2,374 Total 47,721 If proper allowances are made for the lesser monasteries and houses not included in this estimate, and But as there were probably more for the plate, &c., which came than one person to officiate in seinto the hands of the king by the veral of the free chapels, and dissolution, and for the value of there were other houses which are money at that time, which was at not included within this calculaleast six times as much as at pre-tion, perhaps they may be comsent, and also consider that theputed in one general estimate at estimate of the lands was general- about 50,000. As there were ly supposed to be much under the real worth, we must conclude their whole revenues to have been immense. pensions paid to almost all those of the greater monasteries, the king did not immediately come into the full enjoyment of their whole revenues; however, by means of what he did receive, he founded six new bishoprics, viz. those of Westminster (which was changed by queen Elizabeth into a deanery, with twelve prebends and a school), Peterborough, Chester, Gloucester, Bristol, and Oxford. And in eight other sees he founded deaneries and chapters, by converting the priors and monks into deans and prebendaries, viz. Canterbury, Winchester, Durham, Worcester, Rochester, Norwich, Ely, and Carlisle. He founded also the colleges of Christ Church in Oxford, and Trinity in Cambridge, and finished King's College there. He likewise founded professorships of divinity,law,physic,and Carried up, 15,347 of the Hebrew and Greek tongues, It does not appear that any computation hath been made of the number of persons contained in the religious houses. Those of the lesser monas- 10,000 .. 5,347 the poor, from every side of the country, waited the ringing of the alms-bell; when they flocked in in both the said Universities. He gave the house of Grey Friars and St. Bartholomew's Hospital to the city of London, and a perpe-crowds, young and old, to the tual pension to the poor knights of gate of the monastery, where Windsor, and laid out great sums they received, every morning, a in building and fortifying many plentiful provision for themselves ports in the channel. It is ob- and their families:-all this apservable, upon the whole, that the pears great and noble. dissolution of these houses was an act not of the church, but of the state, in the period preceding up in indolence and lost to the the reformation, by a king and parliament of the Roman Catholic communion in all points, except the king's supremacy; to which the pope himself, by his bulls and licences, had led the way. "On the other hand, when we consider five hundred persons bred commonwealth; when we consider that these houses were the great nurseries of superstition, bigotry, and ignorance; the stews of sloth, stupidity, and perhaps intemperance; when we consider that the education received in them had not the least tincture of useful learning, good manners, or true religion, but tended rather to vilify and disgrace the human mind; when we consider that the pilgrims and strangers who resort As to the merits of these institutions, authors are much divided. While some have considered them as beneficial to learning, piety, and benevolence, others have thought them very injurious. We may form some idea of them from the following remarks of Mr. Gil-ed thither were idle vagabonds,who pin. got nothing abroad that was equiHe is speaking of Glastonbury valent to the occupations they Abbey, which possessed the am-left at home; and when we conplest revenues of any religious sider, lastly, that indiscriminate house in England. "Its frater- alms-giving is not real charity, but nity," says he, "is said to have an avocation from labour and inconsisted of five hundred establish- dustry, checking every idea of exed monks, besides nearly as many ertion, and filling the mind with retainers on the abbey. Above abject notions, we are led to acfour hundred children were not quiesce in the fate of these founonly educated in it, but entire-dations, and view their ruins, not ly maintained. Strangers from all parts of Europe were liberally received, classed according to their sex and nation, and might consider the hospitable roof under which they lodged as their own. Five hundred travellers, MONASTIC, something bewith their horses, have been lodged longing to monks, or the monkish at once within its walls. While life. The monastic profession is a only with a picturesque eye, but with moral and religious satisfaction." Gilpin's Observations on the Western Parts of England, p. 138, 139; Bigland's Letters on Hist., p. 313. kind of civil death, which in all worldly matters has the same effect with the natural death. The council of Trent, &c., fix sixteen years the age at which a person may be admitted into the monastical state. pendent, and subject to the bishop. See MONK. MONK anciently denoted, "a person who retired from the world to give himself up wholly to God, and to live in solitude and abstinence." The word is derived from St. Anthony is the person, who, the Latin monachus, and that from in the fourth century, first insti- the Greek mavazos, "solitary;" of tuted the monastic life; as St. Pa-Movos, solus, "alone." chomius, in the same century, is said to have first set on foot the cœnobitic life, i. e. regular communities of religious. In a short time the deserts of Egypt became inhabited by a set of solitaries, who took upon them the monastic profession. St. Basil carried the monkish humour in the East, where he composed a rule which afterwards obtained through a great part of the West. The original of monks seems to have been this: The persecutions which attended the first ages of the Gospel forced some Christians to retire from the world, and live in deserts and places most private and unfrequented, in hopes of finding that peace and comfort among beasts which were denied them among men; and this being the case of some very extraordinary persons, their example gave such reputation to retirement, that the practice was continued when the reason of its commencement ceased. After the empire became Christian, instances of this kind were numerous; and those whose security had obliged them to live separately and apart, became afterwards united into societies. We may also add, that the mystic theology, which gained ground towards the In the eleventh century the monastic discipline was grown very remiss. St. Oddo first began to retrieve it in the monastery of Cluny that monastery, by the conditions of its erection, was put under the immediate protection of the holy see; with a