University of Virginia Library

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]