Part 10

One general plan, with occasional modifications, seems usually to have been adopted in the great Cloisters of the Western Church on the Continent as in England. In the Cloisters were doors leading to the principal chambers and offices connected with the every-day life of a monastic community, such as the Refectory where the monks dined, the dormitory where they slept, during those few hours allotted to them for rest, the Chapter House where they met daily, and consulted together on the business public and private of their House, and on their varied Mission work outside. Other doors in the Cloister led to the Infirmary, where the sick and the aged monks received the tenderest care and attention; to the Abbot or Prior’s special lodgings, to smaller cloisters, sometimes termed a slype (the derivation of this word is unknown), leading into outer courts and separate buildings; such as the guest-chambers, kitchens and store rooms, into the Cemetery of the religious House, into the garden. Two large doors besides, as a rule, opened from the Cloister alleys directly into the church.

In the centre of the Cloister invariably was a small garden--the garth; sometimes simply turfed, sometimes bright with flowers and shaded with trees. In it as a rule the well above referred to was found. The windows of the Cloister walls were, in some cases, especially in the later Middle Ages, wholly or in part, glazed, sometimes with rich stained glass.

Very frequently, in the more wealthy monastic foundations, and also in the case of some cathedrals, the Cloister was richly adorned with sculpture, and in some instances ornamented with colour.

Occasionally costly marbles were used for the pillars and their capitals; indeed, no portion of the sacred building itself received greater attention than did many of these mediæval Cloisters.

As examples of specially beautiful and costly Cloister work, we would cite the well-known Cloisters of S. Paul, outside the walls of Rome, and S. John Lateran. In Sicily the vast and splendid Cloisters of Monreale are noteworthy. In France, the Cloister alleys of the Cathedral of Rouen, S. Trophimus of Arles, the Abbey of Moissac (Tarn-et-Garonne), the Abbey of Montmajeure (near Arles), Mont S. Michel (Normandy), the Cathedrals of Toul, Soissons, and many others, might be instanced. In England the beautiful cloisters of Westminster Abbey are well known. Norwich, too, possesses a notable example.

But the most famous by far in England are the Cloisters of Gloucester. In some respects they are the most beautiful in Northern Europe, none possessing a roof comparable in richness and in general effect; the glory of the fan-tracery of the Gloucester roof gives a special character to the whole of this admirably preserved and perfect Cloister.

So costly and elaborate indeed were the decorations often lavished on this most important part of the monastic buildings of the Middle Ages, that the wonderful display of art in the adornment of the Cloister now and again seems to have excited hostile criticism. As early as in the thirteenth century, we read in the curious poem of Rutebeuf, a writer who was welcome at the Court of S. Louis of France, a bitter note of disapprobation of the splendour and magnificence of these costly works of art which so frequently adorned the Cloisters of the monks in his day and time.

“These monks”--he writes--“who possessed nothing”--these men who “fors l’aumosne n’avoient rien”--yet adorned their austere home with--

“ymages li monstrent bien fètes bien entaillies et portrêtes mult orent cousté, ce li semble.”

Then after an elaborate description, the poet adds, that these things--

“ne font pas la religion mes la bone composition.”

And yet in spite of the stern criticism of the austere poet of the Court of S. Louis, that precursor of our English Wyclif and of the Puritans of a yet later time, few will be found now, even among the sternest critics of mediæval religion, who would dare to find fault with the tender and graceful fancies with which the monastic orders adorned the scenes of their solitary life-work, a work which, according to their light, was wholly dedicated to God.

The Art world and its mighty teaching power would indeed be poorer if some of the men who built and adorned these fair homes of prayer and study, had not, among the many crafts which they cultivated with such untiring zeal and conspicuous success, devoted themselves especially to architecture and its many exquisite developments, outside as well as inside the walls of their church--architecture which in their skilful hands became in their day and time one of the most effective instruments of popular education.

* * * * *

In our days, too, we must never forget that few indeed would have been the remains of the great writers and teachers of Greece and Rome, had it not been for the patient industry of the monks working in their silent Cloister alleys.

It must be remembered that there was no printing press, no scribes save these monks, to hand down the priceless literary treasures of a bygone age. It was their patient industry alone which preserved for us the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, and the precious words of men who had talked with the Apostles and the pupils of the Apostles, of teachers such as Clement and Irenæus, Origen and Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine and Jerome. Most of the writings of that long line of illustrious fathers and doctors of the Catholic Church of the first Christian centuries would have been lost irretrievably, had not generation after generation of monkish scholar-scribes toiled unweariedly in their still and often deadly cold Monastic Cloisters.

