per guiled him into the abbey-instructed him haps made a clerk of him, for the transcription of the MSS. we have spoken of (it was thus Cædmon was brought into notice); if very promising, he might come to place of dignity among the monks — possibly grow, as Thomas à Becket did, from such humble beginnings to an archbishopric and to the mastership of the, religious heart of England. These houses were the fat corporations of that day, with their lobby-men and spokesmen in all state assemblages. Their representatives could wear hair shirts, or purple robes and golden mitres, as best suited the needs of the occasion. They could boast that their institutions were established—like our railways-for the good of the people, and in the interests of humanity; but while rendering service, waxing into such lustiness of strength and such habits of corruption and rapacity, that at last, when fully bloated, they were broken open and their riches drifted away under the whirlwind of the wrath of King Henry VIII. Great schemes of greed are very apt to carry an avenging Henry VIII. somewhere in their trail. But let us not forget that there was a time in the early centuries of Christian Eng land when these great religious houses- whose ruins appeal to us from their lovely solitudeswere the guardians of learning, the nurses of all new explorations into the ways of knowledge, the expounders of all healing arts, and the promoters of all charities and all neighborly kindliness.* Whatever young fellow of that day did not plant himself under shadow of one of these religious houses for growth, or did not study in the schools of Oxford or Cambridge, must needs have made his way into favor and fame and society with a lance -- * An abbot presided over monasteries- sometimes independent of the bishop-sometimes (in a degree) subject. Priors also had presidence over some religious houses -- but theirs was usually a delegated authority. An æsthetic abbot or prior was always building or always getting new colors for the missal work in the scriptorium: hunting abbots were thinking more of the refectory. At least six religious services were held a day, and always midnight mass. It was easy, but not wholly a life of idleness. breakfast, and bells to mass. Of a sunny day monks were teaching boys one side of the cloister - artistic monks working at their missals the other; perhaps under such prior as he of Jorvaulx (Scott's Ivanhoe) some young monk would be training his hawks or dogs. An interesting abstract of the Rule of the Benedictines may be found under Monachism, Br. Ency., Vol. xvi. A bell summoned to and good horse - - just as young fellows do it now with an oar or a racket. Life of a Damoiselle. But what shall be said of a young person of the other sex of like age and tastes - to whose ambitions war and knight-errantry and the university cloisters are not open? Whither should the daughters of the great houses go, or how fill up the current of their young lives in that old thirteenth-century England? It is true, there are religious houses-nunneries -priories for these, too, with noble and saintly prioresses, such as St. Hilda's, St. Agatha's, St. Margaret's; all these bountiful in their charities, strict for most part in their discipline. To these cloistered schools may go the cousins, sisters, nieces of these saintly lady superiors; here they may learn of music, of embroidery, of letter-writing, and Christian carols -in Latin or English or French, as the case may be. If not an inmate of one of these quiet cloisters, our young thirteenthcentury damsel will find large advantage in its neighborhood; in the interchange of kindly offices -in the loan of illuminated missals, of fruits, of flowers, of haunches of venison, and in the assurance that tenderest of nurses and consolers will be at hand in case of illness or disaster; and always there an unfailing sanctuary. At home, within the dingy towers of a castle or squat Saxon homestead, with walls hung in tapestry, or made only half bright with the fire upon the hearthstone with slits of windows filled with horn or translucent bits of skin - there must have been wearisome ennui. Yet even here there were the deft handmaids, cheery and companionable; the games-draughts of a surety (in rich houses the checkers being of jasper or rock crystal); the harp, too, and the falcons for a hunting bout in fair weather; the little garden within the court-with its eglantine, its pinks, its lilies fair. Possibly there may be also transcripts of old chansons between ivory lids images carven out of olive wood - relics brought to the castle by friendly knights from far-away Palestine. And travelling merchants find their way to such homes bringing glass beads from Venice, and little dainty mirrors, just now the vogue in that great City by the Sea; and velvet and filigree head dresses, and jewels and bits of tapestry from Flemish cities. Perhaps a minstrel if the revenues of the family cannot retain one will stroll up to the castle-gates of an evening, giving foretaste of his power by a merry snatch of song about Robin Hood, or Sir Guy, or the Nut Brown Maid. Some company of priests with a lordly abbot at their head, journeying up from St. Albans, may stop for a day, and kindle up with cheer the great hall, which will be fresh strown with aromatic herbs for the occasion; and so some solitary palmer, with scollop shell, may make the evening short with his story of travel across the desert; or— - best of all -some returning knight, long looked for half doubted shall talk bravely of the splendors he has seen in the luxurious court of Charles of Anjou, where the chariot of his Queen was covered with velvet sprinkled with lilies of gold, and men-at-arms wore plumed helmets and jewelled collars; he may sing, too, snatches of those tender madrigals of Provence, and she if Sister Nathalie has taught her thereto may join in a roundelay, and the minstrel and harpist come clashing in to the refrain. |