Part 202

"The monastic stream, which had been born in the deserts of Egypt, divided itself into two great arms. The one spread in the East, at first inundated everything, then concentrated and lost itself there. The other escaped into the West, and spread itself by a thousand channels over an entire world which had to be covered and fertilised." Athanasius, who was driven twice by persecution to take refuge among the hermits in the Thebaid, Egypt, and who was three times exiled by an imperial order to the West, "became thus the natural link between the Fathers of the desert and those vast regions which their successors were to conquer and transform. … It was in 340 that he came for the first time to Rome, in order to escape the violence of the Arians, and invoke the protection of Pope Julius. … He spread in Rome the first report of the life led by the monks in the Thebaid, of the marvellous exploits of Anthony, who was still alive, of the immense foundations which Pacome was at that time forming upon the banks of the higher Nile. He had brought with him two of the most austere of these monks. … The narratives of Athanasius … roused the hearts and imaginations of the Romans, and especially of the Roman women. The name of monk, to which popular prejudice seems already to have attached a kind of ignominy, became immediately an honoured and envied title. The impression produced at first by the exhortations of the illustrious exile, was extended and strengthened during the two other visits which he made to the Eternal City. Some time afterwards, on the death of St. Anthony, Athanasius, at the request of his disciples, wrote the life of the patriarch of the Thebaid; and this biography, circulating through all the West, immediately acquired there the popularity of a legend, and the authority of a confession of faith. … Under this narrative form, says St. Gregory of Nazianzus, he promulgated the laws of monastic life. The town and environs of Rome were soon full of monasteries, rapidly occupied by men distinguished alike by birth, fortune and knowledge, who lived there in charity, sanctity, and freedom. From Rome the new institution, already distinguished by the name of religion, or religious life, par excellence, extended itself over all Italy. It was planted at the foot of the Alps by the influence of a great bishop, Eusebius of Vercelli. … From the continent the new institution rapidly gained the isles of the Mediterranean, and even the rugged rocks of the Gargon and of Capraja, where the monks, voluntarily exiled from the world, went to take the place of the criminals and political victims whom the emperors had been accustomed to banish thither. … Most of the great leaders of the cenobitical institution had, since St. Pacome, made out, under the name of Rule, instructions and constitutions for the use of their immediate disciples; but none of these works had acquired an extensive or lasting sway. In the East, it is true, the rule of St. Basil had prevailed in a multitude of monasteries, yet notwithstanding Cassianus, in visiting Egypt, Palestine, and Mesopotamia, found there almost as many different rules as there were monasteries. {2197} In the West the diversity was still more strange. Each man made for himself his own rule and discipline, taking his authority from the writings or example of the Eastern Fathers. The Gauls especially exclaimed against the extreme rigour of the fasts and abstinences, which might be suitable under a fervid sky like that of Egypt or Syria, but which could not be endured by what they already called Gallican weakness; and even in the initial fervour of the monasteries of the Jura, they had succeeded in imposing a necessary medium upon their chiefs. Here it was the changing will of an abbot; there a written rule; elsewhere, the traditions of the elders, which determined the order of conventual life. In some houses various rules were practised at the same time, according to the inclination of the inhabitants of each cell, and were changed according to the times and places. They passed thus from excessive austerity to laxness, and conversely, according to the liking of each. Uncertainty and instability were everywhere. … A general arrangement was precisely what was most wanting in monastic life. There were an immense number of monks; there had been among them saints and illustrious men; but to speak truly, the monastic order had still no existence. Even where the rule of St. Basil had acquired the necessary degree of establishment and authority—that is to say, in a considerable portion of the East—the gift of fertility was denied to it. … In the West also, towards the end of the fifth century, the cenobitical institution seemed to have fallen into the torpor and sterility of the East. After St. Jerome, who died in 420, and St. Augustine, who died in 430, after the Fathers of Lerins, whose splendour paled towards 450, there was a kind of eclipse. … Except in Ireland and Gaul, where, in most of the provinces, some new foundations rose, a general interruption was observable in the extension of the institution. … If this eclipse had lasted, the history of the monks of the West would only have been, like that of the Eastern monks, a sublime but brief passage in the annals of the Church, instead of being their longest and best-filled page. This was not to be: but to keep the promises which the monastic order had made to the Church and to the new-born Christendom, it needed, at the beginning of the sixth century, a new and energetic impulse, such as would concentrate and discipline so many scattered, irregular, and intermittent forces; a uniform and universally accepted rule; a legislator inspired by the fertile and glorious past, to establish and govern the future. God provided for that necessity by sending St. Benedict into the world."