We who live in the restless evening (is it the evening?) of the world, enjoy the fruits of their labours, and gaze with pathetic interest on the comparatively few undisturbed remains of these once famous homes of learning where so much good and useful work was done. In the quiet beautiful Gloucester Cloister we possess one of these precious relics of that almost forgotten past, to which we owe so much--one of the most perfect that exists in England, perhaps in the whole of Northern Europe.

* * * * *

In such a Cloister as that of Gloucester, some idea can be gathered of the conditions under which the monk-scribes carried on their work of transcribing and editing--a work which, as we have shown, has been of such inestimable value to us. The Cloister architecture might have been, not unfrequently was, a marvel of grace and beauty, but it was utterly devoid of what in modern phraseology is termed “comfort.” There they ever toiled amidst the circumstances of an austere self-denying life. The cold in England and in other countries of Northern Europe, so rich in Monasteries of the first rank, was very severely felt in these cloister-carrels or recesses such as we see in Gloucester. They often wrote with straw heaped round their legs to protect them from the effects of the searching damp and cold, although in the later mediæval period glazing seems to have been somewhat largely introduced with the view of rendering more tolerable the condition of these toilers for God. In the books they transcribed and preserved for us, and adorned with such rare art and skill, we occasionally light upon silent pathetic testimonies to the hardships endured by these tireless scholar-scribes. Montalembert in his _Monks of the West_, (Vol. VI, Book XVIII, chap. iv), gives us some of these curious and interesting reflections of long-forgotten monk-scribes. We will quote two or three specimens of these Cloister notes.

“Nauta rudis pelagi ut saevis ereptus ab undis In portum veniens, pectora laeta tenet; Sic scriptor fessus, calamum sub calce laboris Deponens, habeat pectora laeta quidem.”

This was found at the end of a Gospel Book of the eleventh century.

The Monk Louis of Wissobrun wrote at the end of the copy he had made of S. Jerome’s Commentary on Daniel--

“Sedibus externis hic librum quem mode cernis _Dum scripsit, friguit_, et quod cum lumine solis Scribere non potuit, perfecit lumine noctis: Sis Deus istorum merces condigna laborum.”

In a Latin MS. of the Carlovingian epoch, a scribe named Garimbert wrote at the end of his book--

“Sicut navigantibus dulcis est portus, ita scriptori novissimus versus.”

Cassiodorus thus quaintly but touchingly writes of the true aim of the vast work of transcription carried on by the dwellers in these still and silent cloisters--

“What a glorious labour is that which enables us to preach to men by the hands as well as by the voice, to use our fingers in place of our tongues, to place ourselves in relation with the rest of the world, _without breaking silence_, and to combat with pen and ink the lawless suggestions of the devil! for each word of Holy Scripture written by the scholar-monk is a wound given to Satan ... a reed shaped into a pen, as it glides over the page and traces the divine word there, repairs, as it were, the wrong done by that other reed with which, on the day of the Passion, the devil caused the head of the Lord to be struck.”

* * * * *

Durandus, Bishop of Mende, in his great work _Rationale Divinorum officiorum_, written in the latter years of the twelfth century, gives us in his customary picturesque language, the symbolical significance of the “Cloister”: “The diversity and variety of the dwellings and occupations connected with the Cloister, and the buildings and offices leading from it, are symbolical of the many mansions and various rewards provided for the Faithful, in the kingdom of the hereafter. ‘For in my Father’s house are many mansions.’”

In a deeper sense the same Durandus[29] adds--“The Cloister represents the state of contemplation of the soul, when it withdraws itself from the world, after it has done away with earthly thoughts and aspirations, and only meditates upon heavenly things.”

APPENDIX

TRACES OF GAMES PLAYED BY NOVICES AND BOYS IN THE CLOISTERS

It is only in the last thirty years that the curious reliques of games played in the Middle Ages by Novices and boys placed under the tuition and care of the Monks were observed by J. T. Micklethwaite, the late erudite architect of Westminster Abbey.

Several good examples of these game-boards occur in the Gloucester Cloister, especially in the Cloister Alley appropriated to the Novices.

The games in question generally were “Nine Men’s Morris” and varieties of the game of “Fox and Geese.”

