X. BOOK Anglo-Saxons, mankind had not attained or no ticed the experience of all their effects; and the visible good which they achieved prevented their evils from being felt; or if they were discerned, no better means then occurred of acquiring elsewhere their manifest advantages. Our ancestors did not perceive that they were opposed to the social duties and general improvement of mankind, by admitting the young and active; by compelling the self-sacrifice to last for life; by a series of religious ordinances that became mechanical rote; by a slavish discipline and unimproving habits; by their discouragement of liberal feelings and of an enlarged cultivation of the intellect; and by legends, bigotry, superstitious tenets and prejudices, which as much poisoned the mind, as the increasing corruptions and ambition which they fed and fo- . mented deteriorated the conduct. Of these ill effects, many were the growth of time, others of ignorance, and some of the circumstances in which former ages had been involved. But as they began the mental and moral education of the country, and carried it on successfully to a certain point; as they fostered and diffused that religious spirit, without which, as without them, the Anglo-Saxons would not have long retained their Christianity; and as they made the hierarchy a stronger bulwark against the violence of the great at one time, and the oppressions of the throne at another; these establishments were for a long time of incalculable utility. Having become incompatible with the improved reason, new state, and present duties of mankind, the downfall of their ancient system in the present age was as necessary as their elevation had been expedient. To suit the present wants and progress III. of society, they must, if ever introduced again, be CHAP. entirely new-created ; and upon a wiser plan, and under an intelligent and benevolent administration, they would be the retreat of serene happiness to many. The monastic scheme which the Anglo-Saxons adopted was that of St. Benedict ; and it is impossible to read his rule without perceiving that it was the product of a mind aiming to do what seemed wisest and best. For above a century the AngloSaxons warmly patronised monasteries; but the industry of their fraternities so much improved their possessions, that they tempted the avarice, not only of the less religious great, but of the other dignitaries of the church ; and I have found among the works of our venerable Bede this complaint of their spoliation and decay in his time : “ The possessions of monasteries were given to the monks, that they and their servitors, and the poor and strangers who may arrive, should be nourished thereout. This care belongs to all Christians; but, I grieve to say it, nothing is more difficult to be believed, as well by the clergy as by laics, than that it is a sin to plunder the possessions of the monasteries, and to alienate them. - Attend, I beseech you, O rulers ! Be exhorted to restore the destroyed monasteries : first, that the spoilers may return to the monks the property taken from them; then, that they who fear God and walk in his ways may be preferred to those who do not; for God is greatly offended, that those places which were emancipated and consecrated to him, and his saints, should be destroyed from the carelessness of the governors. If those serving God in monasteries had whatever was necessary to them, they could pursue their divine duties with more alacrity; they could more devoutly intercede for the king, for the safety of the bishops and princes, and for all the church. But all these things are treated with such neglect by most bishops, that if a pure prayer, or rebuke, or seasonable admonition should be necessary, they disdain to notice it: caring only that pleasing and assiduous duties be done to themselves. BOOK X. 3 “ It is to be much lamented, that since the lands which were formerly delivered to monasteries by religious princes are now taken away by kings or bishops, no alms can be given there, and no guest or stranger refreshed. “ If they find monasteries destroyed by neglect of their spiritual or corporal provisions, they not only take no care to meliorate them, but even encourage the destruction.” 2 Alcuin has a passage which intimates the same decline. 3 The ravages of the Danish invaders, who, being martial pagans, exulted in burning Christian churches and cloisters, destroyed many monastic establishments : and though Alfred, by his example, encouraged the taste of building them, few were erected again till the reign of Edgar. Dun. stan led his young mind to become their earnest patron; and the zeal for re-establishing them on the reformed plan, which had been adopted at Fleury, in France, urged both the sovereign and his mitred preceptor to the greatest violences against the then existing clergy. Ethelwold, whom Dunstan procured to be made a bishop, had land given him for making a translation of the Latin Rule of St. Benedict into the Anglo-Saxon; and it was the boast of the king and his council, that they had founded forty monasteries by their exertions. We have a detail of the formation of one of these, from which some particulars are worth selecting, to preserve a memorial of the manner and progress by which such endowments were effected, and the principles on which they were recommended and patronized. 