| | | | It is a singular and very important fact, that, in this restless and | prying age of ours, questions of an ecclesiastical and religious | kind are coming always more and more into the field of public | discussion. For our own part, we, individually, believe these two | things: ~~ First, we believe that, unless some great convulsion in | society shall chain down the minds of men to an exclusive | absorption in matters of immediate and personal interest, no long | time will elapse before questions of ecclesiastical polity will | become, everywhere | throughout Europe, the great problems of social action. | Secondly, we believe that, out of the agitation of questions | merely ecclesiastical, there must necessarily arise a severe | inquisition into matters properly religious, ~~ into matters of | faith and of theological system, ~~ into matters which are not of | the husk but of the kernel. From what causes this spirit has | emerged, and to what consequences it is likely to lead, are | questions which are equally foreign to the province of these | pages. But they are equally questions of momentous import; and | nowhere have they yet received the scrutiny they deserve. The | polemics are too busy, and are unqualified to discuss them. The | philosophers are too proud to condescend to take them up. | But that the case at present is as we have stated it, is a fact which | experience, pretty dearly bought in many instances, is daily | teaching every one of us. In some quarters, the vexed and | insoluble question has been anew raised, as to the just limits of | ecclesiastical dominion. This is nearly the whole question in | France, where the agitation is but commencing; it may be said to | have been absolutely the whole question in the miserable quarrel | which has shaken the Church of Scotland; it is one part of the | question which is raised in the Church of England. Elsewhere, | dogmatic controversy has already taken root. It is rife among our | Scottish dissenting sects; it has raged and worn itself out among | the Protestant churches of Switzerland and Germany; and it has | now re-awakened in the latter of these countries, in a form which | directly touches the Roman Catholic church only, but which | must extend itself farther, and has already shown symptoms of | doing so. The late disturbances at Leipzig show how much the | interest attached to Ronge's opinions is felt in a Protestant | German community; and the ardour with which the controversy | is espoused among educated men is evinced by the vast number | of treatises on it, which are pouring from the press. The Leipzig | catalogue of books published, in Germany, from January to June | of this year, contains about nine hundred articles, classed under | the head of "Scientific Theology;" and of these there are full two | hundred and thirty which, in one way or another, deal with the | new "German-Apostolic-Catholic Church." | In more than one respect good has been done, though good | alloyed with much lamentable evil, even by the stage which these | controversies have already reached. The Romanist tendencies | exhibited by one or two sections of our Protestant ecclesiastical | reformers, are not, indeed, the best or safest of the aspects which | the reforming spirit has taken; but even these tendencies have not | been void of beneficial effects. One of these is suggested by the | book which lies before us. They have led to much study of the | antiquities of Christianity. Now, this is a study which, while it is | indispensable to the systematic theologian, is far from being | without interest or value even to us simple and untheological | laymen. Historical study, in any department of it which we may | take up, is like a journey through a foreign land; the one may do | as much as the other for rubbing off the rust of prejudice. And, | unchangeable as religion is in its essence, there is yet so much of | the evanescent and circumstantial mixed up in all its actual | developments, that the perusal of the particular page of human | history in which its annals are written, is a duty bringing with it | rich and increasing knowledge and enlightenment. There are | innumerable particulars in which every Christian sect derives | observances and other peculiarities a degree of importance which | an examination of their sources dispels in an instant. We of | Scotland, in our Presbyterian forms and polity, have adopted | several objectionable peculiarities, for no better reason than a | cross-grained hatred of Popery; our prelatical neighbours have | retained several foolish rites and rules, for no better reason than | their anxiety to keep hold of as many links as possible in the | hereditary chain, which they suppose to bind their church to the | apostolic system. But, moreover, we of modern times | misunderstand much in the earlier history of Christianity; | because we have hitherto been content, all of us, to whatever | church we belong, to take all disputable points for granted, ~~ | with this slight difference, that each church believes its own | historians only; and that, therefore, no two churches have exactly | the same facts to rely upon. Now, it would be rash to expect, that | historical truths, which the Catholic has not learned from | Bossuet, nor the Protestant from Mosheim, will