Similar game-boards have been also found in the Benedictine Cloisters of Westminster Abbey, Canterbury, Norwich and Durham, and in the secular Cloisters of Chichester and of Salisbury.

These are generally found in what must have been the Novices’ quarters. In some instances, however, they exist in places where they were probably made by the _builders_ of the walls or stairs, to play on during their leisure time. Examples of these latter have been discovered in Scarborough Castle and in Norwich Castle. An admirable example has been quite recently found by the writer of these Notes, on the stair of the South-Eastern turret of the S. Transept, Gloucester Cathedral.

There is little doubt but that in these game-boards we have reliques of the mediæval games of the fourteenth century and even of a yet earlier date. If careful search is made in Cloisters which have not been destroyed or restored, it is probable that other interesting examples will come to light.

A careful and exhaustive paper by Mr. Micklethwaite on these mediæval games will be found in the _Archæological Journal_, xlix.

S. PETRONILLA’S ALTAR

THE EARLIEST HISTORICAL DETAIL EXISTING IN CONNECTION WITH THE GLOUCESTER ABBEY

The earliest detail connected with the Abbey of Gloucester that we possess is connected with this once famous but now well-nigh forgotten Saint. In the _Historia Monasterii S. Petri Gloucestriæ_, a very ancient collection of documents belonging to the great Benedictine House put together by Abbot Froucester, _circa_ A.D. 1381, we find an entry which relates how Kyneburg, the sister of King Osric, who built the first Gloucester Church, after ruling the Religious House founded by her brother for twenty-nine years, was buried BEFORE THE ALTAR OF S. PETRONILLA in the year of grace 710.

Another entry in the same _Historia_ tells us that Queen Eadburg, the widow of Wulphere, King of the Mercians, the second Abbess, A.D. 710 to A.D. 735, was buried by the side of Kyneburg _before S. Petronilla’s Altar_. King Osric himself, who built the first church and founded the religious House, and who died in A.D. 729, was also buried according to the same record “in ecclesia Sancti Petri coram altari sanctae Petronillae in aquilonari parte ejusdem Monasterii.”

Leland, the secretary of King Henry VIII, writing of his official visit to Gloucester after the suppression of the religious House, _circa_ A.D. 1540--sums up the immemorial tradition in the following words--“King Osric (the founder) first laye in S. Petronell’s Chapel of the Gloucester Abbey.”

Professor Freeman, the historian, comments on these various notes and entries as follows: “It is certain that there was a church of some kind, a predecessor, however humble, of the great Cathedral Church of Gloucester that now is, at least from the days of Osric (_circa_ A.D. 729). But more than that we cannot say, except that it contained an altar of S. Petronilla.”

Now who was this S. Petronilla who was thus intimately connected with our church in the earliest years of its existence?

We believe without any hesitation that she was the daughter of S. Peter, the Lord’s Apostle and follower. Modern scholarship, however, represented by Bishop Lightfoot of Durham, denies this, and asserts that the immemorial derivation of Petronilla from Petro (Petrus), is etymologically wrong, and that the name Petronilla is connected, not with Petro but with Petronius--the founder of the imperial Flavian family. Lightfoot then proceeds to suggest that Petronilla was a member of the Flavian House, and became an early convert to Christianity, and was subsequently buried with other members of the Flavian family in the Domitilla Cemetery, where her tomb was recently discovered by De Rossi, the Roman archæologist, to whose life-long labours we owe so much of the Catacomb lore which has excited so much interest in recent days.

Curiously enough, late Roman Catholic scholars and writers join hands here with Bishop Lightfoot in denying the paternity of the great Apostle, but on different grounds. Modern Roman Catholic theology shrinks from acknowledging that S. Peter had a daughter at all, preferring to believe that S. Peter was free from all family and home ties.

De Rossi, however, with other Italian scholars, sweeps away the etymological difficulty[30] pressed by Lightfoot, and while declining to give up the ancient “Petrine” tradition, maintains that Petronilla was a daughter, but simply a _spiritual_ daughter of the Apostle, in other words merely an ordinary convert of S. Peter. This curious explanation of what later theology felt was a difficulty seems to have been first suggested by Baronius.

The etymological difficulty pressed by Bishop Lightfoot and other scholars, and the more important doctrinal question which has perplexed the later Roman Catholic theologians, in no way seems to have weighed with scholars and divines in earlier times; this will be seen from a brief examination of the estimation in which S. Petronilla has been ever held.

