Violet Colour The Cathedral of Pampelune is officiated by Regular Canons and in the same Diocese there is the famous Priory of Ronceaux where the Emperor Charlemain placed a College of Regular Canons to take charge of an Hospital which he founded to receive the Pilgrims that should pass by those remote places as well those of France who should go to St. James as those of Spain who travelled to Rome They are drest in Black and wear a little white Scapulary very strait which comes down to their middle they wear also a kind of a Cross of a green Stuff made in the form of an F. to signifie that they are of an Order belonging to Hospitals Of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustin THE Fathers of this Order do boldly derive their Original from St. Augustin They pretend that this Saint being at Milan retired there into a Monastery and that passing afterwards into Africa he brought thither along with him 12 Fryers whom he established not long after near his Episcopal Church of Hippo living together with them But to speak truly this is no better than a story contrived by these honest Monks who have vanity enough to attribute to themselves an antiquity to which they have no title I need give no other warrant for what I say than Possidonius who wrote the Life of St. Augustin and makes no mention of them 'T is also acknowledged by the Learned that those seventy six Sermons written to the Hermits Ad Fratres in Eremo commemorantes and supposed by the Augustinian Fathers to be the Works of this holy Doctor are only the productions of some Impostor Having weighed every thing very impartially one shall find that the Order of these Augustinians was in the beginning formed of several Heremitical Congregations which were spread in several places under different names and especially of the Williamites and Zambonites Pope Innocent IV. did form the design of this Union but Death having prevented him this Work was reserved to Alexander IV. Nor was the great St. Augustin though dead many Ages before wanting to promote it with his utmost power He appeared say they to this Pope in a Dream under a dreadful Figure having his Head as big as a Tun and the rest of his Body as small as a Reed This made Alexander IV. understand that he ought to put in execution the project of his Predecessor He gave them the pretended Rules of St. Augustin joined them in a Body under one General ordering them to wear the same Habit to wit a long Gown with broad Sleeves a fine cloath Hood and under these black Garments other white ones and that they should tyâ— about their Middle a leathern Girdle fastned with an Ivory Bone This Order being confirmed by the following Popes so prodigiously increased that a very little while after they had above 2000 Convents of Men and 300 of Women Being afterwards fallen from their Observances which is the common fate of all the Religious Orders of the Church of Rome Father Thomas of Jesus of the House of Andrada laid the first Foundations of a Reformation in Portugal about the year 1574 Louis of Leon established it in Spain Father Andreas Dies in Italy and Father Francis Ameâ— carried it into France and it was confirmed by Clement VIII in the year 1600. The following Popes consented that the three Congregations of France Italy and Spain should have each a Vicar General who should depend on the General of the Augustinians They are one of the four Orders which are now called Mandians or Beggars from their begging Alms from Door to Door though indeed it is a shame that they are suffered so to do having all of them some few Religious of St. Francis excepted more than sufficient yearly incomes for their maintenance The Reformed Augustinians wear Sandals and are called Unshod for distinction sake from those who have not received the Reform and go under the name of great Augustinians These last passed from Italy into England in the year 1252. and at their arrival a raging Sickness broke out in London and spread into the whole Kingdom as a presage of the great evils which these Monks should cause one day in England There is a great number of other Congregations that follow the Rule of St. Augustin of whom I shall speak in another place Now having said that the Augustinians drew their Original from the Williamites and Zambonites I shall only treat here in few words of these two ancient Orders of Hermits Of the Orders and Rules of Cassianus Caesarius and Isidorus JOhn Cassian was born at Athens and lived in the Fifth Age. He passed the first years of his Youth in the Monasteries of Palestina where he had great familiarity with the Abbot Germanus and they went together into Egypt where they lived seven years After he became a Disciple to St. John Chrysostom by whom he was ordained a Deacon and after the death of this holy Prelate he went to Rome from whence in the year 410. when this City was taken by Alaricus he took his way to Marseilles and was there ordained a Priest by Bishop Venetius He afterward founded there two Monasteries one for Men and the other for Women professing himself amongst them a Monastick Life He wrote there his Books of Collations or Conferences of the Fathers of the Desert viz. of those Hermits whom he had seen in the Wilderness of Palestina which he dedicated to several eminent men He had already written the Institutions and manner of life