LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Few things are more characteristic of the old monastic ideal than the institution of oblates-children offered by their parents to be monks or nuns. The age of seven seems to have been generally considered the earliest at which this ceremony might take place: but the Canons Regular of Porto admitted children "three or four years after they had been weaned." In the Benedictine Rule (c. 59) such an oblation is characterized as absolutely binding on the child; to decide, with growing years and experience, against the monastic life, was to commit apostasy with all its temporal and spiritual penalties. So, at least, the majority of expositors interpret it, though St. Bernard evidently did not; and this doctrine of the irrevocability of a vow made on the child's behalf, being still the almost unquestioned doctrine in the twelfth century, was naturally introduced into Gratian's Decretum. But the following hundred years brought a reaction, and four Popes at last admitted the oblate's strict right to make his final and irrevocable choice in his fifteenth year. From this time forward the custom gradually decayed, especially as many monastic disciplinarians were keenly sensible to the moral evils which it often entailed; and it is maintained by some scholars that the Council of Trent intended to abolish it altogether. (See J. N. Seidl, Die Gottcverlobung von Kindern, Munich, 1872.) The following extract is from the Custumal of Lanfranc's and Anselm's abbey of Bec, as printed by Dom Martène (De Antiquis Monachorum Ritibus, Bassano, 1788, p. 230-lib. v, c. v, §iii).

CHILD MONKS

When any boy is offered for the holy Order, let his parents bring him to the altar after the Gospel at Mass; and, after the Cantor hath offered as usual, let the boy also make his offering. After which let the Sacristan take the offering, and let the parents, drawing near, wrap the boy's right hand in the altar-cloth. Then, having kissed it thus enveloped, let them give it into the hands of the priest, who shall receive the boy and make the sign of the cross over his head. If they wish to make him a monk on that same day, let the Abbot bless his crown, saying: Let us pray, beloved Brethren; then let him pour holy water on his head and, making the sign of the cross over it, crop his hair with the shears round his neck. While the boy is being shorn, let the Cantor begin the antiphon, Thou art He Who wilt restore, the Psalm Preserve me, O God (another antiphon is This is the generation and the Psalm The earth is the Lord's); then let him pray, Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, then let the Abbot bless his cowl, saying the prayer, Lord Jesu Christ, by Whom the garment. After this aspersion and benediction, let the boy be stripped of his clothes, and the Abbot say, as he strips him, May the Lord strip thee; then let him clothe him in the cowl and say, May the Lord clothe thee, and say over him as a prayer, Lord, be present at our supplications.... When the boy be come to the age of reason, let him make his profession after the same order as the other monks, except for the benediction of the cowl, which he hath already received as an Oblate.

Martène then subjoins, from the Custumal of St-Bénigne at Dijon, a series of rules for the education of these oblates, from which the following extracts are taken.

At Nocturns, and indeed at all the Hours, if the boys commit any fault in the psalmody or other singing, either by sleeping or such-like transgression, let there be no sort of delay, but let them be stripped forthwith of frock and cowl, and beaten in their shirt only. . .with pliant and smooth osier rods provided for that special purpose.

And because, so long as the Abbot is in his bed in the dormitory, none may make the sound whereby the Brethren are awakened to rise in the early morning ... therefore the Master of the Boys should rise very softly and just touch each of the children gently with a rod, that he may awake from sleep; then let them rise as quickly as possible, and, leaving the dormitory, wash and comb and say their prayers .. . .

Let the masters sleep between every two boys in the dormitory, and sit between every two at other times, and, if it be night, let all the candles be fixed without on the spikes which crown the lanterns, that they mad be plainly seen in all that they do. When they lie down in bed, let a master always be among them with his rod and (if it be night) with a candle, holding the rod in one hand and the light in the other. If any chance to linger after the rest, he is forthwith smartly touched; for children everywhere need custody with discipline and discipline with custody. And be it known than this is all their discipline, either to be beaten with rods, or that their hair should be stoutly plucked; never are they disciplined with kicks, or fists, or the open hand, or in any other way....

When they wash, let masters stand between each pair at the lavatory . . When they sit in cloister or chapter, let each have his own tree-trunk for a seat, and so far apart that none touch in any way even the skirt of the other's robe... let them wipe their hands as far as possible one from the other, that is, at opposite corners of the towel....

If any of them, weighed down with sleep, sing ill at Nocturns, then the master giveth into his hand a reasonably great book, to hold until he be well awake.... Nor doth one ever speak to the other except by his master's express leave, and in the hearing of all who are in the school.... When there is in the refectory a loving-cup of piment or other drink, then the refectorer-master, if he be of mature age and manners, may let the boys hold out cups and pour them out some drink.... One reporteth whatsoever he knoweth against the other; else, if he be found to have concealed aught of set purpose, both the concealer and the culprit are beaten.1...[At Matins] the principal master standeth before them with a rod, until all are in their seats, and their faces well covered. At their uprising likewise, if they rise too slowly, the rod is straightway over them. After Matins, when they are to sleep again, if it be not yet dawn, then the master standeth before them as they take off their clothes, with a rod in his right hand and a candle in his left, and they are quickly in their places.... In short, that I may make an end of this matter, meseemeth that any king's son could scarce be more carefully brought up in his palace than any boy in a well-ordered monastery.

1 Espionage and the rod were the two main pillars of monastic and scholastic discipline in the Middle Ages. The scholars of Pembroke College, Cambridge, held their scholarships on the express condition of acting as faithful talebearers (Rashdall, Universities, vol. II, p. 617); and a frequent complaint recorded by Odo Rigaldi against the monasteries which he visits is non clamat unus alterum- "they do not inform against each other."

(Coulton IV, p.98-101)