Introduction.-View of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of the Monastic Orders. Chapter I. CCLESIASTICAL historians are agreed in assigning the origin of Monachism to the third century, and in representing it as an incidental consequence of the persecutions under Decius and Valerian. But the age was prepared for it by the corruptions with which Christianity was from its very origin infected, corruptions arising from that common infirmity of human nature, which Sir Thomas Browne says, is the first and father cause of common errors.1 THE first type of monastic institutions, in .. Paradise. See the Censura, prefixed to the second volume of BARTOLOCCI's Bibl. Rabbinica, where there are extracts from S. AUGUSTINE, &c. on the subject. A.M. 99. EvE instituted a religious order of virgins, who were to preserve unex 1 This is all that was ever written out clean for the press. All that follows is but a mere collection of notes. No doubt the whole materiel for the Monastic Orders is in the MS. Collection for the History of Portugal,-but the Editor has not had time to examine those valuable papers accurately, and they have nothing to do with the COMMON-PLACE BOOK.-J. W. W. tinguished the fire which had fallen from heaven on the sacrifice of Abel. HAYLEY refers for this to ST. ROMNALD Abrégé du Tresor Chronologique. SIR G. MACKENZIE'S Vindication of the body against the soul, as the party which is more sinned against than sinning. Essays, p. 69. This argument might have puzzled St. Francis and his followers. "CARDINAL CORCEONE, under whom a council was celebrated at Paris in 1212, past this among other decrees there:- Interdicimus regularibus et monialibus, ne bini, vel binæ in lecto jaceant, propter metum incontinentiæ. "On publia un petit hore l'an 1643, fait par un pieux prêtre, et apprové par quatre docteurs, portant pour titre, Avis Chrétien touchant une matière de grande importance, dans lequel l'auteur désire grandement que ce décret-là soit sérieusement gardé.'"-BAYLE, vol. 5, p. 297. Egypt and Syria. ASSEMAN's passage respecting the use of the deserts.-RODERICK, vol. 1, p. 230. SCOTT-DR. SAYERS-LIGHTFOOT-FULLER-DR. WHITAKER. 369 "THERE is a book by ANDRES ANTONIO SANCKEZ, entitled Exclamacion a los heroicos hechos del Eremita del Ayre S. Simeon." -Sevilla. 1680. "HE," says ARISTOTLE, "that cannot contract society with others, or through his own self-sufficiency, does not need it, belongs not to any commonwealth, but is either a wild beast or a god.” “Ο δὲ μὴ δυνάμενος κοινωνεῖν, ἢ μηδὲν δεόμενος δι' ἀυτάρκειαν, οὐδὲν μέρος πόλεως, ὥστε ἢ θηρίον ἢ Θεος.” — SCOTT's Christian Life, p. 53. Britain. “CAPGRAVE, (Vit. S. Alban, ff. 8. 6.) and HOSPINIAN (De Origine Monochatus, 1. 4. c. 3,) attribute the introduction of Monachism into Britain to Pelagius the Heresiarch."-DR. SAYERS, vol. 2, p. 217. The Essenes and Pharisees. WHEN Josephus belonged to this sect, "understanding that there was one Banus, a hermit, who used no clothes but what were made of trees, and that ate nothing but what grew of itself, and that for chastity's sake, washed himself often, day and night, in cold water, I was very zealous, (he says,) to become an imitator of him, and I spent three years with him."-This he says in his own Life. "WE might begin the history of the Essenes from Judges i. 16. And the sons of the Kenite, Moses's father-in-law, went out of the city of palms, with the sons of Judah, into the deserts of Judah.' From these, we suppose, came the Rechabites, and from their stock or example, the Essenes."LIGHTFOOT, vol. 10, p. 17. "FULLER says of the Pharisees, quoting EPIPHANIUS adv. Hæreses, (lib. 1, p. 20,) 'They wore coarse clothing, pretending much mortification, and ore nonovy, when they exercised (that is, when these mountebanks theatrically acted their humiliation,) ἀκάνθας στρωμνὴν εἶχον, they had thorns for their bed to lay upon; and some of them wore a mortar on their heads, so ponderous, that they could look neither upward, nor on either side, but only downward, and forthright.” - Pisgah Sight, p. 107. 