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IV. 2

THE MONKS

IV.2.1

ELIGIBILITY & SOCIAL BACKGROUND

Although the Rule of St. Benedict granted admission in
principle to men of all walks of life, all classes, types and
ages,[76] in the early days of monasticism most of the monks
appear to have come from lower-middle-class families.[77] At
the time of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, by contrast,
the monks were drawn almost exclusively from the ranks
of the freemen and the nobility. This held true in a special
sense for the royal foundations. In some of these, such as
the Abbey of St.-Riquier (Centula), the Frankish nobility
was so widely represented that the eleventh century
chronicler Hariulf could exclaim that "every higher
dignitary, wherever located in the kingdom of the Franks,
boasted of having a relative in this abbey . . . for in this
monastery were educated dukes, the sons of dukes and even
the sons of kings."[78]

The passage must be taken with some caution as it refers
more specifically to men who received their education in
the monastery of St. Riquier than to regular and permanent
monks of this abbey; but a remark of another chronicler,
of the same period, likewise coined with regard to a royal
abbey, is unequivocal in its reference to monks of regular
standing: "For although St. Gall has never had a monk
who was not of free birth," writes Ekkehart IV in his
account of the death of Wolo, a noble monk of unruly
temper, "those of more noble rank erred more often."[79]
The pride with which these statements were made suggests
that they reflect the special conditions found in royal abbeys
rather than a principle universally practiced in the recruiting
of monks. Yet that the social composition of
recruits both for monastery and church was not a matter
of fleeting concern to the empire, may be gathered from
such crucial imperial ordinances as the famous Admonitio
generalis, issued in 789, where these institutions are
directed to attach to themselves as future monks and clergy
"not only infants from servile classes, but also the sons of
freemen" (non solum servilis conditionis infantes, sed etiam
ingenuorum filios adgregent sibique socient).[80]

IV.2.2

NOVICES AND OBLATES

An adult who sought admission (pulsans, i.e., one who
knocks) was first put up in the guest house, after having
knocked at the monastery door repeatedly and having been
rejected repeatedly for four or five days. If he still insisted,
he was admitted to the Novitiate. There he was initiated
into the Rule by a supervising senior. After six months of
intensive training, he was given an opportunity to depart.
If, after a year had passed, he still decided to stay (being
by this time fully aware of the severity of his prospective
life) he was, upon written petition, formally received at
the high altar. There he solemnly relinquished all his
private property and was stripped of his worldly clothing,
prostrated himself before the entire congregation, monk
by monk, received his tonsure, and thereafter was "no
longer free to leave the monastery, or to withdraw his neck
from under the yoke of the Rule."[81] The rank and order of
the brothers within the monastery was established "according
to the time of their entry," except for those "whom
the abbot has by special decision promoted or for definite
reasons degraded."[82]

Children (oblati, i.e., those who are offered) were presented
by their parents to the monastery for acceptance, by
formal petition. If from rich families, the children had to
entirely relinquish their right to inheritance, but the
parents might deed this to the monastery.[83] This practice of
deeding inheritance rights to the monastery, in time abused
by greedy abbots,[84] was criticized in 794, 811, and 813, and
was finally revoked, in full departure from St. Benedict's
Rule, during the synod of 816.[85] The new ordinance may have
had a frustrating effect upon the economic and monetary
exploitation of the system of monastic oblation but it could
hardly eradicate the deeper evils inherent in oblation itself,
which bound men to celibacy and monastic isolation through
paternal decree instead of their own choosing. Yet it cannot
be denied that some of the greatest medieval minds
emerged from this system, such men as the Venerable Bede

[ILLUSTRATION]

XLIII. DE HIS QUI AD OPUS DEI UEL AD MENSAM
TARDE OCCURUNT

1 Ad horam diuni officii mox auditus fuerit signus, relictis omnibus,
quaelibet fuerint in manibus, summa cum festinabone curratur,

2 cum grauitate tamen, ut non scurilitas inueniat fomitem.

3 Ergo nihil operi dei praeponatur.

43 OF THOSE WHO COME LATE TO THE WORK
OF GOD OR TO TABLE

As soon as the signal for the Divine Office has been heard, let
them abandon what they have in hand and assemble with the greatest
speed, yet soberly, so that no occasion be given for levity. Let
nothing, therefore, be put before the work of God.

(672/73-735),[86] St. Willibrord, the "apostle of the Frisians"
(c. 657-738)[87] and Hrabanus Maurus (c. 776-856).[88] Another
outstanding Carolingian oblate was a man of major
concern to this study, Bishop Haito of Basel, the presumptive
maker of the Plan of St. Gall. He entered the
monastery of Reichenau at the age of five, became a teacher
in the school where he himself had been taught, rose to the
rank of bishop in 803, became abbot in 806, and subsequently,
one of the most illustrious councillors at the
court of Charlemagne.[89]

Boys who were raised in the Novitiate were kept under
strict discipline at all times by everyone, especially by their
masters.[90] Hildemar, in his commentary on the Rule,
prescribes that three or four supervising seniors be assigned
to each group of ten young boys, and that these supervisors
see to it that none of their young charges is ever left untended,
not even in his most private moments; and under
no circumstances is he ever to be alone with another boy.[91]

Priests and clerics formed a third category of eligible candidates.
St. Benedict warns that permission for them to
enter not be granted too readily, and only on condition that
they are willing to observe the full discipline of the Rule.[92]
The second synod of Aachen (817) reaffirmed this rule.[93]

IV.2.3

DAILY ROUTINE

The monks' daily life was divided to allow some four hours
for common liturgical prayer and chant (opus dei), some
four additional hours for meditative reading or private
prayer (lectio divina), and another four to six hours for
manual occupations (opus manuum).[94]

OPUS DEI

The noblest of the liturgical occupations was the Work of
God, "over which nothing must take precedence" (Ergo
nihil operi Dei praeponatur).[95] This began at two o'clock
in the morning, when, after seven hours' sleep, the brothers
rose from their beds to celebrate what to St. Benedict was
known as the Nocturne (to later monasticism as Matins).
In the course of the day that followed they attended seven
additional services: Lauds (called by St. Benedict Matutinas),
held at the break of dawn; four shorter ones—Prime,
Terce, Sext, and None[96] —held at the first, third, sixth,
and ninth hours of the day; Vespers at sunset; and, on
the advent of darkness a last one, Compline.

