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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]