of the Egyptian Monks and it is very probable that he proposed them for a pattern to his own Monasteries having left no other written Rule besides This Cassianus died in the year 448. and is now look'd upon very strangely by the Papists some of them chiefly at Marseilles and in Provence worshipping him as a Saint and others holding him for an Heretick who followed the errors of the Semipelagiens Caesarius Archbishop of Arles lived in the Sixth Age and was brought up in his Youth in the famous Monastery of the Lerins which was at that time the most renowned School for Learning where he made a considerable progress in his Studies We have of his Works forty six Homilies some Letters an exhortation to Charity a Treatise of the Ten Virgins some Rules for Nuns which he wrote in favour of Caesaria his own Sister who lived in a Monastery founded by him and are to be found in the VIII Tome of Bibliotheca Patrum 'T is said that Tetradius his Nephew wrote by his direction another Rule for Monks which is also to be seen there As for the first which is attributed to Caesarius it is so like to some spiritual instructions which St. Austin wrote for some devout Women who lived together with his Sister that some few words only being changed it seems to be the same Muta quaedam Verba Caesaris habes totam Regulam
Imprimatur Feb. 3. 1692. Ra. Barker Advertisement Two Books published by the same Author THE Frauds of the Monks and Priests set forth in Eight Letters lately written by a Gentleman in his Journey to Italy the third Edition in Octavo Observations on a Journy to Naples wherein the Frauds of Romish Monks and Priests are farther discovered by the same Author Bedae Venerabilis Opera quaedam Theologica nunc primum edita nec non Historica anteà semel edita accesserunt Egberti Archiepiscopi Eboracensis Dialogus de Ecclesiastica Institutione Adhelmi Sireburnensis Liber de Virginitate ex Codice Antiquissimo Emendatus in Quarto L. Annei Flori Rerum Romanarum Epitome Interpretatione Notis Illustravit Anna Tanaquilli Fabri Filia Jussu Christianissimi Regis in usum Serenissimi Delphini in Octavo A SHORT HISTORY OF Monastical Orders In which the Primitive Institution OF MONKS THEIR Tempers Habits Rules AND The Condition they are in at Present are Treated of By Gabriel d' Emillianne LONDON Printed by S. Roycroft for W. Bentley in Russel-street Covent-Garden 1693. TO The Most Reverend the ARCHBISHOPS The Right Reverend the BISHOPS And to the rest of the Reverend Clergy OF THE Church of England This Book is humbly Presented by Gabriel d' Emillianne THE PREFACE I Must desire my Reader to observe here three things concerning this Book First What were the Motives which induced me to write it Secondly The Methods which I observed in it and Thirdly The Reasons I have to dedicate it to the English Clergy I. Several of the Order of Gray and Black Fryars having had the confidence in the late King James's Reign not only to flock by Troops from beyond Seas into England but also to appear publickly in their Monkish Habits and a great many others of different Colours preparing to follow The People here was not in a little amazement to see these new Faces while the Papists were very busie in combing the Fox's Tail to make it appear finer and magnified every where the pretended Holiness both of these Monks and of their Habits The good Protestants did only laugh at them but the wiser sort inquired who they were and in what Book one might have a sufficient notice of them There were indeed some Latin Books which treated of Monks and also some French and Italian but besides that all these were written in Foreign Tongues unknown to the most part of the vulgar sort of People they were almost all of them written in a Popish way and by Monks who had not forgot to be kind to themselves There wanted then an English Book to give a sufficient and true information about this matter A learned Doctor in Divinity undertook at that time to do it whose Pen would have without doubt far out-done mine had he perfected the Work which he had begun But these mimical Faces of Monks having disappeared in the late happy Revolution and the Doctor 's applications being required another way he thought fit to leave off and I was desired to try what I could do on this Subject both with shortness and impartiality II. These Two Parts I have endeavoured to make good having briefly related the times of the Institution of each Religious Order their Founders their Tempers their Habits and given a short Abstract of their Rules I have made use both of Protestant and Popish Authors amongst whom I have endeavoured to retrieve the Truth After each Rule I have treated of those Monks who do profess the same according to the times of their respective Foundations excepting only some few who are under the pretended Rules of St. Austin and have taken the Name of Regular Clerks whom because they are so newly hatched I have placed after the Mendicant Fryars After these you shall find a little Treatise of Nuns and another of Military Regular Orders All these Treatises might have been more enlarged each of them affording very plentiful matter but I have chosen to he short and to relate only what might give a sufficient notice of them I am further now to inform my Reader of some Reasons I had to dedicate this small Performance to the Venerable Clergy