The life of Bernard forms an appropriate introduction to a
consideration of the Military Religious Orders. Although weary with
labor and the weight of years, he traveled over Europe preaching the
second crusade. “To kill or to be killed for Christ's sake is alike
righteous and alike safe,” this was his message to the world. In spite
of the opposition of court advisers, Bernard induced Louis VII. and
Conrad of Germany to take the crusader's vow. He gave the Knights
Templars a new rule and kindled afresh a zeal for the knighthood.
Although the members of the Military Orders were not monks in the
strict sense of the word, yet they were soldier-monks, and as such
deserve to be mentioned here.
At the basis of all monastic orders, as has been pointed out, were
the three vows of obedience, celibacy and poverty. Certain orders, by
adding to these rules other obligations, or by laying special stress on
one of the three ancient vows, produced new and distinct types of
monastic character and life.
The Knights of the Hospital assumed as their peculiar work the care
of the sick. The Begging Friars, as will be seen later, were
distinguished by the importance which they attached to the rule of
poverty; the Jesuits, by exalting the law of unquestioning obedience.
In view of the warlike character of the Middle Ages it is strange the
soldier-monk did not appear earlier than he did. The abbots, in many
cases, were feudal lords with immense possessions which needed
protection like secular property, but as this could not be secured by
the arts of peace, we find traces of the union of the soldier and the
monk before the distinct orders professing that character. The
immediate cause of such organizations was the crusades. There were
numerous societies of this character, some of them so far removed from
the monastic type as scarcely to be ranked with monastic institutions.
One list mentions two hundred and seven of these Orders of Knighthood,
comprising many varieties in theory and practice. The most important
were three,—the Knights of the Hospital, or the Knights of St. John;
the Knights Templars; and the Teutonic Knights. The Hospitallers wore
black mantles with white crosses, the Templars white mantles with red
crosses, and the Teutonic Knights white mantles with black crosses. The
mantles were in fact the robe of the monk adorned with a cross. The
whole system was really a marriage of monasticism and chivalry, as
Gibbon says: “The firmest bulwark of Jerusalem was founded in the
Knights of the Hospital and of the Temple, that strange association of
monastic and military life. The flower of the nobility of Europe
aspired to wear the cross and profess the vows of these orders; their
spirit and discipline were immortal.”
A passage in the Alexiad quoted in Walter Scott's “Robert of Paris"
reads: “As for the multitude of those who advanced toward the great
city let it be enough to say, that they were as the stars in the heaven
or as the sand of the seashore. They were in the words of Homer, as
many as the leaves and flowers of spring.” This figurative description
is almost literally true. Europe poured her men and her wealth into the
East. No one but an eye-witness can conceive of the vast amount of
suffering endured by those fanatical multitudes as they roamed the
streets of Jerusalem looking for shelter, or lay starving by the
roadside on a bed of grass.
The term Hospitallers was applied to certain brotherhoods of monks
and laymen. While professing some monastic rule, the members of these
societies devoted themselves solely to caring for the sick and the
poor, the hospitals in those days being connected with the monasteries.
About the year 1050 some Italian merchants secured permission to
build a convent in Jerusalem to shelter Latin pilgrims. The hotels
which sprang up after this were gradually transformed into hospitals
for the care of the sick and presided over by Benedictine monks. The
sick were carefully nursed and shelter granted to as many as could be
accommodated. Nobles abandoned the profession of arms and, becoming
monks, devoted themselves to caring for the unfortunate crusaders in
these inns. The work rapidly increased in extent and importance. In the
year 1099, Godfrey de Bouillon endowed the original hospital, which had
been dedicated to St. John. He also established many other monasteries
on this holy soil. The monks, most of whom were also knights, formed an
organization which received confirmation from Rome, as “The Knights of
St. John of Jerusalem.” The order rapidly assumed a distinctly military
character, for, to do its work completely, it must not only care for
the sick in Jerusalem, but defend the pilgrim on his way to the Holy
City. This ended in an undertaking to defend Christendom against
Mohammedan invasion and in fighting for the recovery of the Holy
Sepulcher.
After visiting some of these Palestinian monasteries, a king of
Hungary thus describes his impressions: “Lodging in their houses, I
have seen them feed every day innumerable multitudes of poor, the sick
laid on good beds and treated with great care. In a word, the Knights
of St. John are employed sometimes like Martha, in action, and
sometimes like Mary, in contemplation, and this noble militia
consecrate their days either in their infirmaries or else in
engagements against the enemies of the cross.”
The Knights Templars were far more militant than the Knights of St.