_Count de Montalembert, The Monks of the West, volume 1, pages 381-387 and 512-515._

"The very word monastery is a misnomer: the word is a Greek word, and means the dwelling-place of a solitary person, living in seclusion. … In the 13th century … a monastery meant what we now understand it to mean—viz., the abode of a society of men or women who lived together in common—who were supposed to partake of common meals; to sleep together in one common dormitory; to attend certain services together in their common church; to transact certain business or pursue certain employments in the sight and hearing of each other in the common cloister; and, when the end came, to be laid side by side in the common graveyard, where in theory none but members of the order could find a resting-place for their bones. When I say 'societies of men and women' I am again reminded that the other term, 'convent,' has somehow got to be used commonly in a mistaken sense. People use the word as if it signified a religious house tenanted exclusively by women. The truth is that a convent is nothing more than a Latin name for an association of persons who have come together with a view to live for a common object and to submit to certain rules in the ordering of their daily lives. The monastery was the common dwelling-place; the convent was the society of persons inhabiting it; and the ordinary formula used when a body of monks or nuns execute any corporate act—such as buying or selling land—by any legal instrument is, 'The Prior and Convent of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity at Norwich;' 'the Abbot and Convent of the Monastery of St. Peter's, Westminster;' 'the Abbess and Convent of the Monastery of St. Mary and St. Bernard at Lacock,' and so on. … A monastery in theory then was, as it was called, a Religious House. It was supposed to be the home of people whose lives were passed in the worship of God, and in taking care of their own souls, and making themselves fit for a better world than this hereafter. … The church of a monastery was the heart of the place. It was not that the church was built for the monastery, but the monastery existed for the church. … Almost as essential to the idea of a monastery as the church was the cloister or great quadrangle, inclosed on all sides by the high walls of the monastic buildings. … All round this quadrangle ran a covered arcade, whose roof, leaning against the high walls, was supported on the inner side by an open trellis work in stone—often exhibiting great beauty of design and workmanship—through which light and air was admitted into the arcade. … The cloister was really the living place of the monks. Here they pursued their daily avocations, here they taught their school. … 'But surely a monk always lived in a cell, didn't he?' The sooner we get rid of that delusion the better. Be it understood that until Henry II. founded the Carthusian Abbey of Witham, in 1178, there was no such thing known in England as a monk's cell, as we understand the term. It was a peculiarity of the Carthusian order, and when it was first introduced it was regarded as a startling novelty for any privacy or anything approaching solitude to be tolerated in a monastery. The Carthusian system never found much favour in England. … At the time of the Norman Conquest it may be said that all English monks were professedly under one and the same Rule—the famous Benedictine Rule. The Rule of a monastery was the constitution or code of laws, which regulated the discipline of the house, and the Rule of St. Benedict dates back as far as the 6th century, though it was not introduced into England for more than 100 years after it had been adopted elsewhere. … About 150 years before the Conquest, a great reformation had been attempted of the French monasteries, … the reformers breaking away from the old Benedictines and subjecting themselves to a new and improved Rule. {2198} These first reformers were called Cluniac monks, from the great Abbey of Clugni, in Burgundy, in which the new order of things had begun. The first English house of reformed or Cluniac monks was founded at Lewes, in Sussex, 11 years after the Conquest. … The constitution of every convent, great or small, was monarchical. The head of the house was almost an absolute sovereign, and was called the Abbot. His dominions often extended, even in England, over a very wide tract of country, and sometimes over several minor monasteries which were called Cells. … The heads of these cells or subject houses were called Priors. An Abbey was a monastery which was independent. A priory was a monastery which in theory or in fact was subject to an abbey. All the Cluniac monasteries in England were thus said to be alien priories, because they were mere cells of the great Abbey of Clugni in France, to which each priory paid heavy tribute."

_A. Jessopp, The Coming of the Friars, chapter 3._

ALSO IN: _E. L. Cutts, Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages, chapter 6._

_J. Bingham, Antiquity of the Christ. Ch., book 7, chapter 3, sections 11-14._

_I. G. Smith, Christian Monasticism, 4-9th Centuries._

See, also, CŒNOBIUM; LAURAS; MENDICANT ORDERS; BENEDICTINE; CISTERCIAN; CARMELITE, and AUSTIN CANONS.