As early as the closing years of the fourth century, Siricius, Bishop of Rome, A.D. 391-395, built the important Basilica lately discovered in the Domitilla cemetery or catacomb on the Via Ardeatina, but although the Basilica in question contained the historic tombs of the famous martyrs SS. Nereus and Achilles, as well as the remains of S. Petronilla, Siricius dedicated the Basilica in question to S. Petronilla. Surely the Bishop of Rome (Siricius) would never have dedicated this important and very early church to a comparatively unknown member of the Flavian House, still less would he have called it by the name of a simple convert of the great Apostle. Petronilla in his days must have possessed some very especial title to honour.

In Siricius’ eyes there was evidently no shadow of doubt that the Petronilla for whom he had so deep a veneration was the veritable daughter of S. Peter, and as time went on the devotion which for many centuries was paid to her remains, is a clear indication of the view which was universally taken of her illustrious lineage. We will give some striking examples of this.

THE WANDERINGS OF THE REMAINS OF S. PETRONILLA

The sarcophagus which contained the body of S. Petronilla rested in its original position in the Basilica of Siricius until A.D. 787, when it was removed to one of the little Rotunda Chapels which once stood adjacent to the south side of the great Church of S. Peter on the Vatican Hill. The reason for this first translation is singularly interesting, and shows in a remarkable way the deep veneration in which the remains of the daughter of S. Peter were held. S. Peter was specially honoured by the Frankish nation, and S. Petronilla his daughter, sharing in this special devotion, was styled by Pope Paul I, _circa_ A.D. 757, the “auxiliatrix” of Pepin, the king of the Franks, and when Pope Stephen II, _circa_ A.D. 752, was on a visit to Pepin’s court, he promised as a pledge of the alliance between the Papacy and the Franks against the Lombards, to remove the body of S. Petronilla, who was evidently specially venerated by the Frankish people, of course owing to her illustrious parentage, from the Basilica of Siricius on the Via Ardeatina, where it was exposed to the profanities of Barbarian raiders, to the more secure shelter of the walls which protected the Church of S. Peter.

This promise was carried out by Paul I, the brother and successor of Stephen II, _circa_ A.D. 757, and the sarcophagus of S. Petronilla was placed in the Rotunda Chapel above mentioned. This Rotunda Chapel contained the ashes of the wife of Honorius, Maria the daughter of Stilicho, and other Imperial remains, but after the translation of the remains of S. Peter’s daughter it was known as the Chapel of S. Petronilla, and it was especially placed under the care of the kings of France.

There the body of Petronilla rested until A.D. 1471, when in consequence of a restoration undertaken at the cost of Louis XI of France, the sacred sarcophagus was seen and the ancient simple inscription on it, “Aureliæ Petronillae fil dulcissimae” was copied. Early in the fourteenth century, when Old S. Peter’s was demolished, the Rotunda Chapel was pulled down, and the sarcophagus of S. Petronilla lay for many years neglected in the Sacristy of New S. Peter’s. It was subsequently ruthlessly broken up when so many ancient monuments perished in the building work of the New S. Peter’s, and the pieces of the sarcophagus were used as a pavement.

The remains, however, of the Saint were transferred to a new coffin and were eventually, _circa_ A.D. 1606, placed under the altar where they now rest. The spot in question is known as the Chapel of S. Petronilla. It is in the extreme end of the right transept of S. Peter’s. Above the resting-place of the Saint is a large mosaic copied from Guercino’s picture of Petronilla raised from the tomb.

There is a curious custom belonging to this Chapel, bearing upon the ancient tradition connecting France and S. Petronilla. The French Ambassador, after presenting his credentials to the Pope, used at once to visit this Chapel of S. Petronilla in S. Peter’s.

* * * * *

Again reverting to the eighth century testimony above referred to in the case of the action of Popes Stephen II and Paul I, when the remains of S. Petronilla were translated from the Basilica of Siricius to the Rotunda Chapel by the great church--there was a striking witness to what was the general belief of that age in the parentage of the then famous Saint, in an inscription on an altar at Bourges dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and other saints, an inscription attributed to Alcuin, the Minister of Charlemagne, _circa_ A.D. 790. The inscription consists of eight hexameter lines. One line runs thus: “Et Petronilla patris praeclari filia Petri.”

* * * * *

In England, besides the famous reference to the Altar and Chapel of S. Petronilla in the ancient church of Osric at Gloucester, there is only one church known to be dedicated to S. Petronilla; it is at Whepstead, near Bury S. Edmunds, where her name is curiously abbreviated as S. Parnel.