John, but they also were actuated by the monastic spirit. Bernard tried
to inspire this order with a strong Christian zeal so that, as he said,
“War should become something of which God could approve.” The success
which attended its operations led as usual to its corruption and
decline. Beginning with a few crusaders leagued together for service
and living on the site of the ancient Temple at Jerusalem, it soon
widened the scope of its services and became a powerful branch of the
crusading army. It was charged by Philip IV. of France, in 1307, with
the most fearful crimes, to sustain or to deny which accusations many
volumes have been composed. Five years later the order was suppressed
and its vast accumulations transferred to the Knights of St. John. “The
horrible fate of the Templars,” says Allen, “was taken by many as a
beginning and omen of the destruction that would soon pass upon all the
hated religious orders. And so this final burst of enthusiasm and
splendor in the religious life was among the prognostics of a state of
things in which monasticism must fade quite away.”
Wondrous changes have taken place in those dark and troubled years
since Benedict began his labors at Monte Cassino, in 529. The monk has
prayed alone in the mountains, and converted the barbarian in the
forest. He has preached the crusades in magnificent cathedrals, and
crossed stormy seas in his frail bark. He has made the schools famous
by his literary achievements, and taught children the alphabet in the
woodland cell. He has been good and bad, proud and humble, rich and
poor, arrogant and gentle. He has met the shock of lances on his
prancing steed, and trudged barefoot from town to town. He has copied
manuscripts in the lonely Scottish isle, and bathed the fevered brow of
the pilgrim in the hospital at Jerusalem. He has dug ditches, and
governed the world as the pope of the Church. He has held the plow in
the furrow, and thwarted the devices of the king. He has befriended the
poor, and imposed penance upon princes. He has imitated the poverty and
purity of Jesus, and aped the pomp and vice of kings. He has dwelt
solitary on cold mountains, subsisting on bread, roots and water, and
he has surrounded himself with menials ready to gratify every luxurious
wish, amid the splendor of palatial cloisters. Still there are new
types and phases of monasticism yet to appear. The monk has other tasks
to undertake, for the world is not yet sufficiently wearied of his
presence to destroy his cloister and banish him from the land.
Abraham Lincoln only applied a general principle to a specific case when he said, “This nation cannot long endure half slave and half free.” Glaring inconsistencies between faith and practice will eventually destroy any institution, however lofty its ideal or noble its foundation. God suffers long and is kind, but His forbearance is not limitless. Monasticism, as has been shown, was never free from serious inconsistency, from moral dualism. But the power of reform prolonged its existence. It was constantly producing fresh models of its ancient ideals. It had a hidden reserve-force from which it supplied shining examples of a living faith and a self-denying love, just at the time when it seemed as if the system was about to perish forever. When these fresh exhibitions of monastic fidelity likewise became tarnished, when men had tired of them and predicted the speedy collapse of the institution, forth from the cloister came another body of monkish recruits, to convince the world that monasticism was not dead; that it did not intend to die; that it was mightier than all its enemies. The day came, however, when the world lost its confidence in an institution which required such constant reforming to keep it pure, which demanded so much cleansing to keep it clean. Ideals that could so quickly lose their influence for good came to be looked upon with suspicion.
At the beginning of the thirteenth century we are confronted by the anomaly of a church grossly corrupt but widely obeyed. She is nearing the pinnacle of her power and the zenith of her glory, although the parochial clergy have sunk into vice and incapacity, and the monks, as a class, are lazy, ignorant and notoriously corrupt. Two things, especially, command the attention,—first, the immorality and laxity of the monks; and second, the growth of heresies and the tendency toward open schism. The necessity of reform was clearly apprehended by the church as well as by the heretical parties, but, since the church had such a hold upon society, those who sought to reform the monasteries by returning to old beliefs and ancient customs were much more in favor than those who left the church and opposed her from the outside. The impossibility of substantial, internal reform had not yet come to be generally recognized. As time passed the conviction that it was of no use to attempt reforms from the inside gained ground; then the separatists multiplied, and the shedding of blood commenced. The world had to learn anew that it was futile to put new wine into old bottles or to patch new cloth on an old garment.
“It is the privilege of genius,” says Trench, “to evoke a new creation, where to common eyes all appears barren and worn out.” Francis and Dominic evoked this new creation; but although the monk now will appear in a new garb, he will prove himself to be about the same old character whom the world has known a great many years; when this discovery is made monasticism is doomed. Perplexed Europe will anxiously seek some means of destruction, but God will have Luther ready to aid in the solution of the problem.