what respect, they should be unlike other men, in order to be consistent with the claims of their office, we are not told.

The earliest exemplars of the episcopal office-claimants as they were of an authority from heaven above,' took care certainly to be as like other men as possible. S. G. O.' seems never to have heard of one in particular who, finding some of the same craft, abode with them and wrought, for by their occupation they were tent makers.' We might probably follow him for a long time before we got to the bottom of his 'ignorance.' He does not in particular seem to be aware that dignity is never impaired by the discharge of duty or by any of its consequences. It is only the clergymen who, like S. G. O.,' in this letter set up dignity first and foremost, as the one thing before all others to be cared for, whose dignity is in serious danger. Again,

If rural deans and archdeacons, whose every habit, opinion, and peculiarity we know. . are to be made bishops, still, as such, to work where they are known, I am satisfied the episcopal office will be sadly lowered. No ells of lawn... could make John Shovel of Upton Popes, parish clerk.. believe the consecration of a new bit of burial ground, or the confirmation of our lads and lasses, was what it used to be, if Septimus Decan, the rector of Sixpenceton, their neighbour, late rural dean, now came as bishop for the performance.'

Of course, vulgar prejudices have to be taken into account in regard to public offices, and the proverbial saying that no 6 man is a prophet in his own country,' shows the extent to which they are currently recognized. He, however, of whom the saying is first recorded, did not omit on that account to visit his own countrymen. It will be a matter of prudence to strike a balance between the disadvantage thus accruing, and the advantage derived from local knowledge and official experience on the spot. There is no occasion to trumpet this, which is partly a truism and partly an untruth, as though it were a point to be fenced with overwhelming precaution. The mind of S. G. O.' has apparently a firm faith in things visible and material. He believes warmly in snug rectory dinners, with dessert following. But he cannot get much beyond this. We have shown reasons for thinking that he has an imperfect faith even in an Act of Parliament. There is too little in it that is material and ponderable, especially if it be three centuries old, for his faith to fasten upon and assimilate. His letters are consequently appeals to whatever is most fleshly in the spiritual antipathies of the general public. He sees that the deference of ages for the Church has hitherto surrounded the highest class of her officers with an amount of worldly apparatus, which makes a place in that class a prize in the secular eye, and on that worldly apparatus he by instinct fastens as the one thing to be

cherished. He is unable to conceive of lofty spiritual functions -authority derived from heaven above-as consistent with a moderate scale of expenditure and retinue. He thinks the dignity depends, not on the former, but on the latter. He sees Colonial bishops less in demand at home, out of their own dioceses, than they probably are in them, and it never occurs to him to consider that what they are in their own dioceses is the real test alike of their usefulness and of their dignity. He sees them obliged to importune home audiences for funds to aid their diocesan resources, and he accordingly speaks of them as on the tramp,' and as 'acting their own deputations,' and says with amusing frankness, a man must be morally blind not to see that they are treated as mere ecclesioplate, not the real mitre-marked metal.' In other words,

'The rank's the gold, for a' that.'

'S. G. O.' upholds snug quarters and easy circumstances as being what conciliates deference and carries mankind hat-inhand. Poor creatures who have to beg are not in his way: Dives, not Lazarus, is obviously his model Churchman. Matthew before, not after, he relinquished the receipt of custom, must, we fancy, be his type of an Evangelist. Keep the bishops few and therefore inefficient, and then, he seems to think, the awe which is traditionally felt for their office, or the 'emblematical staff,' or the 'mitre-marked metal,' will work usefully still. They will be truly the angels' of the Churches, when their visits are angelically 'few and far between.' Then they may expect due homage. Make them numerous enough to be efficient, and familiarity will breed contempt! Such are the maxims in which we are invited to confide against the bugbears and bogies which are darkly hinted at in the earlier paragraphs of this remarkable letter. To sum the matter up, then, even on the view and showing of S. G. O.' it is for churchmen, nay for all the members of the British public, to consider this grave question of the dignity of the higher clergy, and whether they would prefer efficiency at the alleged risk of the office of bishop losing in dignity. On the question whether dignity is most likely to accompany an inefficient or an efficient episcopate, we will not insult the reader's understanding by offering any remarks.

382

ART. VI-Annales Prioratus de Dunstaplid (Annales Monastici, vol. III). ED. H. R. LUARD, M.A. Longinans. 1866.

To those who desire to penetrate beneath the surface of history, and who are not satisfied with the vague and general views of mediæval times usually presented to us by the writers on these periods, the publication of the large number of Monastic Annals which have lately made their appearance must be welcomed with gratitude and pleasure. Bald and rough in their composition as most of them are, they nevertheless supply us with materials genuine and distinctive, if not always accurate, and furnish many special helps towards the understanding of those times still shrouded in so much darkness. The three volumes of Annales Monastici,' edited by Mr. Luard, contain many valuable chronicles, of which none perhaps is more to be prized than the Annals of Dunstable Priory. We regard these as having a special and peculiar use, not in furnishing any details of the inner life of a religious house, on which they are entirely silent, but as illustrating with great fulness its outer life, and its relations with its neighbours, both ecclesiastical and lay. It must have occurred to most of our readers as a curious problem, how it was that all of the vast number of religious foundations in England, were able to establish, strengthen, and develop themselves, growing year by year in resources and power, until the very fact of their advancement invited and perhaps necessitated the inteference of the State. What again, it must often have been inquired, was the relation in which these societies stood to their neighbours? Were they popular, respected, and beloved, the helpers of the weak and suffering, the champions of justice, the asylum of the oppressed? Were their members content to lead a simple and mortified life ?-satisfied with the pittance assigned them by their founders, elaborating new forms of asceticism, and new aids to devotion? Or, on the contrary, were they covetous and aggressive upon their neighbours' goods, skilful contrivers of schemes of aggrandizement and profit, living in a constant turmoil of suits and quarrels, and by no means in high regard with the laymen and parish-priests around them? We believe the latter view to be nearer the truth than the former; and certainly the 'Annals of Dunstable' form a remarkable confirmation of it. The details supplied by them of the transactions in which the Priory was engaged, strikingly illustrate the relations of religious houses and their neighbours.

