afterwards liberally endowed the same. The monastery here built was considered as the first of the Cistercian houses, whose monks came immediately from Clareval. Their rule and manner of living proved so agreeable both to the prelates and the people in general, that in a few years there were in England and Wales no less than eighty-five houses of this order, either new founded or reformed; and yet it is remarkable, that there never were more than two in the county of Lancaster, namely, Furness and Whalley. All the houses belonging to this order were dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

About the year 1112, Vitalis de Mortain founded another religious order at Savigny.

The parents of Vitalis were people of some fortune in the village of Fierciville, three leagues from Bayeux: his father's name was Reinfred; his mother's Roharde. Being virtuous themselves, they carefully instructed their son in piety and all goodly learning.

Vitalis having rapidly acquired a perfect knowledge of literature, and made an uncommon advance in the sciences, was ordained priest, and became chaplain to Robert earl of Mortain, brother, by the mother's side, to king William the Conqueror, who conferred upon him a prebendary in the collegiate church, which he had founded in his own town, in the year 1082. About ten years after this, Vitalis being desirous more perfectly to obey Jesus Christ, who in his gospel he believed had placed perfection in the renunciation of all things, quitted his benefices, disposed of all that he had to the poor, and being convinced of the vanity of this world, retired amongst the rocks of Mortain there he staid not long; for in the year 1093 he repaired to St. Robert d'Abrissel, in the forest of Craon, in Anjou; whose disciples becoming very numerous, he divided them into three colonies: With one he himself founded the order of Fontevraud. The second he committed to Raoul de la Futaye, who retired with his division into the forest of Ned de Merle. The third colony, under the conduct of Vitalis, betook themselves to the forest

of

of Fougeres, on the confines of Brittany; where, dispersing themselves, they lived apart in cottages, which they erected for a defence against the inclemency of the seasons. Raoul, the lord of the place, permitted them to continue there for some years undisturbed; but being much given to hunting, and fearing lest the hermits might damage the forest, he chose rather to grant them that of Savigny, near Avranches. Vitalis and his company, accepting this offer, quitted the forest of Fougeres, and settled in that of Savigny: their company now increased by those that were there before them, they all agreed to live in community, and prevailed with their leader Vitalis to beg of Raoul de Fougeres, the remains of an old castle near Savigny. This that nobleman not only gave, but out of a pious generosity granted to them the whole forest, in order to their building therein a monastery to the honour of the Holy Trinity. The charter was dated in January 1112, and on the 2d of March following, confirmed by Henry king of England, who was then at Avranches, which at that time belonged to him. Vitalis prescribed no other rule to his community, than that of St. Benedict, with some peculiar constitutions. They chose for their dress a grey habit. Their numbers increased so fast, that the order of Savigny, in thirty-six years, became one of the most celebrated in France. This account of the order of Savigny is taken from Helyot's General History of religious orders Vol. VI. p. 109.

In 1148, pope Eugenius the third visited St. Bernard at his monastery of Clerveaux. Eugenius had been a monk there under St. Bernard, to whom, as likewise to the whole order, he ever remained a true friend : after this visit he assisted at a general council or chapter of the order, now become very numerous, held at Citeaux, in which the whole order of Savigny, consisting of thirty monasteries, were matriculated into that of Cifeaux, out of regard to St. Bernard.

After this union it was ordered, that the abbot of Savigny should always be esteemed the immediate father of all such monasteries as joined in union with the . Cistercians

Cistercians. Some say they were thirty in number, but others insist that they amounted in the whole to thirty-three.

Having now said so much of monastic life as is sufficient to give the reader a just idea of its rise and progress, I shall endeavour to point out the time and occasion of monks being introduced into England, and state the reasons assigned by modern writers for the rapid progress which the different religious orders made in this kingdom, and the wealth they acquired, leaving it to the candid to judge upon which side is the truth.

