1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Maurists

by Edward Cuthbert Butler

MAURISTS, a congregation of French Benedictines called after St Maurus (d. 565), a disciple of St Benedict and the legendary introducer of the Benedictine rule and life into Gaul.^[1] At the end of the 16th century the Benedictine monasteries of France had fallen into a state of disorganization and relaxation. In the abbey of St Vaune near Verdun a reform was initiated by Dom Didier de la Cour, which spread to other houses in Lorraine, and in 1604 the reformed congregation of St Vaune was established, the most distinguished members of which were Ceillier and Calmet. A number of French houses joined the new congregation; but as Lorraine was still independent of the French crown, it was considered desirable to form on the same lines a separate congregation for France. Thus in 1621 was established the famous French congregation of St Maur. Most of the Benedictine monasteries of France, except those belonging to Cluny, gradually joined the new congregation, which eventually embraced nearly two hundred houses. The chief house was Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, the residence of the superior-general and centre of the literary activity of the congregation. The primary idea of the movement was not the undertaking of literary and historical work, but the return to a strict monastic régime and the faithful carrying out of Benedictine life; and throughout the most glorious period of Maurist history the literary work was not allowed to interfere with the due performance of the choral office and the other duties of the monastic life. Towards the end of the 18th century a tendency crept in, in some quarters, to relax the monastic observances in favour of study; but the constitutions of 1770 show that a strict monastic régime was maintained until the end. The course of Maurist history and work was checkered by the ecclesiastical controversies that distracted the French Church during the 17th and 18th centuries. Some of the members identified themselves with the Jansenist cause; but the bulk, including nearly all the greatest names, pursued a middle path, opposing the lax moral theology condemned in 1679 by Pope Innocent XI., and adhering to those strong views on grace and predestination associated with the Augustinian and Thomist schools of Catholic theology; and like all the theological faculties and schools on French soil, they were bound to teach the four Gallican articles. It seems that towards the end of the 18th century a rationalistic and free-thinking spirit invaded some of the houses. The congregation was suppressed and the monks scattered at the revolution, the last superior-general with forty of his monks dying on the scaffold in Paris. The present French congregation of Benedictines initiated by Dom Guéranger in 1833 is a new creation and has no continuity with the congregation of St Maur.

The great claim of the Maurists to the gratitude and admiration of posterity is their historical and critical school, which stands quite alone in history, and produced an extraordinary number of colossal works of erudition which still are of permanent value. The foundations of this school were laid by Dom Tarisse, the first superior-general, who in 1632 issued instructions to the superiors of the monasteries to train the young monks in the habits of research and of organized work. The pioneers in production were Ménard and d’Achery.

The following tables give, divided into groups, the most important Maurist works, along with such information as may be useful to students. All works are folio when not otherwise noted:—

I.—The Editions of the Fathers
Epistle of Barnabas  (editio princeps)	Ménard	1645	1	in 4to
Lanfranc	d’Achery	1648	1
Guibert of Nogent	d’Achery	1651	1
Robert Pulleyn and Peter    of Poitiers	Mathou	1655	1
Bernard	Mabillon	1667	2
Anselm	Gerberon	1675	1
Cassiodorus	Garet	1679	1
Augustine (see Kukula,  Die Mauriner-Ausgabe  des Augustinus, 1898)	Delfau, Blampin,  Coustant, Guesnie	1681–1700	11
Ambrose	du Frische	1686–1690	2
Acta martyrum sincera	Ruinart	1689	1
Hilary	Coustant	1693	1
Jerome	Martianay	1693–1706	5
Athanasius	Loppin and Montfaucon	1698	3
Gregory of Tours	Ruinart	1699	1
Gregory the Great	Sainte-Marthe	1705	4
Hildebert of Tours	Beaugendre	1708	1
Irenaeus	Massuet	1710	1
Chrysostom	Montfaucon	1718–1738	13
Cyril of Jerusalem	Touttée and Maran	1720	1
Epistolae romanorum  pontificum[2]	Coustant	1721	1
Basil	Garnier and Maran	1721–1730	3
Cyprian	(Baluze, not a Maurist)  finished by Maran	1726	1
Origen	Ch. de la Rue (1, 2, 3)  V. de la Rue (4)	1733–1759	4
Justin and the Apologists	Maran	1742	1
Gregory Nazianzen[3]	Maran and Clémencet	1778	1
II.—Biblical Works
St Jerome’s Latin Bible	Martianay	1693	1
Origen’s Hexapla	Montfaucon	1713	2
Old Latin versions	Sabbathier	1743–1749	3
III.—Great Collections of Documents
Spicilegium	d’Achery	1655–1677	13	in 4to
Veterae analecta	Mabillon	1675–1685	4	in 8vo
Musaeum italicum	Mabillon	1687–1689	2	in 4to
Collectio nova patrum  graecorum	Montfaucon	1706	2
Thesaurus novus  anecdotorum	Martène and Durand	1717	5
Veterum scriptorum  collectio	Martène and Durand	1724–1733	9
De antiquis	Martène	1690–1706
ecclesiaeritibus	(Final form)	1736–1738	4
IV.—Monastic History
Acta of the Benedictine  Saints	d’Achery, Mabillon  and Ruinart	1668–1701	9
Benedictine Annals  (to 1157)	Mabillon (1-4), Massuet (5),  Martène (6)	1703–1739	6
V.—Ecclesiastical History and Antiquities of France
A.—General.
Gallia Christiana[4]	Sainte-Marthe (1, 2, 3)	1715–1785	13
Monuments de la  monarchie française	Montfaucon	1729–1733	5
Histoire littéraire  de la France[5]	Rivet, Clémencet,  Clément	1733–1763	12	in 4to
Recueil des historiens  de la France[6]	Bouquet (1-8), Brial (12–19)	1738–1833	19
Concilia Galliae[7]	Labbat	1789	1
B.—Histories of the Provinces.
Bretagne	Lobineau	1707	2
Paris	Félibien and Lobineau	1725	5
Languedoc	Vaissette and de Vic	1730–1745	5
Bourgogne	Plancher (1-3), Merle (4)	1739–1748, 1781	4
Bretagne	Morice	1742–1756	5
VI.—Miscellaneous Works of Technical Erudition
De re diplomatica	Mabillon	1681	1
Ditto Supplement	Mabillon	1704	1
Nouveau traité de  diplomatique	Toustain and Tassin	1750–1765	6	in 4to
Paleographia graeca	Montfaucon	1708	1
Bibliotheca coisliniana	Montfaucon	1715	1
Bibliotheca bibliothecarum  manuscriptorum nova	Montfaucon	1739	2
L’Antiquité expliqué	Montfaucon	1719–1724	15
New ed. of Du Cange’s  glossarium	Dantine and Carpentier	1733–1736	6
Ditto Supplement	Carpentier	1766	4
Apparatus ad bibliothecam    maximam patrum	le Nourry	1703	2
L’Art de verifier les dates	Dantine, Durand, Clémencet	1750	1	in 4to
Ed. 2	Clément	1770	1
Ed. 3	Clément	1783–1787	3