Generally, these services began with an invitatory and a
hymn, followed by three to six psalms or canticles, three to
four readings from the Gospel, a responsory, and on
Sundays and feast days, a mass.

The central and longest phase of these services was the
chanting of the psalms. St. Benedict devoted no less than
nine chapters of his Rule to the order and manner in which
they were to be sung throughout the year.[97] He makes allowance
for changes, provided "that the psalter with its full
hundred and fifty psalms be chanted every week and begun
afresh every Sunday at Matins."[98] He makes clear on
which occasion the psalter should be sung "straight
through" (in directum) and on which occasion "with
antiphons" (cum antiphonis).[99] The structure of the Hebrew
psalms renders it probable that the division of the religious
congregation into choirs singing separate parts in alternation
may have originated in the ancient Jewish Church. In
the Eastern Church antiphonal song was introduced by
Ignatius Bishop of Antioch (d. 115). In the West it was not
practiced prior to St. Ambrose (d. 379). Firmly established
in the ecclesiastical liturgy by Pope Gregory the Great
(d. 604), by the ninth century antiphonal singing had
developed into an elaborate sequence of responses which
soloists sang in alternation with various other groups of
singers under the guidance of a conductor. The performance
of this art was held in such high esteem that on the
days of the great feasts, visiting bishops did not hesitate to
join the rows of chanting monks to sing under the direction
of their former teachers.[100] The supervision of this important
phase of the divine service was sometimes the
office of the cantor, at other times that of the master of the
library and scriptorium (armarius).[101] In his commentary on
chapter 8 of the Rule of St. Benedict, Hildemar lists those
who perform specific functions in the chanting of the psalms:
the cantor, the praecentor, the succentor, and the concentor.
The cantor is a soloist "who modulates his voice" (vocem
modelatur in cantu), the praecentor "opens the song"
(vocem praemittit in cantu), the succentor "responds"
(subsequenter canendo respondet), and the concentor is the
one who "harmonizes" (consonat).[102] The very existence
of these names is evidence of the extent to which the various
phases of the antiphonal chant had around 845 already been
delegated to specialists.

LECTIO DIVINA

The Rule allows for a long period of meditative reading and
prayer, that is, for the furthering of the spiritual well-being
of the individual rather than for the promotion of his intellectual
powers. It involved the reading of the scriptures,
early monastic literature, and the writings of the Church
Fathers. Monks with superior intellectual capacities could
devote this time to the copying of manuscripts and to their
own creative writing. Chapter 48 of the Rule states that
"one or two senior monks should be deputed to go round
the monastery at the times when the brethren are occupied
in reading, to see that there be no slothful brother who
spends his time in idleness or gossip and neglects the reading."[103]
The same chapter recommends that some kind of
manual labor be given to those who cannot read.

When Abbot Ratger of Fulda, in the heat of an ambitious
building program that fatigued the monks beyond endurance,
shortened the time for the lectio divina, the brothers
made this the subject of a complaint to Emperor Charlemagne.[104]
Initially rejected, eventually they secured the
dismissal of their abbot.[105]

[ILLUSTRATION]

XIX. DE DISCIPLINA PSALLENDI

1 Ubique credimus diuinam esse praesentiam et OCULOS
DOMINI IN OMNI LOCO SPECULARI BONOS ET MALOS;

2 maxime tamen hoc sine alîqua dubitatîone credamus, cum ad
opus diuinum adsistimus.

19 THE MANNER OF SAYING THE DIVINE
OFFICE

We believe that God is present everywhere and that THE
EYES OF THE LORD IN EVERY PLACE BEHOLD THE GOOD
AND THE EVIL; but let us especially believe this without any
doubting when we are performing the Divine Office.

OPUS MANUUM

Chapters 41[106] and 48[107] of the Rule speak clearly of monks
working in the fields. But the fact that the first synod of
Aachen found it necessary to admonish the brothers not to
murmur, "if the necessity arises to help in gathering the
harvest or in other chores of this kind,"[108] implies that to
many, labor in the fields had become a task quite out of the
ordinary. The brothers' opus manuum, in fact was not
primarily work of this nature. Most of the regular and
heavy agricultural work was performed by serfs or coloni,
and the monks' manual labor was generally restricted to
tasks that could be performed within the cloisters or the
buildings directly connected with them: cooking, baking,
serving meals, sweeping the claustral buildings, and washing
and mending clothes. Those skilled in the arts and crafts
could spend the time allotted for manual labor in the nobler
pursuits of carving ivories, painting frescoes, illuminating
books, or making sacred vessels and ornaments.

It is likely that in addition to his regular chores, every
healthy monk, for part of his lifetime at least, participated
in the work of building and repairing the buildings in which
he worshiped and lived. At Fulda the number of hours
allocated to construction was so exorbitant that, as just
mentioned, the monks turned to the Emperor for redress.
They complained that the time given to building interfered
with their ancient rights to work "in the bakehouse,
the garden, the brewhouse, the kitchen, and the fields."[109]
The synod of 816 reaffirmed these rights, and prescribed
in addition that the monks wash their own clothes.[110]