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CHURCH WORK AND LIFE

IN

ENGLISH MINSTERS.

PART V.-HISTORICAL.

ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF MONASTERIES IN ENGLAND.

1. Celtic Monasteries.

THE Celtic Monasteries of Britain resembled the humble model of Lindisfarne, where, about 652, St. Aidan's successor built a church after the manner of the Scots, not of stone, but of hewn oak, and thatched it with reeds (Bede, lib. iii. c. 25). Laestingau only in process of time received a stone church (Bede, lib. iii. c. 23), and Bishop Eadbert in 688 leaded the roofs and plated the walls of that on the Holy Isle. At Bangor there was so great a multitude of monks that, the convent being divided into seven companies, with their several presidents, none contained less than three hundred brethren, who all lived by the labour of their hands (Bede, lib. ii. c. 2). It had many churches, probably small oratories (W. Malm., lib. iv. sc. 186). The influence of St. German and his companions Dubricius of Llandaff and Iltutus, founder of the college of Llan Yltad in Glamorganshire, promoted the monastic system in Wales, based, no doubt, on the

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model of the Gallican houses of his native country in the fifth century, which had a striking affinity to the Basilican laura. To these Gildas alludes (Ep. sc. 34). Round Glastonbury in 433 floated traditions of St. Patrick fresh from the monasteries of Lerins and St. Martin of Tours. The Scottish, Irish, and British churches were one in practice (Bede, lib. ii. c. 4), and some remarkable evidences point to a further connection with the churches of the East.

2. The Monastic Character of Early Christianity in England. The Three Rules of St. Columba, St. Gregory, and St. Benedict.

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ST. COLUMBA'S RULE.-In the north, Lindisfarne, followed by Bebbanburgh, adopted the Rule of Iona. The English, great and small, were by their Scotch [Irish] masters instructed in the rules and observance of Regular discipline, for most of them that came to preach were monks (635, Bede, lib. iii. c. 3). Trumhere, Bishop of Mercia and the Middle Angles (659–662), was educated in the monastic life of the English nation (Bede, lib. iii. c. 2). Bishop Cedd (654), among the East Saxons, 'observed the discipline of the regular life' at Ithanceaster or Bradwell-on-Sea, near Maldon and Tilbury, in 654 (Bede, lib. iii. c. 22). Both these prelates had 'Scottish consecration.' The common English name for monks was 'servants of God' (Ina's Laws, 693; Wilfrid's Canons, 696, c. 23). The Scottish synonym of Céle De, Colidei, or Culdees, unknown to Bede, lingered at York in the reign of Henry I., and even so late as the eighth century the Scottish use was daily said in the minster. Christianity was still wholly monastic in the seventh century at Lindisfarne, Laestingau, and Ripon, which followed 'the monastic custom of the Scots' (Bede, lib. iii. c. 23, 25; v. 19). The influence of Holy Island also found place in the South, for Dicul, a Scottish monk, founded a little monastery of five or six brethren at Bosanham in Sussex, a place surrounded by woods and the sea. Another Scottish monk, Maildulph, from a hermitage and college of scholars among the pleasant Wiltshire

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