The 58 works in the above list comprise 199 great folio volumes and 39 in 4^to or 8^vo. The full Maurist bibliography contains the names of some 220 writers and more than 700 works. The lesser works in large measure cover the same fields as those in the list, but the number of works of purely religious character, of piety, devotion and edification, is very striking. Perhaps the most wonderful phenomenon of Maurist work is that what was produced was only a portion of what was contemplated and prepared for. The French Revolution cut short many gigantic undertakings, the collected materials for which fill hundreds of manuscript volumes in the Bibliothèque nationale of Paris and other libraries of France. There are at Paris 31 volumes of Berthereau’s materials for the Historians of the Crusades, not only in Latin and Greek, but in the oriental tongues; from them have been taken in great measure the Recueil des historiens des croisades, whereof 15 folio volumes have been published by the Académie des Inscriptions. There exist also the preparations for an edition of Rufinus and one of Eusebius, and for the continuation of the Papal Letters and of the Concilia Galliae. Dom Caffiaux and Dom Villevielle left 236 volumes of materials for a Trésor généalogique. There are Benedictine Antiquities (37 vols.), a Monasticon Gallicanum and a Monasticon Benedictinum (54 vols.). Of the Histories of the Provinces of France barely half a dozen were printed, but all were in hand, and the collections for the others fill 800 volumes of MSS. The materials for a geography of Gaul and France in 50 volumes perished in a fire during the Revolution.

When these figures were considered, and when one contemplates the vastness of the works in progress during any decade of the century 1680–1780; and still more, when not only the quantity but the quality of the work, and the abiding value of most of it is realized, it will be recognized that the output was prodigious and unique in the history of letters, as coming from a single society. The qualities that have made Maurist work proverbial for sound learning are its fine critical tact and its thoroughness.

The chief source of information on the Maurists and their work is Dom Tassin’s Histoire littéraire de la congregation de Saint-Maur (1770); it has been reduced to a bare bibliography and completed by de Lama, Bibliothèque des écrivains de la congr. de S.-M. (1882). The two works of de Broglie, Mabillon (2 vols., 1888) and Montfaucon (2 vols., 1891), give a charming picture of the inner life of the great Maurists of the earlier generation in the midst of their work and their friends. Sketches of the lives of a few of the chief Maurists will be found in McCarthy’s Principal Writers of the Congr. of S. M. (1868). Useful information about their literary undertakings will be found in De Lisle’s Cabinet des MSS. de la Bibl. Nat. Fonds St Germain-des-Prés. General information will be found in the standard authorities: Helyot, Hist. des ordres religieux (1718), vi. c. 37; Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen (1907) i. § 36; Wetzer und Welte, Kirchenlexicon (ed. 2) and Herzog-Hauck’s Realencyklopädie (ed. 3), the latter an interesting appreciation by the Protestant historian Otto Zöckler of the spirit and the merits of the work of the Maurists.  (E. C. B.) 

1. His festival is kept on the 15th of January. He founded the monastery of Glanfeuil or St Maur-sur-Loire.
2. 14 vols. of materials collected for the continuation are at Paris.
3. The printing of vol. ii. was impeded by the Revolution.
4. Three other vols. were published 1856–1865.
5. Sixteen other vols. were published 1814–1881.
6. Four other vols. were published 1840–1876.
7. The printing of vol. ii. was interrupted by the Revolution; there were to have been 8 vols.