TEACHING ORDERS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. THOLIC

INTRODUCTION-THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS.

THE religious orders of the Catholic Church are generally grouped into four great divisions—the MONKS, ranging from the fourth down to the thirteenth century; the CANONS REGULAR, who follow the rule of Saint Augustine; the FRIARS, comprising nearly all the orders founded from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century; and the CLERKS REGULAR, such as the Jesuits, Barnabites, Clerks of Somascha, Theatins, and others instituted in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Lazarists, or Fathers of the Mission, the Oratorians (Latin and French), the Eudistes, and the Sulpiciens, are, strictly speaking, not religious orders, but secular priests living in community, and following a certain rule.

I. In the group of Monks (originally μovaxóg, solitary) we have the order of St. Basil (Archbishop of Cæsarea, born 329, and died 379), founded by him in Cappadocia, in Asia Minor, about the year 362. His rule has already been described.

The Benedictine order, founded by St. Benedict, in Italy, in 529, and from their habit (a loose gown of black stuff reaching down to their heels, with a cowl or hood of the same, and a scapular), sometimes called the black monks. The famous rule of this order has been already described. In the deviations from this rule, and the efforts to bring its avowed followers back, and beyond its original requirements, grew up various offshoots-the Cluniacs, Calmaldoli, Carthusians, Cistercians, Maurists, and others.

The Cluniacs was founded in 927, by Saint Odo, Abbot of Clunie, in the province of Burgundy, under whose efforts to increase the austerity of its members, several new houses were provided, which, with several of the ancient monasteries, were taken directly under the protection of the Pope, and made independent of the bishop. This offshoot of the Benedictine order was introduced into England in 1077, where it had twenty-seven priories and cells.

The Calmaldoli, uniting the cenobitic and eremetical life, and modifying the rule of St. Benedict by additional austerities, was

• Murphy's Terra Incognita. Chapter xxiv. The Ancient Religious Orders.

founded by Romuald, Abbot of Calmaldoli, near Arezzo, in Tuscany, in 1009.

The order of Vallis Umbrosa, founded in the diocese of Fiesoli, in Tuscany, by Abbot John Gualbert, in 1070, followed the BeneIdictine rule with new austerities.

The Carthusians were founded by Saint Bruno, in the desert of Chartreuse, ten miles from Grenoble, in 1085—the most austere of all the religious orders the entire time being consecrated to fasting, silence, solitude, and prayer. It was confirmed by Alexander III. in 1164, and introduced into England in 1181-the Charter House (Chartreuse) school in London was formerly a monastery of this order.

The Cistercians, or Bernadines, was founded by Robut, Abbot of Molesme, in the forest of Cistercium, in the diocese of Chalons, about fifteen miles from Dijon, in 1098. It was greatly extended by the third abbot (Stephen Harding, an Englishman of high family and large estate), who gave to it the constitution of St. Benedict, the rule called Charitatis Charta, which was confirmed by Urban II. in 1107. In 1113 this house received as a novice Bernard, who afterwards became illustrious as the Abbot of Clairvaux. He was joined by thirty noblemen, including his four brothers. The most austere modification of this order was effected in the monastery of Le Trappe, founded by Rotrou, Comte du Perche, in 1142, on the confines of Normandy. This change was effected by John le Bouthillier de Rance, in 1664. These monks observe perpetual silence, never correspond with their friends, or notice visitors.

The order of Fontevrault was founded in 1099, by Robert of Arbrissel, at Poitou. It was composed of monks and nuns in separate houses, and was governed by an abbess-in-chief, who nominated the abbots of the houses of men. The first abbess was a near relative of the Duke of Brittany, and among her successors were fourteen princesses of the royal family of Bourbon. It was taken under the special protection of the Holy See in 1106.

The order of Grandmont was founded in 1120, in a deserted neighborhood of Limoges-the rule being made up of passages from the gospels, as the origin of all monastic rules, which prescribe strict poverty, obedience, and rigorous fasting.

The Celestines, founded at Mount Magella, near Perugia, by Peter Celestine (afterwards Pope), in 1274, observe the Benedictine habit, and rule in its primitive austerity.

II. The Canons Regular (from the Latin regula) live in community, take vows, follow the rule of St. Augustine, but with a discipline less severe than that of the monks. They wear a long black cassock and a white rochet, and over that a black cloak and hood. They wear their beards, and caps on their heads. There are communities of women of this institute called canonesses. In this group are included;

The Premonstratensians, founded by Norbert in the valley of Premontré, in the forest of Coucy, in the department of Asine, in 1121. They follow the rule of St. Augustine, and wear a white cassock and rochet, a long white cloak and white cap. They were called White Canons in England, where they were introduced in 1140.

The Gilbertines, founded by Gilbert at Sempringham in Lincolnshire, in 1150, for both sexes. The nuns followed the rule of St. Benedict; and the monks of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine. The founder had always at table a dish (called the plate of the Lord Jesus) on which he put the best of whatever was served up, for the poor.

The Hospitalers, or Knights of Malta, or of St. John, of Jerusalem, founded in 1043, by certain Italian merchants trading in the Levant, who built a house in Jerusalem for themselves and pilgrims to the holy places. In 1099 they became a military order, wearing a white cross or star, with eight points. To the three ordinary vows they then took a fourth, to defend pilgrims from the Saracens. They built a church to St. John the Baptist, and hospital for sick pilgrims in Jerusalem. After the conquest of Jerusalem in 1187, they retired to Acre; thence in 1291, to Cyprus; in 1310, to Rhodes; and in 1530, to Malta.

The Knights Templar were instituted' by seven gentlemen at Jerusalem in 1118. They wore a red cross, and became a powerful and wealthy order. For abuses, the order was suppressed by Pope Clement V. and the general council of Vienne in 1312.