The introduction of monks into England is spoken of as a master-piece of policy in the court of Rome, as endeavouring thereby to secure her authority by the increase of property, which would arise to her from the pious donations and offerings of the faithful, and the founding of many religious houses to be occupied by such as were from the nature of their institute attached to the holy see, and might occasionally serve every purpose of spiritual tyranny. It is also alleged, that the monks, by the austerity of their religion and morals, fascinated the minds of the people, and by their pretension to extraordinary sanctity secured a submission to all their decisions, and an implicit obedience to their doctrines. This is a heavy charge, and, if well grounded, should have prevented the monastic rule from ever taking effect in any kingdom, or have occasioned its ruin as soon as the discovery was made, or the charge was found to be just but notwithstanding these repeated assertions, we find monasteries were established in this island long before the era of Austin the monk, the time when her close connexion with Rome is said to have taken place,

We are informed by Gildas, who was himself a monk of the famous monastery of Bangor, in Flintshire, that monasteries in Britain were of a higher antiquity than the connexion with the holy see, supposing, with Rowland* and others, these to have taken place at the coming of St. Austin into England.

* Mona Antiqua, first edit. p. 137 and 151.

Venerable

Venerable Bede, who flourished about a hundred and thirty years after the destruction of the monastery of Bangor, says, that the monks of that house were divided into seven classes, and that each class had its respective employment: The learned primate Usher speaks of it as a school of Christian learning for the improvement of Christian knowledge, and for supplying the faithful with fit pastors; and adds, that it afterwards became the famous monastery of Bangor ys Coed. In all this, we hear nothing of foreign connexions, of sinister inventions, of hypocrisy, &c. When the Saxons took occasion to murder twelve hundred of the monks, and utterly erase the monastery, of Bangor ys Coed, the monks were not found in arms, but at prayer, for the defence of themselves and their country against those invaders.

The monastic institute, in the earlier periods, seems to have been favourable to the cause of Christianity. After the conversion of the Saxons, we do not find many or grevious complaints made against the monks as to foreign connexions; what the motives were which induced the Conqueror to form a stricter alliance with the see of Rome, than any of his British or Saxon predecessors had ever done, are well known. To displace the Saxon bishops, and intrude Normans and other foreigners into their room, was part of the policy of that sagacious prince, who knew how to turn the balance of every power for the support of a precarious title to that crown, which violence had brought into his possession. On the other hand, the Roman pontiff knew how to draw, from the circumstances of William's affairs, advantages which the Conqueror never intended, and which his immediate successors could not prevent, as they were equally, or more, obliged to the church for her support, than he had been himself.

The foreign ecclesiastics, which the Norman king introduced, readily gave up the liberty of a country, to which they were strangers, and a happiness, the sweets whereof they had never known: but from that consequence, of which the Conqueror and his sons had

made

made them, they soon became sensible of their own. importance; the foreign monks, from the great pro perty conferred upon them, soon found of what weight they were in the scale of government, and readily turned it to their own advantage, as occasion offered.

The doctrines of hereditary right in the descent of the crown, or representation, and of the right of primogeniture, were not so clearly ascertained, nor so strictly adhered to, for some centuries after the Conquest, as they have been since: The intruder therefore, always took care to reconcile and secure to his interest the body ecclesiastic, by large promises of privileges, immunities, and the like. By such artifices it was, that the two younger sons of the Conqueror successively mounted the throne, to the prejudice of Robert, the eldest son of William. By the same arts, the earl of Moreton secured his election to the crown, to the prejudice of the empress Matilda, in whom was the direct right, she being the only surviving child of king Henry I. King John supported a defective title by the same interest, to the disherison of Arthur, the son of his elder brother, Geoffry, in whom the right of the crown was then vested, but when he pretended to excuse himself from the obligations he had laid himself under to the church for his crown, he was soon made sensible of his own weakness.

In all this, however, the abbots and priors had but their proportioned share with the bishops. The introduction therefore of so many new orders of monks into England by the Norman kings, was according to their own policy, and not that of the court of Rome; it was to serve the purposes of state to William, in giving a colouring of moral rectitude to his proceedings and to silence the artillery of Rome, which otherwise might have been of prejudice at least to the succession of his family, by giving them trouble either from the continent, where the true Saxon heir to the crown of Edmund Ironside, resided; or from the north, where a slip royal of the Saxon stem had been ingrafted by the marriage of Malcolm, king of Scots, with Margaret,

the