ENGLISH MONASTICISM.* Tins book belongs to a class which is

unfortunately rather large at the present time. Mr. Hill has looked into several medieval writers and read some of them, but he is quite unable to use his authorities. Indeed of study, as distinct from mere reading, he shows no trace. The object of his work is "to examine [monas- ticism] under its two great phases, the Benedictine and Franciscan, and to trace the influence it exerted upon the art, literature, and social life of the country during its development." The book consists of a history of Glastonbury Abbey divided into fragments, somewhat after the fashion of A Tale of a Tub, by essays on sundry matters more or less connected with the growth of the English Church. Of these varieties we will speak presently, confining ourselves for the present to the main subject. This is not badly

* English Monasticism: its Rise and Influence. By O'Dell Travers DIU, F.B.G.S. London : Jackson, Walford, and Hodder.

chosen. A history of one of the great monasteries of England told by a competent writer might be extremely interesting, and reflect the various stages of religious opinion through which this country had passed before the Reformation. But in Mr. Hill's hands the history of Glastonbury sinks into a mere chronicle, without the merit of accuracy. He has not the learning which

can give value to a local history by connecting it with the

general coarse of events, while his want of critical power is quite marvellous. We could hardly have believed that a writer would be found to relate seriously the stories concerning the founda- tion of Glastonbury which even William of Malmesbury repeated as mere rumour. Yet here we have them told apparently with perfect faith. Some details of the legend are certainly regarded as matters for discussion, but the fact that the first Christian missionaries were settled on the isle of Avalon is assumed as beyond question. The honour of first planting the cross among the marshes of Somerset seems to be disputed between St. Paul, St. Simon Zelotes, and Joseph of Arimathea. As Mr. Hill is able to give very fair reasons why it should not be awarded to either St. Paul or St. Simon, it follows that Joseph is entitled to it. He left Gaul at some time in the reign of King .Arviragas

(A.D. 45-73) and, according to the "Sanctus Graal, an old Welsh authority," landed on the coast of Wales, whence, after a short imprisonment, he and his companions, twelve in number, wandered into Britain, and were settled by Arviragus in

Avalonia, where they built a church. A note tells us that "sketches of this old mother church of England may be seen in Sanune's Antiquities, p. 213, and in Hearne's edition of John of Glastonbury's history." For the confusion of sceptics, we may add that photographs of the same building are exposed in

several shop windows. It is unnecessary to follow Mr. Hill through all the fables which he relates, but we cannot resist the temptation of quoting one exquisite piece of criticism :— "Now, as regards King Arthur, these monkish chroniclers, although they shed a miraculous halo about his history, have yet transmitted to us circumstantial accounts of incidents in his life so matter-of-fact as to do away with his mythical character altogether. He had a wife, like many other men from that time to this, who caused him much vexation. She eloped with Melva, King of Somereetshire, but was afterwards reconciled ; and again subsequently with Medrawd, her husband's nephew, when he [Medrawd ?] was absent in Gaul. By these common vicissitudes of life he is so firmly linked to humanity as to rain his reputation as a myth."

The same proof of actual existence would apply to every hero of a novel, who would have the farther advantage of not being the subject of various irreconcilable tales.

Mr. Hill is not the first writer who has floundered in the slippery paths of tradition. Let us see if he is more successful in the historical period. We may take as a test the chief event in the corporate history of Glastonbury, the quarrel between the abbey and the Bishop of Wells. Here we come upon a blunder in the very beginning. We are told that "whilst Richard I. was in the Austrian prison, one Savaric, a relative of the Emperor and his Chancellor, did various acts of kindness to the unfortunate prisoner king, and in the course of their acquaintance so far acquired an influence over him as to elicit from him a promise that he would give him the bishopric of Bath and Wells." This passage teems with errors. Savaric cannot have visited Richard in his Austrian dungeon, since almost immediately after his capture he was delivered to the Emperor, and imprisoned at Trifels. More than this, Savaric was not appointed to his bishopric by the King. He was elected by the monks of Bath under the influence of Reginald Fitzjocelin, his kinsman, and was consecrated at Rome about three weeks before Richard left Palestine. But this is not all. Mr. Hill goes on to narrate correctly that Savaric, while visiting Richard, obtained, probably at the Emperor's request, the addition of Glastonbury Abbey to his bishopric ; that the abbot was sent for, and induced to betray his monastery by being appointed to the see of Worcester. He adds that Savaric returned to England, and took possession of the abbey in 1192. Now, as Richard was taken prisoner on December 20 in that year, all these events, including several journeys to and from England, must have been crowded into ten days. We might ascribe the error to a misprint, were it not that the date has been taken, like the statement about the bishopric, without inquiry from Adam of Domerham.