prohibition to all powers, both secular and ecclesiastical, to disturb the monks in the possession of their effects or the election of their abbot. In virtue hereof they pleaded an ex-close of the third century, conemption from the jurisdiction of the bishop, and extended this privilege to all the houses dependent on Cluny. This made the first The monks, at least the ancient congregation of several houses ones, were distinguished into soliunder one chief immediately sub-taries, cænobites, and sarabaites. ject to the pope, so as to con- The solitary are those who live stitute one body, or, as they now alone, in places remote from all call it, one religious order. Till towns and habitations of men, as then, each monastery was inde-do still some of the hermits. The tributed to produce the same effect, and to drive men into solitude for the purposes of devotion. cænobites are those who live in community with several others in the same house, and under the same superiors. The sarabaites were strolling monks having no fixed rule or residence. The houses of monks, again, were of two kinds, viz. monasteries and lauræ. Those who are now called monks, are cœnobites, who live together in a convent or monastery, who make vows of living according to a certain rule established by the founder, and wear a habit which distinguishes their order. time the whole East was filled with a lazy set of mortals, who, abandoning all human connexions, advantages, pleasures, and concerns, wore out a languishing and miserable existence amidst the hardships of want, and various kinds of suffering, in order to arrive at a more close and rapturous communication with God and angels. From the East this gloomy disposition passed into the West, and first into Italy and its neighbouring islands; though it is uncertain who transplanted it thither. St. Martin, the celebrated bishop of Those that are endowed, or Tours, erected the first monastehave a fixed revenue, are most ries in Gaul, and recommended properly called monks, monachi; this religious solitude with such as the Chartreux, Benedictines, power and efficacy, both by his inBernardines, &c. The Mendi-structions and his example, that cants, or those that beg, as the his funeral is said to have been Capuchins and Franciscans, are attended by no less than two thou-, more properly called religious and sand monks. From hence the mofriars, though the names are fre-nastic discipline extended graquently confounded. The first monks were those of St. Anthony, who, towards the close of the fourth century, formed them into a regular body, engaged them to live in society with each other, and prescribed to them fixed rules for the direction of their conduct. These regulations, which Anthony had made in Egypt, were soon introduced into Palestine and Syria by his disciple Hilarion. Almost about the same time, Aones, or Eugenius, with their companions Gaddanas and Azyzas, instituted the monastic order in Mesopotamia, and the adjacent countries; and their example was followed with such rapid success, that in a short dually its progress through the other provinces and countries of Europe. There were, besides the monks of St. Basil (called in the East Calogeri, from xaños yega, "a good old man,") and those of St. Jerome, the hermits of St. Augustine, and afterwards those of St. Benedict and St. Bernard: at length came those of St. Francis and St. Dominic, with a legion of others; all which see under their proper heads. Towards the close of the fifth century, the monks, who had formerly lived only for themselves in solitary retreats, and had never thought of assuming any rank among the sacerdotal order, were now gradually distinguished from century to such as devoted themselves to the sacred gloom and in the populace, and endowed with such opulence and honourable privileges, that they found them-dolence of a convent. This vene selves in a condition to claim an ration caused several kings and eminent station among the pillars emperors to call them to their and supporters of the Christian courts, and to employ them in community. The fame of their civil affairs of the greatest mopiety and sanctity was so great, ment. Their reformation was atthat bishops and presbyters were tempted by Louis the Meek, but often chosen out of their order; the effect was of short duration. and the passion of erecting edi- In the eleventh century they were fices and convents, in which the exempted by the popes from the monks and holy virgins might authority of their sovereigns, and serve God in the most commodi-new orders of monks were conous manner, was at this time car-tinually established; insomuch, ried beyond all bounds. However, that in the council of Lateran that their licentiousness, even in this was held in the year 1215, a decentury, was become a proverb; cree was passed, by the advice of and they are said to have excited Innocent III, to prevent any new the most dreadful tumults and se- monastic institutions; and several ditions in various places. The mo- were entirely suppressed. In the nastic orders were at first under fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it the immediate jurisdiction of the appears, from the testimony of the bishops, from which they were best writers, that the monks were exempted by the Roman pontiff generally lazy, illiterate, profliabout the end of the seventh cen-gate, and licentious epicures, tury; and the monks, in return, whose views in life were confined devoted themselves wholly to ad- to opulence, idleness, and pleavance the interests and to main-sure. However, the reformation tain the dignity of the bishop of had a manifest influence in reRome. This immunity which they straining their excesses, and renobtained was a fruitful source of dering them more circumspect and licentiousness and disorder, and cautious in their external conoccasioned the greatest part of the duct. vices with which they were afterwards so justly charged. In the eighth century the monastic discipline was extremely relaxed both in the eastern and western provinces, and all efforts to restore it were ineffectual. Nevertheless, this kind of institution was in the highest esteem; and nothing could equal the veneration that was paid about the close of the ninth Monks are distinguished by the colour of their habits into black, white, grey, &c. Among the monks, some are called monks of the choir, others professed monks,and others lay monks, which last are destined for the service of the convent, and have neither clericate nor literature. Cloistered monks are those who actually resids in the house: in |