2nd paging. Benedictines. ACCORDING to DR. WHITAKER, (Hist. of Craven, 40 N.) twelve monks and an abbot were the legitimate number which constituted an early Benedictine House,-in reference to Christ and his apostles. He quotes Instituta Mon. Cist. DUGDALE, vol. 1, p. 699. "Et sicut (Benedictus) Monasteria constructa per 12 monachos, adjuncto patre disponebat, sic se acturos confirmabant." "ONE novice at least seems to have been maintained by every religious house at one of the Universities."-Ibid. p. 52. www "It was a practice of which I could produce many instances, from the Liber loci Benedicti, to send refractory monks to undergo a temporary discipline in some neighbouring monastery."-Ibid. "THE Sartrina, in the religious houses, was the tailor's office. Vestiarius sartrinum habere debet extra officinas claustri interiores.' Lib. Ord. ST. VICTOR, Paris, as quoted by DU CANGE. But how the canons of Bolton should make a profit of this, amounting to sixteen pounds, unless their taylors wrought for all the country around them, or even then, I do not understand."— Ibid. p. 385. BB 370 SENOR ALARCON - BAYLE-CRADOCK — DOBRIZHOFFER. ST. BERNARD's epistle to a nephew, who, from the Cistercian past to the Cluniac order. It is placed first among his Epistles, having been honoured by a miracle.-Ibid. p. 1380. COMPLAINT of the Abbot of Monte Cassino to Gonsalvo de Cordoba, that his abbey was deprived of the benefit of the reform, because it was held in Encomienda by cardinals.-Mem. del Señor Alarcon, p. 141. INTERLINEAR Saxon Versions of the Rules of S. Fulgentius, and of Benedict, are among the Cotton MSS.-Tiberius, A. 111, 43-44. BENEDICT is said to have been descended from Anicius, the first great Roman who was converted. Attempts have been made to show that the House of Austria are of the same extraction.—BAYLE, sub voce. "FROM all that I had heard from the monks of the Abbaye St. Victor, Father F. at Marseilles, (the superior at Thoulouse,) and some Benedictines in the neighbourhood, I began to get a clear insight into the secrets of the rich churchmen; but my ideas became greatly altered. I found they had little or no comfort; that the getting out of a warm bed at stated times, and going into cold chapels, had given most of them fixed rheumatism; that they had no benefit from wealth, and had much trouble in collecting it; that their members, when they were rich, were daily reducing, and that one year one convent had privately furnished a very large sum to the government, and said they wished it would take all, except a humble pittance."-CRADOCK's Travels, p. 300. Franciscans. THE finest works, of Cimabue are his decayed frescos in the church of S. Francis | at Assissi. They are said, "notwithstanding the rudeness of their execution," to astonish the beholder, by their grand and simple style. "LUSITANI nautæ diem Divo Francisco Assisiati sacrum magnopere reformidant, quod ejus fune flagellari mare tunc, irritarique credunt. Hanc opinionem a majoribus suis acceptam, quamvis nobis ridicula luculenterque superstitiosa videatur, experientia tuentur suâ."-DOBRIZHOFFER, tom. 1, p. 378. "LES plus erudits de nos etymologistes pretendent qu'il faut chercher la source de l'ancienne locution faire la scote, dans l'usage adopté par les Capucins, qui, ne portant point de linge, passent leurs vétemens sur la flamme d'un feu clair, afin d'en chasser la mauvaise odeur dont la sueur du corps a pu les impregner. Cette origine paroit d'autant plus plausible, que l'Italie, comme on le sait, a été le berceau des Capucins, et que la locution, dont il s'agit, vient de cette contrée."