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colours, or the sound of patient pens and brushes, were the only sounds while work went on that imperatively demanded fixed and silent attention. The almonry was the place where, on appointed days, the poor gathered in to receive the tenth of all the monastic proceeds. The misericord was the hall of extraordinary recreation, and the sick brethren were provided with an infirmary. The monasteries held in their hands the education of the age, and attached to the establishment was the seminary, where young people were instructed in grammar, Christian doctrine, etc., and the song-school, where the children of the choir were trained in church-music, already a complicated science. But the monks promoted the important work of education abroad as well as at home, and the schools in the towns were under their superintendence. The cloisters were covered walks where the religious walked up and down to read or meditate, and here their brethren or sisters who had gone before were buried. The cloisters encircled the garden, or, as the religious called it, 'the paradise,' and here they spent, among their flowers, their hour of recreation. The Scottish monks were very good gardeners, and they doubtless discovered that the rose, that favourite monastic flower, could be cultivated successfully in this country. The great religious houses had not only priories and other communities subjected to them, but they kept cells or small offshoots at a distance, and attached to the abbeys were granges or farms. 'The grange, . . .' says one of our historians, ' must have been a spacious farm-steading. In it were gathered the cattle, implements, and stores needed for the cultivation of their demesne lands or mains, their corn and produce, the serfs or carls who cultivated it, and their women and families." Round the great abbeys, as round the baronial

Scotland in the Middle Ages, Cosmo Innes, c. iv. p. 138.

castles, the dense forests were cleared away and replaced by thriving villages, fields of oats, wheat, barley, pease, and beans. There was however a notable difference between the farms of the baron and of the abbot, for while the tenants of the former were bound to follow their lord, as he his sovereign, on the outbreak of war, leaving the soil and the flocks to take care of themselves, the tenants of the latter, being exempt from the strict routine of military service, were at leisure to sow their crops and to reap them from season to season. Hence the well-cultivated fields and orchards, and the beautiful woods that distinguished the abbots' estates. The grange had its mill and its malt-kiln, where oats, the standard grain, was ground into flour for the bread of the country, or was brewed into malt for beer, the national beverage.

The primary duties of religious were undoubtedly the oblation of themselves, 'their souls and bodies,' the perpetual celebration of the divine praises, the work of intercession, and ministration to the wants of 'diseased humanity;' but within the vast system of the religious life there was a place for the sanctification of every art which benefits mankind, and for the consecration of every gift of head and hand to the service of Him who gave it. The MS. that was carefully written, and the field that was well tilled for the glory of God, was in some sort a 'work of mercy.' Thus under the healthy rule of St. Benedict 'every monk was compelled to learn some trade, and many of them became the ablest artists, writers, architects, goldsmiths, blacksmiths, sculptors, and agriculturists in the kingdom.'1 St. Dunstan, who lived in the tenth century, was an accomplished English monk. It is said that he' composed music, he played

1 Sculptured Stones of Scotland, vol. ii., Pref. p. 16; cited in Pref. to The Book of Deer, p. xxiii.

upon the harp, organ, and cymbals; he wrought metals; worked in wax, wood, ivory, silver, and gold; he excelled in design in painting; he was also deeply versed in historical ballads.' The erection of one of our great abbeys,' says Innes, 'was often a work of centuries, and during all that time its members were in the midst of the work of the most exquisite artists in every department, and assisted with their own hands. That could not fail to raise the taste and cultivate the minds of the inmates of the cloister. . . . The fine arts— the high imaginative and intellectual arts of architecture, painting, and sculpture-were not yet separated from the other ornamental handworks. They were carried on together, and all tended to elevate and refine those who lived among them.'1 We have only to look up to the ruined remains of St. Andrews or Melrose to feel how true this is.

...

When war and ignorance carried on their dismal reign, within the monastic walls the praises of the Most High were continually sung, and an erring world was prayed for. There was a shelter both for the devoted and the persecuted; there the slave was received and treated as a human being and a Christian, and the sick in soul and in body could find physicians. There the hungry were fed, the naked clothed, the strangers taken in, the penitent found an asylum, and the ignorant were instructed. The art and the literature of the age were produced and preserved in the monastic library, mechanics were improved in the workshop, agriculture flourished on the abbey farm, and architecture won many triumphs in abbeys and churches 'exceeding magni

fical.'

1 Scotland in the Middle Ages, c. iv. pp. 136, 137.

CHAPTER XII.

ST. DAVID.

'O what a glory doth this world put on
For him who with a fervent heart goes forth
Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks
On duties well performed, and days well spent!
For him the wind, ay, and the yellow leaves,
Shall have a voice and give him eloquent teachings,
He shall so hear the solemn hymn that Death
Has lifted up for all, that he shall go
To his long resting-place without a tear.'

LONGFELLOW.

AN important part of the ecclesiastical reform of St. David was the complete organization of the diocesan system. To the four dioceses of St. Andrews, Glasgow, Dunkeld, and Murray, which existed at the time of his accession, six others were added. The diocese of Aberdeen, whose foundation had been originally laid by Malcolm III. at Mortlach, extended from the Dee to the east end of Murray; the diocese of Ross included the county of Ross; Caithness, the district then called by that name, now divided into Caithness and Sutherland; the diocese of Galloway, which arose from the ancient see of Candida Casa, for the third time erected, comprehended the county of Wigton and part of Kirkcudbrightshire; and the dioceses

1 The second erection appears to have taken place early in the 8th century.

of Brechin and Dunblane were formed from St. Andrews and Dunkeld. The larger dioceses were divided into rural deaneries, and those of St. Andrews and Glasgow had also each two archdeaconries. In the execution of the judicial powers of the bishop, of the care of the churches in the country, the archdeacons were the representatives of the bishops. The 'machinery of the parish and the diocese' was now in regular working order, and the division of parishes effected in the reigns of Margaret and her sons has in many cases continued the same to this day. Tithes were regularly paid to the clergy. The practice was for the landed proprietor to convert his whole estate, or, if large, a part of it, into a parish, build a church, endow it with a tenth of the produce of the soil, and nominate a priest to do the duty, under the sanction of the bishop of the diocese.' 'The tithe was then what it professed to be . . . the actual tenth of the produce of everything that was productive; or, as we find it expressed in the canons of the church in the thirteenth century, corn, hay, flax, garden-herbs, mills, fish, animals and their young, wool, milk, cheese, chickens, eggs, merchandise, wages of labour, hunting, coppice-wood, and the fruit of the trees.' 2 The Sarum Missal became the authorized Use of the Scottish Church, and all national or local eccentricities which had arisen from the necessities of the primitive period, or had been acquired through intercourse with barbarians, gave place to the approved ritual of Catholic Christendom. Robert, who in 1128 had been consecrated to the see of St. Andrews, spent his active primatial episcopate of thirty-five years in furthering the king's pious

1 Lyon's Hist. of St. Andrews, vol. i p. 44.

2 Dalrymple's Annals, vol. iii. Canons 34, 35, etc. Most of the money payments were payable, as is still the case in Scotland, one half at Pentecost or Whitsunday, and the other half at the feast of St. Martin. Lyon, Appendix vi.

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