Medieval panorama : the English scene from conquest to Reformation / by G.G. Coulton.

  • George Gordon Coulton
Date:
1947
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Medieval panorama : the English scene from conquest to Reformation / by G.G. Coulton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    61/842 (page 41)
    for “ there are innumerable so-called monasteries, as we all know, who have nothing whatever of monastic conversation: I would that some of these might be transferred, by synodical authority, from lechery to chastity, from vanity to temperance, from in¬ temperance of the belly and gluttony to continence and piety; and they might be taken in aid of an episcopal see which should lately have been founded.” On this subject of monastic decay he harps again and again: there are only too many who spread a moral plague around them; and, by a still graver abuse, powerful lay- folk “give the king’s money, and buy for themselves, under pretext of founding monasteries, estates wherein they may more freely exercise their lusts”, and procure foundation-charters and privileges signed not only by kings but also by bishops, abbots and worldly potentates. “It is thine office to see to it that the Devil should not usurp his reign in places consecrated to God.” As to general piety, even “those [of the population] who seem among the most religious do not presume to take the Holy Communion except at Christmas and Epiphany and Easter, although there are innumerable boys and girls, young men and maidens, old men and women, innocent and of chastest conversation, who, without any controversial scruple, are fit to communicate every Sunday, or even on the days of holy apostles or martyrs, as thou thyself hast seen done in the Holy Roman and Apostolic Church.” Here, again, we may compare this with the thirteenth century, by which time the laity, all over the Latin Church, very seldom communi¬ cated more than once a year, at Easter. But to return to Bede. It may too often be said now as Christ said to the Pharisees: “Where¬ fore do ye transgress the commandments of God through your tradition?” Men think to redeem their sins by “the alms which, amid their daily concupiscence and delights, they seem to give to the poor”, but alms, to weigh in God’s balance, must be brought by clean hands. “Let these things be said briefly against the poisonous love of money. But if I would treat in the same way concerning drunkenness and surfeiting and lechery and other such contagions, the length of my letter would extend to immensity.” Even if those words stood alone, and were not supported by evidence from other angles, they would suffice to warn us against over-estimating the power of the Church during the so-called Dark Ages, while we freely admit that she was the greatest existing power for good in those half-civilized societies. For Bede