-Mem. Historiques, tom. 36, p. 450, N. "IF some laws are published with severe clauses of command, and others on purpose and by design with lesser and the more gentle, then the case is evident, that there is a difference to be made also by the conscience. And this is in particular made use of by the Franciscans in the observation of the Rule of their order. For in Clementina. Exivi de Paradiso, sect. Cum autem, de Verborum significatione,' it is determined that that part of the Rule of St. Francis which is established by preceptive or prohibitive words, shall oblige the Friars Minors under a great sin; the rest not, and this wholly upon the account of the different clauses of sanction and establishment."J. TAYLOR, vol. 13, p. 247. BERINGTON-LINGUET - CORNEJO - FR. JUAN ANTONIO. and the fancied intervention of peculiar favours from Heaven would not have been deemed necessary to stamp worth and admiration on a character which, in itself, possessed the purest excellences that fall to the lot of man. But this circumstance, and more than this, the reception which an institute so peculiarly framed met with, serve to manifest the singular taste of the age."-BERINGTON's Henry II. p. 629. wwwww 371 los huessos, sobre los quales estàn los cimientos y fundamentos, en que se apoya, y sustenta la Iglesia Universal y su Santa Sede. Y que assi como S. Francisco en la Vision del Papa Innocencio sustentaba la Iglesia, assi la sustenta oy su Religion.”— FR. JUAN ANTONIO. Ch. de S. Francisco en las Philipinias, tom. 1, p. 286. THE Popes choose him for their patron at their coronation.-Ibid. "SOME writers apply the prophecy in the Apocalypse, ch. xx. v. 1, 2, to Innocent III. who they say bound the Devil by approving the orders of the Dominicans and Franciscans."-LIGHTFOOT, vol. 6, p. 167. "C'EST une remarque importante a faire, que de tous les anciens souverains monastiques, il n'y en a pas un que fasse son sejour en Italie. Les Benedictins de toutes les congregations, les Bernardins, les Clunistes, les Prémontrés, enfin tous les Moines de la vieille-roche, si l'on peut se servir de ce terme, ont leurs superieurs immediats hors des Etats du Pape. De tous ceux des AN epistle of Urban to his legate in Mendians, au contraire, il n'y en a pas un seul qui ne reside a Rome, et ne soit à la France, that he should allow the friars, both fois dans cette Cour le gage et l'instrument Dominican and Franciscan, to ride on horsede la soumission de tous ses sujets repan-whatsoever, notwithstanding their rules to back, and enter the nunneries of any order dus dans l'univers chretien." Hist. de Jesuites, vol. 1, p. 163. LINGUET. wwwwm the contrary. "FRANCIS," said LUTHER," was no doubt an honest and a just man. He little thought that such superstition and unbelief should proceed out of his life. There have been so many of those Grey Friars, that they offered to send 40,000 of them against the Turks, and yet the monasteries of that order should be provided sufficiently.” — Coll. Mensalia, p. 370. ST. ANTONIO first introduced the use of the public discipline, &c. of penitents flogging themselves till the blood streamed for edification.-CORNEJO, vol. 2, p. 316. IN the Continuation of Whitefield's Journal, (printed for James Hutton, second edition, 1739) is a story of Joseph Periam, 372 MARTENE AND DURAND - RICHEOME - BAYLE. who was put in Bedlam for selling hissieres, comme celle des Chartreux et semcloathes and giving the money to the poor, blables. Les Maisons Prophesses vivent -obeying the Gospel, like St. Francis, lite- d'aumosne actuellement, sans aucun fonds rally.-P. 98. ni rente, non pas mesme pour la Sacristie, ou Fabrique de l'Eglise."- See the pas 40. France considered a hot-bed of heresy, and therefore other Catholic countries established Universities, instead of sending their youth thither as theretofore. 210. Emanuel Sa's doctrine that a clergyman conspiring against the person of the king, is not guilty of high treason, explained. 414-15. Reason why the members of the company retain the property of their estates, though they have not the usufruct. 423. Nature of their property. The Novitias and the Colleges " peuvent tenir des rentes en commun, qui sont aumosnes fon |