WHAT THE MONKS DID FOR BELGIUM

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIV, Issue 1, 4 January 1917, Page 13

WHAT THE MONKS DID FOR BELGIUM

When the German invasion closed the University of Louvain (says the New World), the professors of this historic institution were driven to many quarters of the globe. They found shelter and occupation in various universities of other countries, particularly in the United States. One of these scholars, Leon Van Der Essen, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of History at the University of Louvain and member of the Royal. Academy of Archaeology of Belgium, came to Chicago and for a while conducted a series of lectures at the Chicago University. While here he noticed how few were the histories of his country published in the English tongue. So he set himself to the task of preparing such a history. The volume has now been published. Professor Van Der Essen treats of the whole of - Belgium's history, starting with the Roman invasion up to, though not including the present struggle. A , remarkable characteristic of the work is the cool, dispassionate even sympathetic manner in which the author ' treats all persons and people whose hands helped mould Belgium's past, whether to her joy or sorrow. Particularly notable is the manner in which he speaks of -<." the work of the monks and monasteries and the in- ) fluence they had upon the land. Belgium owes its civilisation entirely to the efforts of the monks, the Benedictines. This the author asserts boldly in the following paragraphs:— ' • • .' ~, .. Civilised by Monks. : If the conversion to the Catholic faith was mainly the task of the missionaries, the introduction of civilisa-

tion was mainly the task of the monasteries. Here the .Benedictine monks played a very " large part, both as civilisers and colonisers.; Their monasteries were, from the ; sixth century oh; - centres of economic and intellectual life. - '; ( Whilst * some of ■" their monks ); attacked I the thick forests of southern ; and central < Belgium with axes, others engaged in literary labors in the monasteries' libraries, transcribing the ancient ..' Greek and Latin manuscripts, ;composing hymns and lives of saints, and opening schools for the education of the people. They planted in the very hearts of the people the roots of that strong religious spirit, which has steadily developed and which has become one of the characteristics of the national spirit of Belgium. • Each monastery became a kind of model farm, where the population of the neighborhood could learn the best agricultural methods. In the monastery, too, they could find physicians who knew how to take care of the sick. The monastery, being protected by the respect that was inspired by the saint to whom it was dedicated, was also a place of safety in time of danger. Consequently, dwellings became more and more numerous around the ' monasteries, and villages developed under their influence and protection. ' , -' : ' It is not, then, surprising that in the course of time, tales and legends developed wherein the founders of those monasteries became the heroes of poetical and sometimes extraordinary adventures. In this manner, did the people of medieval times express their gratitude for all they owed to those early pioneers of culture and civilisation.' , / In Feudal Times. Feudal times have a harsh ring in our ears. Still even those times found in the monasteries a redeeming institution. The monks were active in preaching the Church's message of peace in a time when war and murder were the popular pastime. Their preaching was not without effect. To this the professor testifies in the following passages: •.'-. Belgium became a country of monasteries in the eleventh century, and ever since that time the people have shown that deep religious spirit that is one of the distinctive traits of the national character." ' The monks exerted a very strong influence on the minds of the rough feudalists, who thought mainly of war and robbery; one of the most powerful dukes of Lotharinga, Godefrid the Bearded, desired to be buried in the dress of a monk. The robber-knights, pursuing an enemy or a convoy of merchants,' thought only of plunder ; once in sight of the walls of a monastery, however, they would cease their pursuit and turn back. Carrying through the country the relics of their saints, the monks would often succeed in stopping private wars and murder. An example of the, religious spirit is the great "procession" of Tournai, that attracted every year thousands of pilgrims and visitors, Flemish and Walloon together, and that acted as a unifying factor, to both races of Belgium.' Cistercian Monks. If Belgium was in the days before the present war a fertile and prosperous country, then that is owing in a great measure to the monks of the middle ages who cleared the lands of the forests and for the first time turned up their rich soil with the ploughshare. ' Hitherto only one monastic Order had influenced religious life in —namely, the Benedictines. In the twelfth century other Orders were —the Cistercians and the Norbertines or Premontres. The Cistercians, founded by St. Bernard in France, played the part, mainly, of clearers of wild land and colonisers; they introduced new economic and agricultural methods and exerted a deep influence in economic life. The Premontres were canons, rather than monks who passed their time in study and in administering the parishes. But they, too, did much for the colonisation of the country, and they, transformed into fruitbearing lands the barren soil of the Antwerp Campine. The number of parishes increased in the course of the tenth and eleventh centuries. New chapels were founded in cases where the nearest parish church was too far removed, or where a number of people sufficient for the formation,

&; of ,a - new parish were 'to' bo * found ' dwelling/ close 3 together.' •»-| ■■;■■• ' Ecclesiastical Lords. \ „ £";■ We have come to believe that the lot of the serfs ' <of the middle ages was a life of servitude and misery. ■This may have been the case of those who!owed; submission to the lay landlords, but those who were employed on the estates of the Church and on the properties of ■ the monasteries were not so badly off. Speaking iof them the author says: ' The domain of the ecclesiastical landlords, bishops and abbots, was exceedingly well administered and the ; conditions of life of the people depending upon these landlords were very favorable ; the ecclesiastical 'serfs' frequently asserted that they preferred their servitude to freedom, as less burdensome than freedom itself. | The ' ecclesiastical serfs' were grouped in families, within whose limits justice was administered by the Mayor of the community in the name of the abbot. The lay landlords, on the other hand, were bad administrators, dealing only with politics and wars, and ignoring the agricultural problems.'