come into the | possession of the Puseyite through Messrs. Newman and Ward. | Yet it is certain that the writers who affect to call themselves | Anglo-Catholics have elicited not a few facts, which had | escaped, recently at least | | the notice of other parties; and for a cautious and industrious | reader of ecclesiastical history, it is no small advantage to be | guided to a new point of view, and to be put in possession of the | impressions made upon those by whom that point of view has | first been occupied. | | Mr. Maitland has collected with pains a good many of those | materials, which may be useful in enabling us to correct some of | our ultra-Protestant prejudices. He sets forth the results of his | researches in a way which is, indeed, avowedly desultory and | gossiping, but which possesses much liveliness and interest; and | his essays, originally printed in a periodical work, might burnish | the means of constructing a paper which should treat several very | serious questions, and which might yet be by no means | unattractive to general readers. Here but a small part of his | collections can be noticed. He designs, as he tells us, ; | which period, deviating from all the common chronological | divisions, he holds to extend from A.D. 800, to A.D. 1200. This | is his first statement of his purpose; but the statement is | afterwards limited and made more precise. | | The author's chief aim, in short, is in substance this. He wishes | to disprove two assertions currently made; ~~ that the clergy of | the ages he describes were generally and profoundly unlearned; | and that their teaching to the people embraced little or nothing | else than points of form, or matters of superstitious belief and | observance, to the exclusion, total, or almost total, of the genuine | doctrines and precepts of Christianity. He undertakes to | overthrow these positions by showing, in the first place, that the | proofs usually adduced in support of them do, so far as they have | any force, refer to ages of the church which were more recent, | and confessedly more corrupt; and, secondly, that there exists | much evidence bearing the opposite way, which has been | undervalued, or altogether overlooked. | It is not to be expected that the argument thus maintained shall | here be extricated from the mass of anxious recapitulations, and | amusing digressions, and whimsical anecdotes, through which it | is conducted in its tortuous progress. Nor do we profess to know | whether the author allows himself to be ranked with the | ecclesiastical party, to whose opinions his book would seem to | be a contribution. That he would confess himself a

| "Puseyite,"

indeed, is impossible. No such party exists; at | least we have been so informed, again and again, by reverend | gentlemen who are themselves said to belong to it. If the revival | of monkery ~~ the character and tendencies of which are | discussed at much length in the volume ~~ be one of the | essentials of Puseyism or Anglo-Catholicism, then Mr. Maitland | is not a convert to its faith; for in a lively, and satirical, and very | sensible preface, he treats this preposterous whim just as it | deserves. | The first point raised in his work is the reading and writing of the | clergy in the dark ages. In his love for ancient times, he is bold | enough to question even the received belief that those arts were | then almost unknown to the laity. He makes out a better case | when he deals with the accomplishments of the priests and | monks; and really those persons have been dealt with somewhat | hardly, in regard to this, as to many other points relating to | literary cultivation. Afterwards, some curious matter is | collected, and some ingenious but very slippery inferences are | drawn, by way of showing that the ecclesiastical libraries of the | early times were much better furnished, in point of quantity at | least, than they are commonly supposed to have been. One of his | arguments on this head ~~ an argument on which he repeatedly | founds ~~ is this: that the instances usually cited, or payment of | extravagant prices for books, must have been instances in which | a particular copy possessed an extraordinary value, on account of | the beauty and correctness of the manuscript, or for some other | special reason. There is much aptness in one of the illustrations | by which this view is enforced. | | | We pass over the legend of the goldsmith, Saint Eloy, which is | told picturesquely, though diffusely. We pass over, also, the | extracts from his extant sermons, which certainly contain more | divinity than he gets credit for from Mosheim and Robertson. | | The next hero presented to us is Meinwerc, who was bishop of | Paderborn in the tenth century. In the defence of this eccentric | prelate, Mr. Maitland puts forth all his strength. Most of us | | have heard the story which is related to prove directly that | Meinwerc was quite ignorant of Latin, and which is used as a | ground for inferring that such ignorance must have been common | in his time among the inferior clergy. Reading prayers in public, | we are told, and lighting on a passage where the divine favour is | craved for kings and queens, , ( ,) he | overlooked the first syllables of the Latin words, and called their | majesties, , ( .) Our