The close connection between the Royal Mercian and Northumbrian family of Osric, the founder of the Abbey (Cathedral) of Gloucester, and S. Petronilla, the daughter of S. Peter, the Saint so strangely venerated by the Frankish peoples, is unknown.

INDEX

Aachen, Palace-chapel of, 22, 23, 53

“Abbeys of Expiation,” 39

Agatha, 73

Agilulf, King of the Lombards, 14, 18

Aix-la-Chapelle, 27

Aix-la-Chapelle, Palace-chapel of, 22, 23, 69

Alaric, 7

Albertus Magnus, 83

Albigensian Wars, 30

Alboin the Lombard, 6, 12, 14, 15, 53

Alcuin (the Minister of Charlemagne), 143

Alfred, King, 22

Amalasuntha, 10

Amiens, Cathedral of, 33, 53, 61

Anacletus, 97, 97 note 25, 98, 100, 105, 108, 109, 110, 111, 114, 118, 119, 120, 122

Angles, 26

Anglo-Saxons, 38, 39

Angoulême, 27

Anselm, S., 51

Antoniano, Cardinal, 117

Apollinaris, Sidonius, Bishop of Clermont, 25

Apostles, Church of the (Cologne), 24

Appian Way, 99, 122

Aquinas, 83

Aquitaine, 26, 29, 30, 33 note 11, 36, 69

Arcadius, 7

Arliano, Church of (near Lucca), 19

Armellini, 118

Ataulphus, 7

Athalaric, 10

Augustine, 21, 88, 133

Augustus, Emperor, 10 note 5, 68 note 20

Aungre (Chipping Ongar), Chapel near, 22

Autharis, King of the Lombards, 14, 16, 18

Auvergne, 25, 69

Auxerre, 27

Auxerre, Crypt of Cathedral of, 102

“Ave Maria,” the, 82

Bangor, 89

Barberini, Cardinal. _See_ Urban VIII

Barcelona, 7

Barnes, Mgr., 112 note 28, 113, 117

Baronius, 140

Basil, Emperor, 48

Bayeux, 44

Beauvais Cathedral, 61, 62

Bec-Herlouin, 44

Becket, S. Thomas à, 103

Bede, 21, 51

Belisarius, 6, 10

Bellarmine, Cardinal, 117

Benedict, S., 51

Benedictines, the, 19 note 7, 138

Benedictines of Cluny, 34, 103, 129

Bernay, Church at, 36

Bernini, 118, 119, 120

Besançon, Crypt of, 102

Beverley, 92

Big Ben (Houses of Parliament, London), 53

Biscop, Benedict, 21

Bonanni, 117

Bonaventura, 83

Bond, Mr., 56

Bonn, Minster Church of, 24

Bordeaux, 27, 102

Bourges, Cathedral of, 33, 61

Brescia, 19

Brixworth Church, 21

_Builder, The_, quoted, 60 note 19

Burgundy, 31, 32, 90

Byzantine Empire, Artists, etc., 12, 13, 20, 47

Caen, 37, 44

Caius, Presbyter, 98, 109

Cambridge, 21

Canterbury, Canterbury Cathedral, and Crypt, 21, 40, 91, 102, 103, 129, 137

Carlisle, 89

Carolingian princes, 23

Cassiodorus, 135

Catacombs, the, 84 note 23, 101

Catechumens, 127

Caumont, M. de, 3

Cecilia, 73

Cerisy le Fôret, Church at, 36

Charlemagne, 19, 22, 23, 26, 41, 53, 69, 115

Chartres, and Cathedral, and Crypt of, 27, 33, 61, 102, 136 note 29

Cherubim, 81

Chester, 89

Chichester, and Cloisters of, 89, 137

Chipping Ongar, 22

Christ Church, Oxford, 40, 89

Christianity in Britain, 86, 87, 88, 90

Chrysostom, S. John, 77

Cistercians, 31, 32, 83

Citeaux, 31, 32

Classis, 9, 10 note 5

Clement, 133

Clement VIII, 117

Clermont Ferrand, Church of, 25

Cluny, and Abbey and Monks of, 29, 31, 31 note 10, 32, 34, 34 note 12, 37, 42, 44, 91, 103, 129

Coblenz, 24

Cologne, 24, 27

Cologne Cathedral, 23, 53

Columba, 90