We shall endeavour to put the reader in possession of some of these, but, before we do so, we must say a word of the order to which the Dunstable Priory belonged, and of which these annals are, to some extent, the history in England. The Dunstable house was of the order of Canons Regular of S. Augustine, or, as they were sometimes called, Black Canons. The institution of Canons Regular is among the most unmeaning and senseless of all the medieval innovations. The original Benedictines, giving the asylum of peaceful and religious homes in dark and troubled times, affording facilities for study and for the celebration of gorgeous services, were at least in their earlier days, of great and signal value to the progress of society and the preservation of learning. The ascetic orders, as the Cistercians and the Carthusians, were due to that principle of religion, which was so highly prized in the times of defective religious knowledge and imperfect apprehension of the duties of humanity. The Friars sprang from the obligations of Christian charity, and, in their theory at least, are worthy of all honour. But what intelligible principle was represented by the institution of Canons Regular? They were neither monks nor seculars. They were not designed to benefit society at large as the Friars were, nor to exhibit grand pictures of ascetic devotion as the Carthusians. They aimed at occupying a ground of their own, and how did they strive to compass this? By using a somewhat laxer rule than the monk, by allowing the growth of the beard, and wearing caps on their heads. These scarcely seem sufficient grounds for setting themselves up as rivals to the monks, and increasing divisions and quarrels by the propagation of a new order. It should be observed that there is a broad and marked distinction between Secular Canons living the cœnobitic life, and Canons Regular. The first had a meaning and a purpose. It was about the year 760, when Chrodegand, Bishop of Metz, struck by the disorder which prevailed among the secular clergy, and the difficulty of governing several priests living isolated, and each according to his own fashion, undertook to subject those of his episcopal church to a uniform rule, to cause them to dwell and to mess in common. Hence arose the institution of Canons, of which the disorder of the times was the occasion, the monastic order the model. The institution must have answered the requirements of its day, for it was propagated with rapidity. Many bishops imitated Chrodegand. The organization of the episcopal churches in chapters became general. At length, in 826, Louis the Gentle, at a council held at Aix-la-Chapelle, caused the rule of the Canons to be published in 145 chapters, reproducing and enlarging that of Chrodegand, and sent it to all the metropolitans of his

kingdom, that it might be universally applied. This was the institution of Canons Secular-a society of priests, having a bond which united them together, and certain statutes to observe, but who were nevertheless conversant in the world, supported by distinct prebends, and able also to possess private property. Such an organization had a manifest use in giving order and strength in the troublous times when it arose. These clergymen were bound by no vows, save that of the priesthood; they were very commonly married men, they had a common character, but they had also separate interests, not isolated from the world but taking a useful part in it, and helped to do so by the organization which gave them power and influence. It is evident that the whole history of the Papacy must have been falsely written, if such an institution as this had satisfied the popes when they arrived at their full-blown power and ambition. Accordingly Secular Canons were doomed to be reformed' and to be converted into Regular. Innocent II. in the Lateran Council, A.D. 1139, ordained that all societies of canons should adopt a rule drawn from the 109th Epistle of S. Augustine, should take irrevocable vows, should be settled and live altogether in monasteries, and assume entirely the status of monks (excepting always the beard and the cap). In all Romish innovations the practice is found in some measure to precede the law, and there were no doubt some societies of Canons which had, previously to this date, begun to adopt a rule which they had extracted, or professed to have extracted 3, from the writings of S. Augustine, and to imitate the monastic life. But after their establishment by Pope Innocent as a separate order, houses of canons began to be founded, not with reference to the services of a Cathedral Church, or to the work of parochial clergy, but simply as houses of religion, without any special character to distinguish them from other monastic institutions. Early in the twelth century the order found its way into England, and at the time of the Dissolution it possessed not less than one hundred and seventy-five houses in this country. There were various subdivisions of Augustinian Canons who followed certain modifications of the rule, (as for instance the Premonstratensian,

Guizot, 'Civilization de France,' Lecon 26.
Note to Dugdale, vi. 37.

3 Ex iis vero quæ superius diximus apparet S. Augustinum hanc regulam non scripsisse. Ad hæc Augustinensium monachatus quem hâc regula informari gloriantur, nihil habet prorsus commune cum eo vitæ genere, quod D. Augustinus cum doctis et studiosis hominibus ante episcopatum Hipponensem in loco a turbis et frequentiâ hominum remoto paululum, egit. Quocirca Erasmus, magni judicii vir, ausus est dicere a primâ regulâ nihil eos habere frontis ac mentis qui tales nænias ascribant tali tantoque viro.' Hospinius, De Progressu Monachatas, quoted by Dugdale, vi. 49.

4 Dunstable was founded in 1131. 5 Dugdale, vi. 38.