author gives us what was | doubtless the genuine version of the story; but he prefaces it by | some other comical anecdotes. | Meinwerc was a kinsman of the emperor of Germany, and | became that monarch's chaplain. He was a man of wealth as well | as rank; and the emperor's reason for appointing him to the | bishopric of Paderborn, and his own reason for accepting the | office, was the poverty of the see, the cathedral, monastery, and | town having been recently burned. He made over his estates to | the see, rebuilt the cathedral, and governed his diocese with | equal spirit and kindness. He was an original in many | particulars. | | In fact, his acquisitiveness led him to acts which, in our days, | might have brought him into an awkward acquaintance with the | police magistrate. But the emperor's cousin and schoolfellow | might take liberties which a meaner man must not have ventured | upon; and some of these were worthy of a genuine humorist, and | were relished as points of humour by his imperial master. | | And here follows the famous mule story. After all, even in its | amended form, it hardly saves the bishop's Latinity, while it | gives a very curious picture of the ecclesiastical decorum of his | times. | | | | There is shrewdness, as well as justice, in Mr. Maitland's closing | remark on the story. Brucker, who tells it in its worst shape, can | hardly believe the assertion made by an old historian, that the | person who committed the blunder was an active patron of the | education of the young. | | | A succeeding chapter offers promising materials. Our eye is | caught by this sentence in it: ~~ . The topic is | furnished by two celebrated festivals of the middle ages: the | Feast of Fools, and the Feast of Asses. But our author's vein of | humour is very thin at this point of its course; and the subject is | one which has little bearing either upon his argument, or on the | broader questions which occur as to the state of the times, or | their ecclesiastical polity. Some of those questions are treated | parenthetically in passages which immediately follow. One or | two of these, chiefly couched in the author's jocular form of | expression, contain good sense in relation to the position of | monkery in its earliest ages. | | This view of the monk's professional position ~~ , says | Jerome, , ~~ however just in itself, is manifestly not | favourable to the main position which Mr. Maitland wishes to | establish. If he admits the ignorance of the monks, or the | tendency of the monastic system to cause ignorance in its | votaries, he has given up his cause in regard to a large proportion | of the whole religious community of the dark and middle ages. | And if ignorance made good its reign in the monasteries, little | else was to be looked for in the chapter-houses and the parish | churches. Our author sees these consequences, and meets the | difficulty by half a dozen of his favourite and diverting | digressions. In the first place, the distinction is broadly drawn | between secular and theological learning; it was the former alone | that was ever discouraged or neglected; the latter, we are told, | was never quite extinct, and was often successfully cherished. | For, in the next place, the seclusion of the monk, and his | complete separation from the business of active life, gave him | opportunities of study which could not belong to the secular | priest; and accordingly, not only is it to the monastic orders that | we have to look for a large part of the theological erudition | which really existed in the times in question, but, in spite of the | frequent censures of prohibitions of secular studies in the | cloister, it was in many instances the conventual | | brethren alone that read, and the conventual libraries alone that | preserved, the writings of the classics. | The rule of excluding secular studies, as unworthy to occupy the | thoughts of a religious recluse, was, indeed, not without | adaptation to that spirit of despondency which naturally arose in | ages of turbulence and danger, and which, in its turn, naturally | produced a flight from the world into the cave and the cloister-cell. | But the rule could not long be maintained; and some letters | quoted for us, elucidate a principle which was admitted as | justifying some attention to profane learning. The Coenobite | who could pick up from the Heathen classics a bit of practical | knowledge, or a valuable abstract thought, might lawfully regard | his acquisition as a spoiling of the Egyptians. He had disarmed | Satan that he might thrash him with his own cudgel. Or he | might, in the whimsical phrase of Origen, hold himself as taking | captive a Midianitish woman, whom, after having shaved her | head and pared her nails, it was not unlawful for him to make his | wife. | | Accordingly, in the strictest establishments, and least corrupt | ages, the monks and clergy were held bound to an orthodox | contempt and neglect of the classics; that is, to a contempt and | neglect of the only works of literary excellence which then | existed. Pope Gregory could not repeat, without shame and | disgust, a report he had heard, that a certain Gaulish bishop had | taught grammar. And our celebrated countryman Alewin, the | chief of those learned men whom Charlemagne gathered about | him, received in his youth a supernatural warning against his | sinful admiration of the beautiful in Heathen literature. Alewin, | it will be recollected, was educated in a monastery at York. | | | | With this well authenticated story, ~~ in which, by the way, as in | most other tales in which that Devil plays a part, that personage | is represented as acting in a way little calculated to promote his | own purposes, ~~ Mr. Maitland considers himself to have closed | his task of clearing away misconceptions. He next proceeds to | attempt making out the few positive assertions upon which he | ventures. He enters on a long investigation of the question, Did | the ages of which he treats know | anything about the Bible? This is too serious a question | for our pages; and we cannot meddle with many of the | particulars involved in it. It may be enough to say, that we are | required to believe that a considerable knowledge of the Bible | must have existed, mainly because of two reasons: the frequent | mention of the Scriptures, or of parts of them, as existing in | monastic and other libraries; and the Scriptural turn, even of | thought, and still more frequently of expression, which is averred | to pervade all the writings of those ages. The fact the few | comparatively ancient copies of the scriptures have survived, is | accounted for by the causes which have destroyed so many of all | kinds of ancient literary monuments. This discussion leads into | many curious narratives, possessing much value for the student | of literary history, and some of them not a little interesting as | mere anecdotes. The frequent destruction of ecclesiastical | buildings by fire, either in war or by accident, is the first cause | elucidated; and this fact gives occasion to a long history of the | famous abbey of Croyland, in Lincolnshire. The circumstances | are mainly derived from the history of Ingulfus, which, | somewhat to our surprise, is quoted and founded upon without | any mention of the suspicious that have been thrown on its | genuineness. Some parts of the story are picturesque and | touching: ~~ | | A second cause of the destruction of the Scriptures and other | manuscripts, was the negligence of those who had charge of | them. This is shown to have been of very frequent occurrence, | though more so in the later middle ages than in earlier times; and | yet not only were great precautions used in many places for the | preservation of manuscripts, (which were often, for instance, | refused to be lent out, unless on bond and pledge for their safe | return,) but likewise, the multiplication of copies of the sacred | books was held, by some theologians at least, to be a substantive | merit atoning for sins. Since we are here speaking of times | which are represented as having been favoured with supernatural | visitations and information to which the modern world is not | admitted, it may be well to confirm the doctrine last cited by a | legend, which Ordericus Vitalils (writing in the twelfth century) | relates in proof of it. | | Ignorance, cupidity, and dishonesty, are classed together, as | making a third class of causes why so many ancient writings | have been lost. Soon after the invention of printing, the | bookbinders became great devourers of ancient manuscripts: | (would to | | Heaven that they, and the trunk-makers and confectioners, could | dispose of nine-tenths of all the stuff that is now-a-days printed!) | We hear of an Italian bishop, who was so plagued by learned | visiters desiring to inspect the archives of his see, that he fairly | buried them to be quit of the trouble. | We have now gone through, with more pleasure and amusement | perhaps to ourselves than to our readers, about three-fifths of Mr. | Maitland's volume. And we are in a position to confirm, most | decidedly, an assertion which he candidly makes in his first | essay. | | He will therefore excuse us if we confess that we have now | completely lost our way through his reasoning, and that we | cannot, in the slightest degree, guess whether he keeps his | promise or not, when, just after his enumeration of the causes | why manuscripts have so often gone amissing, he says that he is | to . This new part of the argument is a history of two of | the most famous branches of the Benedictine order; the monks of | Clugni, and the Cistercians. Much that is presented in this sketch | is interesting as anecdote; much is curious as illustrative of | character, or the state of society, of the phases of religion, and | the vicissitudes of literature; and every now and then there occur | facts and discussions which bar upon one part or another of the | main argument of the book. Here are two anecdotes which fall, | in some measure, under the later description; for, although no | attempt is made in the text to apply them to the argument, it has | occurred to the writer afterwards, that they may be so applied; | and, accordingly, he tells in a note, that the constant | psalm-singing of the monks proves them to have known by heart one | large portion of the Scriptures. The hero of the story is Odo, who | became abbot of Clugni in the year 927, and is usually | represented as the founder of the monastery. | | Another story may be related, for the same purpose for which it | is set down by the