MONASTERIES, The English, Suppression of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1535-1539.

MONASTIC LIBRARIES.

See LIBRARIES, MEDIÆVAL.

MONASTIC ORDERS.

See AUSTIN CANONS; BENEDICTINE ORDERS; CAPUCHINS; CARMELITE FRIARS; CARTHUSIAN; CISTERCIAN; CLAIRVAUX; CLUGNY; MENDICANT ORDERS; RECOLLECTS; SERVITES; THEATINES; TRAPPISTS.

MONÇON, MONZON, Treaty of (1626).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.

MONCONTOUR, Battle of (1569).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1570.

MONEY AND BANKING: Start--------

MONEY AND BANKING: Nature and Origin of Money.

"When the division of labour has been once thoroughly established, it is but a very small part of a man's wants which the produce of his own labour can supply. He supplies the far greater part of them by exchanging that surplus part of the produce of his own labour, which is over and above his own consumption, for such parts of the produce of other men's labour us he has occasion for. Every man thus lives by exchanging, or becomes in some measure a merchant, and the society itself grows to be what is properly a commercial society. But when the division of labour first began to take place, this power of exchanging must frequently have been very much clogged and embarrassed in its operations. One man, we shall suppose, has more of a certain commodity than he himself has occasion for, while another has less. The former consequently would be glad to dispose of, and the latter to purchase, a part of this superfluity. But if this latter should chance to have nothing that the former stands in need of, no exchange can be made between them. The butcher has more meat in his shop than he himself can consume, and the brewer and the baker would each of them be willing to purchase a part of it. But they have nothing to offer in exchange, except the different productions of their respective trades, and the butcher is already provided with all the bread and beer which he has immediate occasion for. No exchange can, in this case, be made between them. … In order to avoid the inconveniency of such situations, every prudent man in every period of society, after the first establishment of the division of labour, must naturally have endeavoured to manage his affairs in such a manner, as to have at all times by him, besides the peculiar produce of his own industry, a certain quantity of some one commodity or other, such as he imagined few people would be likely to refuse in exchange for the produce of their industry. Many different commodities, it is probable, were successively both thought of and employed for this purpose. In the rude ages of society, cattle are said to have been the common instrument of commerce; and, though they must have been a most inconvenient one, yet in old times we find things were frequently valued according to the number of cattle which had been given in exchange for them. The armour of Diomede, says Homer, cost only nine oxen; but that of Glaucus cost an hundred oxen. Salt is said to be the common instrument of commerce and exchange in Abyssinia; a species of shells in some parts of the coasts of India; dried cod at Newfoundland; tobacco in Virginia; sugar in some of our West India colonies; hides or dressed leather in some other countries; and there is at this day [1775] a village in Scotland where it is not uncommon, I am told, for a workman to carry nails instead of money to the baker's shop or the alehouse. In all countries, however, men seem at last to have been determined by irresistible reasons to give the preference, for this employment, to metals above every other commodity."

_Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, chapter 4, book 1 (volume 1)._

"There is … no machine which has saved as much labor as money. … The invention of money has been rightly compared to the invention of writing with letters. We may, however, call the introduction of money as the universal medium of exchange … one of the greatest and most beneficent of advances ever made by the race. … Very different kinds of commodities have, according to circumstances, been used as money; but uniformly only such as possess a universally recognized economic value. On the whole, people in a low stage of civilization are wont to employ, mainly, only ordinary commodities, such as are calculated to satisfy a vulgar and urgent want, as an instrument of exchange. As they advance in civilization, they, at each step, choose a more and more costly object, for this purpose, and one which ministers to the more elevated wants. Races of hunters, at least in non-tropical countries, usually use skins as money; that is the almost exclusive product of their labor, one which can be preserved for a long period of time, which constitutes their principal article of clothing and their principal export in the more highly developed regions. Nomadic races and the lower agricultural races, pass, by a natural gradation, to the use of cattle as money; which supposes rich pasturages at the disposal of all. {2199} If it were otherwise, there would be a great many to whom payments of this kind had been made, who would not know what to do with the cattle given them, on account of the charges for their maintenance. … That metals were used for the purpose of money much later than the commodities above mentioned, and the precious metals in turn later than the non-precious metals, cannot by any means be shown to be universally true. Rather is gold in some countries to be obtained by the exercise of so little skill, and both gold and silver satisfy a want so live and general, and one so early felt, that they are to be met with as an instrument of exchange in very early times. In the case of isolated races, much depends on the nature of the metals with which the geologic constitution of the country has furnished them. In general, however, the above law is found to prevail here. The higher the development of a people becomes, the more frequent is the occurrence of large payments; and to effect these, the more costly a metal is, the better, of course, it is adapted to effect such payments. Besides, only rich nations are able to possess the costly metals in a quantity absolutely great. Among the Jews, gold as money dates only from the time of David. King Pheidon, of Argos, it is said, introduced silver money into Greece, about the middle of the eighth century before Christ. Gold came into use at a much later period. The Romans struck silver money, for the first time, in 209 before Christ, and, in 207, the first gold coins. Among modern nations, Venice (1285) and Florence seem to have been the first to have coined gold in any quantity."