of the Church of England III. First As I cannot sufficiently praise God for his great Mercy in calling me to be a Member of this Holy Church so I I thought I could not honour enough those who are the Pillars and the chief Ornaments of it Secondly Having many particular Obligations to several of the Clergy I hoped they might perceive in this Dedication of my Book to them though in General the earnest desire which I have to be thankful But what inclined me yet very powerfully to do it was that being not altogether ignorant of the great disturbances which the Monks in all Ages almost from their first Establishment in this Country Caused amongst the English Clergy nay of the violent Usurpations Slanders Tyrannies Persecutions and Oppressions wherewith they so devilishly attempted the total Destruction both of Churches and Church men I thought it would well suit with the Honour of the Reformation if I should bring in these Monks as vanquished Slaves and lay them at the Feet of the Protestant Clergy who at last by God's Grace and Mercy have so gloriously triumphed over them The Church History is full of the bold and malitious attempts of the Monks against the English Secular Clergy and it will not be methinks amiss to relate here some few instances among so many to verifie what I have said before One of the first who declared against the Clerical State was Dunstan The Monks who always reverenced him as their great Support Patron and Favourer ceased not to extol him to the Skies and went so far as to assert that he had been sanctified in his Mothers Womb and they made so much noise with Lyes and pretended Miracles that he was easily made a Saint in the Church of Rome However several good Authors speak otherwise of him that he had been a very debauched Youth excessively inclined to Women and a great lover of Magical Arts wherewith he bewitched to that degree Alfgina Princess of the Royal Blood that she could not live separate from him Therefore that she might enjoy continually his Company she caused a House to be built near the Church of St. Mary at Glascow where the Hypocrite Dunstan to deceive the World had built a little Cell for himself When she died she left to him the whole disposal of her Estate to be given to Pious Uses thinking thereby to attone for her great sins before God Dunstan builded with the Mony five Monasteries and richly endowed them making himself Abbot of the best of them Which which was also they say the first that was built in England Nevertheless he did not build them out of any love for Solitude for during the Reigns of seven Kings under whom he lived he almost never stirred from great Lords Houses or from the
Monasterii Cassinensis 1 Patriarchae Sacrae Religionis 2 Abbas Sacri Monasterii Cassinensis 3 Dux 4 Princepts omnium Abbatum Religiosorum 5 Vice-Cancellarius Regnorum utriusque Siciliae Hierusalem Hungariae 6 Comes 7 Rector Campaniae Terrae Laboris Maritimaeque Provinciae 8 Vice-Imperator 9 Princeps Pacis Titles of the Abbots of Montcassin 1 Patriarch of the Sacred Religion 2 Abbot of the Sacred Monastery of Cassin 3 Duke and 4 Prince of all Abbots and Religious 5 Vice-Chancellor of the Kingdoms of both the Sicilies of Jerusalem and Hungaria 6 Count and 7 Governour of Campania and Ferrra di Lavoro and of the Maritime Province 8 Vice-Emperour and 9 Prince of Peace They want but three steps more to arrive at the top of that Ladder of Humility which St Benet hath built in his Rule All the favour which one may show to St. Benet in this place is to excuse his intention and to say that when he permitted his Monks to possess so much in common he did not foresee the ill use they would make of it and to what excess of delicacy and pride it would carry them CHAP. X. Of the Progress of the Order of St. Benet since the year 543 to 940. When begun the first Reformation BENET when living sent two of his most beloved Disciples Maurus and Placidus one into France and the other into Sicily for to found there some Monasteries They made there in a short time a wonderful progress by the favourable disposition of several great Lords who did help them in their design It hapned also beyond Benet's intention and by a particular providence of God who draws good from evil when he pleaseth that some years after his death many of his Monasteries became well indowed Colleges wherein Youth were instructed and Sciences did flourish Because as in that time the most part of Europe was not yet converted to the Christian Faith or was lately brought over to it there was need of good learned men to convert and confirm the people in the Doctrin of the Gospel The Christian Princes considering the advantages of retirement for Studies and that Benet's Rule did contain for the most part Statutes very proper for the administration of a College they founded many Monasteries of his Order with the intent they should teach in them not only their young Monks but all others who would come there to board Hence it was that the manual labour which according to St. Benet's Rule took up the best part of the day was shortned if not quite released in favour of the Students and those who had not wit enough in their heads to apply themselves seriously to studies and to compose Books found enough in their Fingers to Transcribe Bind and guild them This in a very short time did furnish all