first relater. We do not indeed expect, as he | had reason to do, that we shall have many prelates among our | readers, (although it is not unlikely that bishops read some things | which are of less use to them;) but even to laymen it may be | satisfactory to learn that there was humility among the | churchmen of the middle ages. | | | | The account, which is quoted, of the customs, ceremonies, and | studies of Clugni, in the eleventh century, really deserves the | praise bestowed on it, for giving insight into the nature of | monastic life; and we trust that any of our friends, who may think | of becoming monks in the nineteenth century, are prepared to | obey all the laws laid down for a respectable body of their | predecessors, a thousand years ago. We content ourselves with | admitting, that the rule of Clugni does make some provision for | the study of the best sources of theological knowledge. Nor is it | necessary for our purpose ~~ indeed we do not see how it serves | Mr. Maitland's ~~ to recount the particulars of the great quarrel | between St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the champion of the | Cistercians, and the good-hearted abbot, Peter of Clugni. It is | but fair, however, to say, that Peter

"the Venerable"

| makes here a much more respectable figure than in the pages of | Milner; and that this very narrow-minded historian, does to him, | as to most Roman Catholics who fall into his hands, much less | than justice. Peter was neither so trifling a thinker, nor so | contemptible a writer, as our ultra-Protestants would willingly | believe him and all other Roman Catholic ecclesiastics to have | been. We are half tempted to give some specimens of Peter's | quality; but several reasons restrain us. The matter is too serious, | and, for most readers, uninteresting. But further, and more | particularly, our dwelling longer upon Peter, would be a | presumptuous endeavour to stick to the point ~~ a presumption | of which, criticizing Mr. Maitland's volume, and recollecting that | the critic is bound to take his cue from the person criticized, it | would ill become us to be guilty. In truth, after vainly attempting | for a while to proceed with something like order, we find that we | have been quite carried away by our author's centrifugal impetus; | and it is with a feeling of unequivocal satisfaction that we say, | satellites in his sphere, fly off with him at a tangent. | The monks, as he shows us, were better preachers than we | usually think them. Many of them, too, were honest merry | fellows. There must have been some humorists among the | demons that frightened Alewin; and we admire exceedingly the | rough horse-play of an adventure which our book relates, ~~ | apropos of something or other, we really don't know what, but | certainly of something with which it has no natural connexion. | It appears, then, from the Chronicle of the well-known Swiss | monastery of Saint Call, written in the early part of the eleventh | century, that the brethren were wont to amuse themselves by | recounting certain pranks that had been played among them some | time before, during the reign of the Abbot Solomon. Among the | monks of that time were three, who were equally studious and | clever, and very intimate friends, though very unlike each other. | These were names Notker, Tutio, and Ratpert. Of each of the | three the chronicler sketches a portrait. | | Now, as the chronicler with a heavy heart informs us, there were | envy and backbiting even in monasteries of the dark ages: and, | such evil things existing, the three friends were men too learned | and useful not to become their victims. The holy Notker was | oftenest attacked, because he never returned a blow. Their worst | enemy was a monk named Sindolf, who was Refectorary or | superintendent of the kitchen. | | Sindolf goes to the abbot, and tells him that the three had been in | the way of speaking ill of him. Solomon, who was not the wisest | of men, believed the tale-bearer, and showed dislike to the | friends. The monks testified unanimously to their innocence: | but the grudge still rankled. In this, as in many other | monasteries, there was a chamber called the scriptorium, | appropriated to the copying of manuscripts, and used also as a | lounging-place, in the hours which the monastic duties left | unoccupied. This chamber became the scene of Sindolf's | punishment. | | Perhaps this edifying history does not deserve any graver | commentary than that which Mr. Maitland bestows upon it. | | We have here but glanced at some of the comic features, in a | subject which possesses very serious relations. Taking a | garrulous and unmethodical writer as our guide, we have jumped | from point to point, and ended nearly where we began. But we | may perhaps, with our author's assistance, have been able to | show that there is interest, nay even amusement, in inquiries | which at first might seem to be absolutely repulsive; and we | would now only add, that these inquiries carry with them not a | few very instructive lessons. Some of the reflections they | suggest are well put by Mr. Maitland, in a passage which he | places near the beginning of his work, but which would be quite | as well in the position which we here give to it, as a winding up | at the end. | .