Mediaeval and modern history . d another that required themonk to spend an allotted time each day in sacred reading. The monks who subjected themselves to the rule of St. Bene-dict were known as Benedictines. The order became immenselypopular. At onetime it embracedabout forty thou-sand abbeys. 31. Monastic Re-forms ; C1 u n y. —Monasticism as anactive and potent?force in the historyof the West has along and wonderfulhistory of morethan a thousandyears. This historypresents one domi-nant fact, — ever-renewed reformmovements in was amonastery or a monastic order establis
Mediaeval and modern history . d another that required themonk to spend an allotted time each day in sacred reading. The monks who subjected themselves to the rule of St. Bene-dict were known as Benedictines. The order became immenselypopular. At onetime it embracedabout forty thou-sand abbeys. 31. Monastic Re-forms ; C1 u n y. —Monasticism as anactive and potent?force in the historyof the West has along and wonderfulhistory of morethan a thousandyears. This historypresents one domi-nant fact, — ever-renewed reformmovements in was amonastery or a monastic order established before the acquisition of wealth broughtin self-indulgence and laxity of discipline. But there was alwaysamong the backsliding dwellers in the cloisters a saving rem-nant, and upon these choice souls the spirit of reform was sureto descend, and thus it happens that with the reform movementsmarking the history of the monks are associated the names of manyof the purest and most exalted characters of the mediaeval ir^^hjT Fig. 6. — The Simopetra Monastery ofMount Athos. (From a photograph) The convents of Mt. Athos in their present state giveus a very accurate notion of the great monasteries ofEurope, at the close of the twelfth century. — Saba-TIER, Life of St. Francis of Assist 26 THE CHURCH AND ITS INSTITUTIONS Among the earliest and most noteworthy of these reform move-ments was that which resulted in the founding in the year 910 ofthe celebrated monastery of Cluny in Burgundy. The influenceswhich radiated from the cloisters of Cluny left a deep impressionupon more than two centuries of history (sees. 123 and 133). 32. Services of the Monks to Civilization. —The early estab-lishment of the monastic system in the Church resulted in greatadvantages to the new world that was shaping itself out of theruins of the old. The monks, especially the Benedictines, becameagriculturists, and by patient labor converted the wild and marshylands which they received as gif
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