_W. Roscher, Principles of Political Economy, book 2, chapter 3, sections 117-119 (volume 1)._

MONEY AND BANKING: Ancient Egypt and Babylonia.

"Money seems to us now so obvious a convenience, and so much a necessity of commerce, that it appears almost inconceivable that a people who created the Sphinx and the Pyramids, the temples of Ipsamboul and Karnac, should have been entirely ignorant of coins. Yet it appears from the statements of Herodotus, and the evidence of the monuments themselves, that this was really the case. As regards the commercial and banking systems of ancient Egypt, we are almost entirely without information. Their standard of value seems to have been the 'outen' or 'ten' of copper (94-96 grammes), which circulated like the æs rude of the Romans by weight, and in the form of bricks, being measured by the balance. It was obtained from the mines of Mount Sinai, which were worked as early as the fourth dynasty. Gold and silver appear to have been also used, though less frequently. Like copper, they were sometimes in the form of bricks, but generally in rings, resembling the ring money of the ancient Celts, which is said to have been employed in Ireland down to the 12th century, and still holds its own in the interior of Africa. This approximated very nearly to the possession of money, but it wanted what the Roman lawyers called 'the law' and 'the form.' Neither the weight nor the pureness was guaranteed by any public authority. Such a state of things seems to us very inconvenient, but after all It is not very different from that which prevails in China even at the present day. The first money struck in Egypt, and that for the use rather of the Greek and Phœnician merchants than of the natives, was by the Satrap Aryandes. In ancient Babylonia and Assyria, as in Egypt, the precious metals, and especially silver, circulated as uncoined ingots. They were readily taken indeed, but taken by weight and verified by the balance like any other merchandise. The excavations in Assyria and Babylon, which have thrown so much light upon ancient history, have afforded us some interesting information as to the commercial arrangements of these countries, and we now possess a considerable number of receipts, contracts, and other records relating to loans of silver on personal securities at fixed rates of interest; loans on landed or house property; sales of land, in one case with a plan; sales of slaves, &c. These were engraved on tablets of clay, which were then burnt. M. Lenormant divides these most interesting documents into five principal types:

1. Simple obligations. 2. Obligations with a penal clause in case of non-fulfilment. One he gives which had 79 days to run. 3. Obligations with the guarantee of a third party. 4. Obligations payable to a third person. 5. Drafts drawn upon one place, payable in another. …

These Assyrian drafts were negotiable, but from the nature of things could not pass by endorsement, because, when the clay was once baked, nothing new could be added, and under these circumstances the name of the payee was frequently omitted. It seems to follow that they must have been regularly advised. It is certainly remarkable that such instruments, and especially letters of credit, should have preceded the use of coins. The earliest banking firm of which we have any account is said to be that of Egibi and Company, for our knowledge of whom we are indebted to Mr. Boscawen, Mr. Pinches, and Mr. Hilton Price. Several documents and records belonging to this family are in the British Museum. They are on clay tablets, and were discovered in an earthenware jar found in the neighbourhood of Hillah, a few miles from Babylon. The house is said to have acted as a sort of national bank of Babylon: the founder of the house, Egibi, probably lived in the reign of Sennacherib, about 700 B. C. This family has been traced during a century and a half, and through five generations, down to the reign of Darius. At the same time, the tablets hitherto translated scarcely seem to me to prove that the firm acted as bankers, in our sense of the word."

_Sir J. Lubbock, The History of Money (Nineteenth Century, November, 1879)._