changing place they change objects which may have led them astray. Men often become better and more perfect by leaving for a time their country and their native land." St. Jerome goes so far as to say that a monk cannot be perfect in his own country. In the last book, we observed that the interests of learning were thought to require absence in a foreign country, and now it appears that a journey to strange lands was deemed no less conducive to those ofa spiritual nature. The moderns are for placing the summit of virtue and happiness in domestic repose, but after all, what skills it in this voyage of life, to cast anchor and say to one's bark, "Let us rest here: behold the port which is appointed to you! here you shall sleep like an island of the sea, which the force of the bitter waves cannot disturb? On the wide seas of this world there is no port, and shipwreck alone casts us upon the shore."§ St. Augustin treats at large upon the social life and shows to how many evils and offences it is exposed, notwithstanding all the wisdom and prudence which men may bring to it ;|] and besides, he observes, "that after the example of their respective prototypes, the two cities into which the whole race of men are divided, Jerusalem and Babylon, and distinguished from each other by the former being in a state of pilgrimage, and the latter in a condition of apparent rest. Cain, whose name signified possession, founded a city earthly, having this world for its fixed resting-place, established in its temporal peace and felicity; but Able, whose name denoted grief, was a stranger and a wanderer. Seth and Enos were named after the resurrection, and the hope of those who invoked God. For thus the city of God in the time of its pilgrimage is only sustained by hope, which arises from faith in the resurrection of Christ.” These are *Monastic. Hiber. Introduc. Epist. V. De Lamartine. +S. Bonaventuræ Speculum Novitiorum, cap. 2. De Civitate Dei, Lib. XIX. cap. 5. |