oblong, destitute of aisles, 123 feet long by only 26 feet wide. The cloisters are to the south, with the chapter-house, &c., to the east, with the dormitory over. The prior's lodge is placed to the west of the cloister. The guest-houses adjoin the entrance gateway, to which a chapel was annexed on the south side of the conventual area. The nave of the church of the Austin Friars or Eremites in London is still standing. It is of Decorated date, and has wide centre and side aisles, divided by a very light and graceful arcade. Some fragments of the south walk of the cloister of the Grey Friars exist among the buildings of Christ's Hospital or the Blue-Coat School. Of the Black Friars all has perished but the name. Taken as a whole, the remains of the establishments of the friars afford little warrant for the bitter invective of the Benedictine of St Alban's, Matthew Paris:—"The friars who have been founded hardly 40 years have built residences as the palaces of kings. These are they who, enlarging day by day their sumptuous edifices, encircling them with lofty walls, lay up in them their incalculable treasures, imprudently transgressing the bounds of poverty, and violating the very fundamental rules of their profession." Allowance must here be made for jealousy of a rival order just rising in popularity.
Every large monastery had depending upon it one or more smaller establishments known as cells. These cells were monastic colonies, sent forth by the parent house, and planted on some outlying estate. As an example, we may refer to the small religious house of St Mary Magdalene's, a cell of the great Benedictine house of St Mary's, York, in the valley of the Witham, to the south-east of the city of Lincoln. This consists of one long narrow range of building, of which the eastern part formed the chapel, and the western contained the apartments of the handful of monks of which it was the home. To the east may be traced the site of the abbey mill, with its dam and mil-lead. These cells, when belonging to a Cluniac house, were called Obedientiæ.
The plan given by Viollet le Due of the Priory of St Jean des Bons Hommes, a Cluniae cell, situated between the town of Avallon and the village of Savigny, shows that these diminutive establishments comprised every essential feature of a monastery,—chapel, cloister, chapter-room, refectory, dormitory, all grouped according to the recognised arrangement.
These Cluniac obedientiæ differed from the ordinary Benedictine cells in being also places of punishment, to which monks who had been guilty of any grave infringement of the rules were relegated as to a kind of penitentiary. Here they were placed under the authority of a prior, and were condemned to severe manual labour, fulfilling the duties usually executed by the lay brothers, who acted as farm-servants.
The outlying farming establishments belonging to the monastic foundations were known as villæ or granges. They gave employment to a body of conversi and labourers under the management of a monk, who bore the title of Brother Hospitaller—the granges, like their parent institutions, affording shelter and hospitality to belated travellers.
Authorities:—Dugdale, Monasticon; Fosbrooke, British Monachism; Helyot, Dictionnaire des Ordres Religieux; Lenoir, Architecture Monastique; Viollet le Due, Dictionnaire Raisonnée de l'Architecture Francaıse; Walcott, Conventual Arrangement; Willis, Abbey of St Gall; Archæological Journal, vol. v., Conventual Buildings of Canterbury; Curzon, Monasteries of the Levant. (E. V.)
Abbiate Grasso, a town in the north of Italy, near the Ticino, 14 miles W.S.W. of Milan. It has silk manufactures, and contains about 5000 inhabitants.
Abbon of Fleury, or Abbo Floriacensis, a learned Frenchman, born near Orleans in 945. He distinguished himself in the schools of Paris and Rheims, and was a proficient in science, as known in his time. After spending two years in England, assisting Archbishop Oswald of York in restoring the monastic system, he returned to France, and was made Abbot of Fleury (970). He was twice sent to Rome by Robert the Wise (986, 996), and on each occasion succeeded in warding off a threatened papal interdict. He was killed in 1004, in endeavouring to quell a monkish revolt. He wrote an epitome of the Lives of the Roman Pontiffs, besides controversial treatises, letters, &c.
Abbot, the head and chief governor of a community of monks, called also in the East Archimandrita, from mandra, "a fold," or Hegumenos. The name abbot is derived from the Hebrew (
Hebrew characters), Ab, or father, through the Syriac Abba. It had its origin in the monasteries of Syria, whence it spread through the East, and soon became accepted generally in all languages as the designation of the head of a monastery. At first it was employed as a respectful title for any monk, as we learn from St Jerome (in Epist. ad Gal. iv. 6, in Matt, xxiii. 9), but it was soon restricted to the Superior.
The name abbot, though general in the West, was not universal. Among the Dominicians, Carmelites, Angustines, &c., the superior was called Prœpositus, "Provost," and Prior; among the Franciscans, Custos, "Guardian;" and by the monks of Camaldoli, Major.
Monks, as a rule, were laymen, nor at the outset was the abbot any exception. All orders of clergy, therefore, even the "doorkeeper," took precedence of him. For the reception of the sacraments, and for other religious offices, the abbot and his monks were commanded to attend the nearest church.—(Novellœ, 133, c. ii.) This rule naturally proved inconvenient when a monastery was situated in a desert, or at a distance from a city, and necessity compelled the ordination of abbots. This innovation was not introduced without a struggle, ecclesiastical dignity being regarded as inconsistent with the higher spiritual life, but, before the close of the 5th century, at least in the East, abbots seem almost universally to have become deacons, if not presbyters. The change spread more slowly in the West, where the office of abbot was commonly filled by laymen till the end of the 7th century, and partially so up to the llth. Ecclesiastical Councils were, however, attended by abbots. Thus, at that held at Constantinople, A.D. 448, for the condemnation of Eutyches, 23 archimandrites or abbots sign, with 30 bishops, and, cir. A.D. 690, Archbishop Theodore promulgated a canon, inhibiting bishops from compelling abbots to attend councils. Examples are not uncommon in Spain and in England in Saxon times. Abbots were permitted by the Second Council of Nicæa, A.D. 787, to ordain their monks to the inferior orders. This rule was adopted in the West, and the strong prejudice against clerical monks having gradually broken down, eventually monks, almost without exception, belonged to some grade of the ministry.
Originally no abbot was permitted to rule over more than one monastic community, though, in some exceptional cases, Gregory the Great allowed the rule to be broken. As time went on, violations of the rule became increasingly frequent, as is proved by repeated enactments against it. The cases of Wilfrid of York, cir. A.D. 675, who held the abbacy of the monasteries he had founded at Hexham and Ripon, and of Aldhelm, who, at the same date, stood in the same double relation to those of Malmesbury, Frome, and Bradford, are only apparent transgressions of the rule. We find more decided instances of plurality in Hugh of the royal Carlovingian house, cir. 720, who was at the same
