(1901), 251.
Section IV
The whole truth about the later days of the monasteries
will never be known. Many of the original sources of our
knowledge are tainted with partisanship and religious
rancour and flagrant dishonesty. What does seem to be
true is that in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries monastic
influence grew slowly weaker, although the system may not
have been degenerate in itself. The cause is to be found
in the very prosperity of monachism, which brought to the
religious houses wealth and all its responsibilities. Wealth
always imposes fetters, as every rich man, from Seneca
downwards, has declared with unctuous lamentation. But
what first strikes the student who compares early English
monachism with the later is, that whereas the monks of the
first period were most concerned with their monastic duties,
their religious observances, and their scribing and illuminating,
the monks of the later period, and especially during
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were immersed in
business, in the management of their wealth, the control
of large estates. The possession of wealth led in one
direction to excessive display, and to purchasing land and
building beyond their means; a course which monks might
easily persuade themselves was progressive and exemplary
of true religious fervour, but which attracted to them
envious eyes.
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