the Monasteries with excellent Libraries that were a great help to their Studies because Printing not being used in those times all Books being in Writing were extream dear and those Seculars who had not the advantage of the Libraries of Monks were not able to have many This gave then fair opportunity to the Religious of becoming learned and what encouraged them more yet was that on the account of their Learning they were called to Bishopricks and other Ecclesiastical Dignities even to the Papacy it self In an old Table of the greatness of the Order of St. Benet I find 28 Popes 200 Cardinals 1600 Archbishops 4000 Bishops The principal Monasteries where Studies and Learned Men did flourish with great reputation were those of Fulda Milan Hirsauge Auxerre St. Martins of Treves Hirsfeld Rheims St. Gall St. Denis Wissembourg Malmesbury in England Corbie Neubourg Altendorf Luxevil and a great many others the relation of which might prove perhaps too tedious In a word if we believe Tritemius towards the year 840. almost all the Monasteries of the Order of St. Benet were learned Academies and Schools in which were taught not only Divinity and Philosophy but also Mathematicks Musick Rhetorick Poetry the Hebrew Arabick Greek and Latin Tongues These were the Golden Ages of the Monks very different from those of our times It was then that the Abbies of the Order of St. Benet became so rich by the great and noble gifts which the Princes and great Lords gave them as an encouragement to the learned By which means the Abbots became themselves great and mighty Lords and got magnificent Titles The Abbot of Augia the Rich in Germany has yearly 60000 Golden Crowns and in his Monastery were received none but Princes Earls and Barons The Abbies of Weissembourg of Fulda and of St. Gall in Germany do possess yetâ—innumerable riches and their Abbots are Dukes and Princes of the Empire One of the Abbots of St. Gall entred into Strasbourg on a publick occasion with a Retinue of 1000 Horse Should I treat here in particular of all the Abbies of the Order of St. Benet this could not be done without making a great Volume They were formerly above 15000 in number but they are now a great deal more As the intentions of those who founded Monasteries were very various I shall here relate some of the principal motives which gave rise to these Foundations CHAP. XI What were the motives to the Founding of so many Monasteries SOME as I have already said had a motive thereto the making attonement for their Extorsions Paricides and Robberies and hoped they had done it in great measure by employing part of what they had pillaged or stollen in founding Monasteries such was the infatuation of those times Others indeed carried by a truly noble Spirit and good Zeal founded many of them to favour Virtue and Letters witness Oswaldus King of England who founded several Ut inventus in iis bonis Literis Moribus imbui ac erudiri posset to the end that Youth should be instructed in them both in Learning and good Manners Not very long after the False Doctrin of Proper Merit and of applying the Merits of one man to another having crept into the Church the most impious and wicked undertook to lay foundations with this infamous Bargain that while they gave themselves up to all sorts of Crimes and sinful Courses the Monks should pray and merit Heaven for them and their Posterity A fourth reason which perswaded a great many persons towards the end particularly of the tenth Century to found Monasteries was a false Opinion they had imbibed that the World would come to an end with that Age. This does appear by the old Charters of Donation of those times of which this is one In Dei Nomine perpetrandum est unicuique hominum quam velâ—citer tempora caduca praetereunt futura appropriant Ideo penset unusquisque apud semetipsum si habeat unde aliquid de facultatibus suis tribuere valeat ad venerabilia loca pro remedio animae suae ut in sempiterna requie cum Beato Petro Andraea Paradysum
Perfection did consist in possessing nothing at all in the World he undertook to live the poorest of all men This resolution and all his outward practices of Poverty drew to him in a short time Admirers and at last Followers and Companions of whom he made himself the Head prescribing them the following Rule which consists of twelve Articles only A Summary of the Rule of St. Francis Chap. i. He saith that the Rule and Life of the Brothers Minors so he would have those of his Order called is to observe the Gospel under obedience possessing nothing as their own and in Charity Brother Francis promiseth obedience to Pope Honorius and his Lawful Successors and to the Romish Church and commands the other Religious to obey himself and his Successors Chap. ii He prescribes the manner of receiving Novices after a year of Noviciate after which 't is not allowed to them to leave the Order He sets down the Habits both of Novices and Professed Fryars permitting only to the later to wear a Hood or Capuchon Chap. iii. He will have his Fryars to make use of the Roman Breviary and the Convers or Lay-Brothers to recite every day for their Office seventy six Pater Nosters He orders them besides Lent to fast from All Saints to Christmas and to begin Lent at Twelf-tide He forbids them to ride on Horseback without an urgent necessity and will have them in their