2 Bede, Op. vol. viii. p. 1071. 3 “ We have seen in some places the altars without a roof, fouled by birds and dogs.” Ep. p. 1487. CHAP. III. а “On the death of a favourite nobleman of Edgar's court, his brother, an ealdorman, expressed to Bishop Oswald his desire to pursue a better system of life than his worldly occupations permitted. Oswald assured him that his secular affairs would but give him so many opportunities of doing good, if he was careful to observe a conscientious spirit of equity, a merciful moderation, and a constant intention of right conduct. But he added, that they only were free, serene, and released from all danger and anxiety, who renounced the world; and that their piety brought blessings on their country. • Ву their merits, the anger of the Supreme Judge is abated; a healthier atmosphere is granted; corn springs up more abundantly; famine and pestilence withdraw; the state is better governed ; the prisons are opened; the fettered released; the shipwrecked are relieved; and the sick recovered.' Oswald ended his speech by advising him, if he had any place in his territory fitted for a monastery, to build one upon it, promising to contribute to its maintenance. “ The ealdorman replied, that he had some hereditary land surrounded with marshes, and remote from human intercourse. It was near a forest of various sorts of trees, which had several open spots of good turf, and others of fine grass for pasture. No buildings had been upon it, but some sheds for his herds, who had manured the soil. “ They went together to view it. They found that the waters made it an island. It was so lonely, and yet had so many conveniences for subsistence and secluded devotion, that the bishop decided it to be an advisable station. Artificers were collected. The neighbourhood joined in the labour. Twelve monks came from another cloister to form the new fraternity. Their cells and a chapel were soon raised. In the next winter, they provided the iron and timber, and utensils that were wanted, for a handsome church. In the spring, amid the fenny soil, a firm foundation was laid. The workmen laboured as much from devotion as for profit. Some brought the stones; others made the cement; others applied to the wheel-machinery that raised them on high ; and in a reasonable time, the sacred edifice, with two towers, appeared, on what had been before a desolate waste; and Abbo, celebrated for his literature, was invited from Fleury, to take charge of the schools that were appended to it. Such was the formation of the Ramsey monastery." 4 4 Hist. Ram. p. 396 -- 400. BOOK The monastic establishments of Edgar were effected with too much violence and injustice to have good results: the truth is as old as the world, though rarely palatable to it, that evil means will have evil consequences. The former clergy were driven into an irascible opposition against the new system, and the discords which ensued from it, among the nobles and nation, led to the second series of Danish invasions. From these, so many disorders followed, that both monks and clergy declined into that low state of morals and mind, from which the Norman conquest afterwards rescued the religion of the country. The form of the hierarchy established among the Anglo-Saxons was episcopal. An archbishop, and bishops subordinate to him, and receiving the confirmation of their dignity, or their spiritual investiture, from the pope, were the rulers of the church; yet subject, both to their own national as well as to general councils, and also in many points to the witena-gemot, of which they were a part, and, in their temporal concerns, to the king. Under the episcopal aristocracy, deans, archdea. cons, canons, prebends, and the parochial clergy, enjoyed various powers and privileges. The monks 5 5 That the Saxon clergy enjoyed the benefit of tithes, appears from several passages in the Anglo-Saxon laws: thus in Alfred's; “ Thy teothan sceattas (tenth monies), and thy first reping gangende (reaping going), and increase give to God.” Wilk. p. 32. In Edmund's; “We command teothunge (tithing) to every Christian man by his Christendeme, and the church sceat, and the ælmes feoh. If he will not do it, let him be excommunicated," p. 72. Perhaps this ecclesiastical censure may imply that the common law did not then enforce this benefit. In a more recent law we find “If a thane has a church with a burying ground, he shall give one third of his own tithes to the church.” Wilk. 130.; even a thræl, or one of the subjected class, p. 112. Perhaps the fullest display of the feelings of the Anglo-Saxon period, |