The Teutonic Knights of St. Mary of Jerusalem were instituted by certain Germans at the siege of Acre, and were approved by Pope Celestine III., in 1192.

The Trinitarians, founded by Saint John of Matha, and Saint Felix of Valois, in 1198, to redeem christians from slavery under the Moors. The habit was white with a red blue cross, and were sometimes called red friars. In six centuries, from 1198 to 1787, nine hundred thousand christians captives were redeemed from slavery by this order, which at one time had 600 houses.'

(To be continued.)

6

THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS.

MERGING AND ASSOCIATION OF INDIVIDUAL SCHOOLS.*

THE University of Paris grew out of the schools which flourished capriciously under successive teachers, from 1100 to 1200, and which by degrees came to be associated in their work. These schools had no claim to be regarded as a corporate body; they were accidents rather than an institution, and it was only gradually that they acquired a corporate character, and became possessed of a government, a head, and a body of laws and privileges. This change was effected by no sudden act of royal or ecclesiastical legislation; it developed itself insensibly out of the very necessity of the case. The immense number of masters and pupils who flocked to the capital gave rise to disorders which obliged the superiors of the different schools to unite together and agree to certain rules of common discipline. Thus in 1195 we find a certain John, Abbot of St. Albans, associated to the 'body of elect masters.' Some years before, in the very thick of the quarrel between Henry II. and St. Thomas, occurs the first notice of that division of the scholars into nations or provinces, which formed one of the peculiarities of the university. Henry offered to choose as arbiters either the peers of France, the French clergy, or the heads of the different provinces in the school of Paris. We find also certain laws, or at least established customs having the force of laws, respecting the method to be observed in granting licenses for the opening of a school. It was the rule in all dioceses that no one could open a school without permission from the cathedral scholasticus, or chancellor of the diocese, who was bound to grant such licenses to all who were capable. Pope Alexander III., who showed a lively interest in every thing that concerned the encouragement of education, ordered that such licenses should be granted gratuitously, but he afterwards permitted the Chancellor of Paris, who was at that time Peter Comester, to exact a certain fine. It appears also that in Paris the chancellor or scholasticus of St. Geneviève shared this right with the chancellor of Notre Dame. There were also other laws, such as those which prohibited religious from teaching or studying in the schools of law or medicine. The two faculties, as they were called, of arts and theology, which formed the basis of the university, appear to have been already distinguished. Certain privileges too were already enjoyed by the students. They were beginning to claim the right of being tried only by the ecclesiastical tribunals, and this right was granted to them in 1194 by a decree of Celestine III. Alexander III. permitted clerics to retain their benefices whilst teaching or studying at Paris. Finally, in the year 1200, we

* Christian Schools and Scholars. Longhan: 1867. This article should be read in connection with Savigny's Development of the University of Paris in his History of Roman Law in the Middle Ages. See, ante, p. 309–321.

find the existence of the university as a corporate body governed by a head, acknowledged in the diploma of Philip Augustus, wherein having confirmed the exemption of the scholars from the secular courts, he decreed that the head of the studies should, in particular, be incapable of arrest or punishment from the secular judge, and obliged every provost of the city on his entrance into office to swear to the observance of this decree.

THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS.

The teachers and scholars who, together, under the successive grants of privileges from Philip Augustus in 1000, and other French monarchs from 1110, and from Pope Innocent III. in 1180, and his successors, constituted the ancient University of Paris, were to be found about the Mont St. Geneviève, occupying gradually with their accommodations for instruction and residence an entire suburb, which was first inclosed within the city walls by Philip Augustus. That monarch, passionately desirous to increase the splendor of his capital, and at the same time to afford larger space for the accommodation of the crowds of students, whose numbers are said to have exceeded those of the citizens themselves, added a large district, which in the year 1200 presented a fair expanse of fields and vineyards, interspersed with churches, houses, and farms, but in which you would vainly have sought for any of those magnificent and semi-monastic structures which we are accustomed to associate with the idea of a university. Colleges, in fact, had as yet no existence at Paris, and the university consisted of an assemblage, not of stately buildings, but of masters and scholars, gathered out of every European land.

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It is no easy matter to convey an idea of the enthusiasm with which the Paris schools were regarded at the beginning of the thirteenth century. No one, whatever might be his country, could pretend to any consideration who had not studied there in his youth; if you met a priest or doctor, whose skill in letters you desired to praise, it was enough to say, 'one would think he had passed his whole life in Paris.' It was, to use the expression of Gregory IX., the Cariath-sepher, or city of letters, which drew to itself the intellectual wealth of Christendom. Whatever a nation has that is most precious,' writes William of Brittany, the chaplain of Philip Augustus, in his poem of the Philipide, whatever a people has most famous, all the treasures of science and all the riches of the earth; lessons of wisdom, the glory of letters, nobility of thought, refinement of manners, all this is to be found in Paris.' Others declared, in yet more pompous language, that neither Egypt nor Athens could be compared to the modern capital, which was, they said, the very fountain-head of wisdom, the tree of life in the midst of the terrestrial paradise, the torch of the house of the Lord.' The exile who had once tasted of its delights, no longer regretted his banishment from his own land; and, in truth, the beauty of the city, its light elastic atmosphere, the grace and gaiety of its inhabitants, and the society of all that was most choice in wit and learning, rendered it no less fascinating a residence in the thirteenth century as the capital of learning, than it has since become as the metropolis of fashion.

To these attractions were added the advantages which the Parisian students enjoyed in virtue of their privileges. I have already spoken of the diploma granted by Philip Augustus, and its provisions were greatly enlarged by subsequent monarchs. Philip le Bel ordered that the goods of students should never be seized for debt, and they were also exempt from taxes. If a French