Journeys to eat of whatsoever is set before them Chap. iv He forbids very strictly to receive any mony directly or indirectly Chap. v. They ought to get their Livelihood by the Labour of their Hands receiving for it any thing but mony Chap. vi They ought to possess nothing of their own and when their Labour is not sufficient to maintain them they must go a begging and with the Alms they collect help mutually one another Chap. vii They ought to confess to their Provincial Ministers those sins the absolution of which is reserved to them that they may receive from them charitable Corrections Chap. viii The Election of their General Minister and of their Guardians or Superiors ought to be made in a General Chapter or Assembly which is to be held every third year about Whitsunday Chap. ix They ought not to Preach without leave of the Ordinaries of each Diocese and of their Superiors Chap. x. He prescribes the manner of admonition and correction Chap. xi They ought not to enter the Monasteries of Nuns nor to be God-Fathers of any Child Chap. xii They shall not undertake to go into foreign Countries to convert the Infidels without leave of their Provincial Ministers He bids them to ask of the Pope a Cardinal for Governor Protector and Corrector of the whole Order St. Francis his Will and Testament HE orders that the Fryars following his Example do honour the Churches the Priests and the Divines That those who enter his Order give before their reception all their Estates and Goods to the Poor that they apply themselves to work with their Hands that they ought not to purchase recommendatory Letters at the Court of Rome that where-ever they find any Fryar who hath left their Order or is become an Heretick they ought immediately to apprehend him and bound in Chains to drag him before their Cardinal Corrector that they ought continually to carry his Rule about them and make neither addition or diminution to it Lastly he gives his Blessing to them all This is the Rule and the last Will which Francis left to his Disciples Which far from being an observance of the Holy Gospel is rather in several points a manifest transgression of it and a Snare of the Devil to catch Souls as the learned Hospinian proves in his History of Monks This Francis saith he does not promise obedience to God or to Jesus Christ but to the Pope who is Antichrist and the other Fryars do promise it to Francis the grand Author of Superstition Francis instituted three different Orders the first of the Minors in the year 1206 whom he obliged to three Vows and who are divided now into Conventuals Observantines and Capucins and are again subdivided into other branches The second of Nuns in the year 1212 who are likewise divided into Conventuals Observantines and Capucines c. The third in the year 1221 which was common to both Sexes and did not oblige to any confinement permitting every one to live at home in his own Hermitage From this third Order was derived afterwards another Religion which to its Rules joined Confinement in a Cloister as the Conventuals A large Book would scarcely be enough to relate all the Reformations Separations Unions suits at Law Disputes changes of Habits and of Rules that have hapned in this great Order and one might also write another Book of the Frauds Lies pretended Visions and false Miracles which Francis and his Disciples have contrived for the advancement of their Order I shall set down only some few here for the satisfaction of my Reader Frauds and Impostures made use of for the Propagation of this Order FRancis carried by an ardent desire of enlarging an Order whereof he was the Founder sent into all the parts of the world some of his Religious to establish it every where These cunning Fellows seeing the necessity they laid under to get readily the favour and good-will of the People because having neither Mony nor Foundations for their Maintenance in case of delay they would have been in great danger of Starving they betook themselves to the shortest and most efficacious way which was to publish a great number of Miracles which they said their holy Founder had done and did yet daily in favour of those who were liberal to them of their Alms. They shewed long Lists of blind People to whom this Saint had restored their Sight of Deaf restored to their Hearing of Lame made to Walk in a word of all Sicknesses healed by him In another List there was to be seen all that were possessed with Devils whom he had delivered all the Captives Miraculously set at Liberty Lastly all the Dead rising to Life again Like in this to the Mountebanks who to get more mony in the places where they intend to stay a-while shew the Golden Chains Medals Priviledges Certificates and also whole Lists of People Healed they say by them in foreign Countries whither 't is not so easie to go for information of the Truth The Disciples of Francis had then a very fair play nor were they wanting to value much the impression of the Sacred Wounds imprinted on the Body of their holy Founder Thus runs the History or rather the Fable of it as it is related in the Book of the Conformities of this Order which is held by the Church of Rome for such a truth whereof one cannot doubt without becoming an Heretick as it is declared by several Bulls of the Popes Gregory the IX Alexander the V. Nicholas the III. and Benet the