For many centuries, as has been previously shown, the monks were the
schoolmasters of Europe. They also preserved the manuscripts of the
classics, produced numerous theological works, transmitted many pious
traditions, and wrote some interesting and some worthless chronicles.
They laid the foundations of several great universities, including
those of Paris, Oxford and Cambridge. For these, and other valuable
services, the monks merit the praise of posterity. It is, however, too
much to affirm, as Montalembert does, that “without the monks, we
should have been as ignorant of our history as children.” It is
altogether improbable that the human mind would have been unproductive
in the field of historical writing had monasticism not existed during
the middle ages. While, also, the monks should be thanked for
preserving the classics, it should not be supposed that all knowledge
of Latin and Greek literature would have perished but for them.
It is surprising that the literary men of the medieval period should
have written so little of interest to the modern mind, or that helps us
to an understanding of the momentous events amid which they lived.
Unfortunately the monkish mind was concentrated upon a theology, the
premises of which have been largely set aside by modern science. Their
writings are so permeated by grotesque superstitions that they are
practically worthless to-day. Their hostility to secular affairs
blinded them to the tremendous significance of the mighty political and
social movements of the age.
It is undeniable that the monks never encouraged a love of secular
learning. They did not try to impart a love of the classics which they
preserved. The spirit of monasticism was ever at war with true
intellectual progress. The monks imprisoned Roger Bacon fourteen years,
and tried to blast his fair name by calling him a magician, merely
because he stepped beyond the narrow limits of monkish inquiry. Many
suffered indignities, privations or death for questioning tradition or
for conducting scientific researches.
So while it is true that the monks rendered many services to the
cause of education, it is also true that their monastic theories tended
to narrow the scope of intellectual activity. “This,” says Guizot, “is
the foundation of their instruction; all was turned into commentary of
the Scriptures, historical, philosophical, allegorical, moral
commentary. They desired only to form priests; all studies, whatsoever
their nature, were directed to this result.” There was no disinterested
love of learning; no desire to become acquainted with God's world. In
fact, the old hostility to everything natural characterizes all
monastic history. Europe did not enter upon that broad and noble
intellectual development which is the glory of our era, until the right
arm of monasticism was struck down, the dread of heresy banished from
the human mind, and secular learning welcomed as a legitimate and
elevated field for mental activity.
Hamilton W. Mabie, in his delightful essay on “Some Old Scholars,”
describes this step from the gloom of the cloister to the light of
God's world: “Petrarch really escaped from a sepulcher when he stepped
out of the cloister of medievalism, with its crucifix, its pictures of
unhealthy saints, its cords of self-flagellation, and found the heavens
clear, beautiful, and well worth living under, and the world full of
good things which one might desire and yet not be given over to evil.
He ventured to look at life for himself and found it full of wonderful
dignity and power. He opened his Virgil, brushed aside the cobwebs
which monkish brains had spun over the beautiful lines, and met the old
poet as one man meets another; and lo! there arose before him a new,
untrodden and wholly human world, free from priestcraft and pedantry,
near to nature and unspeakably alluring and satisfying.”
The Dominicans and Jesuits set their faces like flint against all
education tending to liberalize the mind. Here is a passage from a
document published by the Jesuits at their first centenary: “It is
undeniable that we have undertaken a great and uninterrupted war in the
interests of the Catholic church against heresy. Heresy need never hope
that the society will make terms with it, or remain quiescent ... No
peace need be expected, for the seed of hatred is born within us. What
Hamilcar was to Hannibal, Ignatius is to us. At his instigation, we
have sworn upon the altars eternal war.” When this proclamation is read
in the light of history, its meaning stands forth with startling
clearness. Almost every truth in science and philosophy, no matter how
valuable it was destined to become as an agent in enhancing the
well-being of the race, has had to wear the stigma of heresy.
It is an interesting speculation to imagine what the intellectual
development of Europe would have been, had secular learning been
commended by the monks, and the common people encouraged to exercise
their minds without fear of excommunication or death. It is sad to
reflect how many great thoughts must have perished still-born in the
student's cloister cell, and to picture the silent grief with which
many a brilliant soul must have repressed his eager imagination.