Chapter XIII - Church and Scriptorium

Summary

Let me begin here by recalling my readers to what I said at the very outset; “I regard monasticism as one of the great formative forces in the social life of the Middle Ages; in certain times and in certain places, I would call it even the greatest and most beneficent force”. In the twelfth century, it did more than anything else to bring Scotland into line with general European civilization. But it changed rapidly in character; indeed, the rapidity of its change was commensurate with its rapid success. It would be almost as misleading to judge this enormous institution exclusively from its first beginnings, or even from its adolescence or early manhood, as to judge modern America from the Pilgrim Fathers. For good or for evil, while the monk impressed himself upon the world, society also impressed itself upon the monk. It might almost be said that he had begun as an anti-capitalist; but certainly, after a few generations of rich endowment, the majority yielded as we should expect, and became definite capitalists. On the whole, it was a beneficent squirearchy; but, when we consider it closely as it actually was, we may well feel glad that the monk of today is far more likely to be a man of true religious vocation than a younger son drifting into a well-endowed community, much as Trollope's or Jane Austen's clergymen had drifted into family livings.