Besides making this gross blunder, Mr. Hill shows that he does not understand the cause of quarrel. He seems to think that the monks disliked Savaric because he was a foreigner. "Thus," he says, "was Glastonbury Abbey bartered away, and its monks

handed over to the tender mercies of a foreigner, in open violation of all law's, human and divine." But Savaric, though he WAS related to the Emperor, came of a family which had been

settled in England for two generations, and he was already treasurer of Salisbury, and archdeacon of Northampton. The monks objected to him simply as Bishop of Wells. Instead of being under the jurisdiction of their own abbot, whose interest it was to extend the wealth and privileges of the monastery, they were henceforth to be in direct subjection to a bishop who had already two chapters, one secular, the other monastic. There is a curious contrast between their aims and those of the Canterbury monks, who were at this time engaged in a strife with their archbishop-abbot. The latter were fighting fiercely to prevent the archbishop from founding a college of canons, which they feared would supplant them as the metro- politan church. The struggle at Canterbury was for the dignity, at Glastonbury for the freedom of the monastery, but both con- vents had this in common, that they desired to prevent their head being associated with any other body. In both cases the battle was long, and in both the monks had the final victory.

A historian who fails to comprehend the bearing of such an event as this is not likely to seize the finer points of character which mark the slow growth of social and religious change. To him a monk is a monk, whether in the sixth century or the sixteenth, and it is needless to inquire into insignificant differences.

A curious instance of the casual nature of Mr. Hill's reading is that, while a whole chapter is devoted to the political work of Dunstan, the turbulent Henry of Blois is passed over without any notice of his having been engaged in any secular affairs. The chief fact related with regard to this stirring prelate is that he increased the kitchen allowances of the monastery.

We have seen that a part of the purpose of the work was to trace the influence of monasticism upon art and literature. The only medimval art which receives any attention is missal painting. Of architecture Mr. Hill seems to be utterly ignorant. He does not attempt to give any history of the fabric of the church or abbey buildings, having apparently never heard of Professor Willis, and he blunders in attempting a description of the monas- tery as it appeared before the Dissolution. He says, "At the eastern extremity stands the high altar, with its profusion of decorative splendour, while over it is an immense stained-glass window, with semicircular top, which pours down upon the altar, and in fact bathes -the whole choir, when viewed from a distance, in a sea of softened many-coloured light." As the choir was enlarged in the fourteenth century, Abbot Monington must have worked in the round style a hundred and fifty years after it had gone out of fashion. On the other hand, an earlier abbot must have been as much in advance of his age, for we learn that there were stained windows and tombs with recumbent statues at Glaston- bury when Dunstan was a child. We have as yet said nothing of the chapters which do not bear upon Glastonbury. They are of much the same value as the rest. Each is headed with a list of authorities which, if studied, might be sufficient, but special references are rare. They deal with various subjects, Benedict and the Benedictines, medimval hymns, St. Francis, and the Franciscans in England. One is headed the Saxons, but it ends with the death of Alfred, and we are informed that at his death the historic muse laid down her pen. One wonders whence, if this is true, Mr. Hill got the materials for his sketch of Dunstan. We need say no more of these incidental chapters, except that they add to their other demerits much impertinent controversy directed against Romish errors, and that they have their full share of mistakes. Mr. Hill's fondness for legends leads him to repeat Iloveden's story that the murderers of Thomas it Becket went together on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and died there. Dr. Stanley has shown this to be false, but it would be too much to expect Mr. Hill to have read the Memorials of Canterbury.

As might be expected, the book is full of minor inaccuracies. Some of these are perhaps due to carelessness rather than to igno- rance. "Edmund I., who was called Ironside " (p. 174), and the date of 1007 for Berengar (p. 441), may be merely misprints ; but they are such as a careful writer would not pass over, nor would he speak of the Abbey of Bee again and again as Bea. But what is to be said of such a date as this?—" On the day before the Nones of March, when Letare Jerusalem was sung in the church." Mr. Hill, we suppose, must know that this is March 6, but does be suppose that the introit Lztare Jerusalem was appointed for that day of the month, or, knowing that it marks a special Sunday, is he too idle to find out which it is ? Still worse, since it is a positive blunder, is his statement that Henry II. was buried "at Font Everard in Normandy." Even if he could not translate Fons Ebrardi, he might without much trouble have discovered that the first of our Angevin Kings was buried at Fontdvrault, the great abbey of his hereditary county. The style of the book is worthy of the matter, being pretentious and confused. Pronouns are abused in the strangest manner, as in the passage with which we conclude :—

"It [Christianity] took up philosophy, purged it of its errors, and of philosophers made fathers ; it took up science and bade it labour to alleviate human suffering, and assuage the physical condition of humanity ; it took up art, and not only embellished it, but gave it an inexhaustible realm of subjects, a realm in which it has been labouring ever since, and though improving and advancing in each age, in spite of enemies its power is undiminished; it has been, as its Founder declared it should be, the salt of the earth ; it has rescued the world in moments of darkness and danger, aroused it from apathy and indiffer- ence, purged it, stimulated it, sent it on in the right way, and brought it back again when it had peevishly wandered; and not the least evidence of its purifying, elevating effects upon the fine arts, is this which we have been faintly endeavouring to describe in the rise and development of missal painting, that beauty of cloistered holiness."