stic bodies. Each
Benedictine house was practically independent of every other, while the
houses of the Dominicans, Franciscans or Jesuits were bound together
under one head. The family idea was peculiar to the Benedictines. The
abbot was the father, and the monastery was the home where the
Benedictine was content to dwell all his life. In the later monastic
societies the monks were constantly traveling from place to place.
Taunton says: "As God made society to rest on the basis of the family,
so St. Benedict saw that the spiritual family is the surest basis for
the sanctification of the souls of his monks. The monastery therefore is
to him what the 'home' is to lay-folk.... From this family idea comes
another result: the very fact that St. Benedict did not found an Order
but only gave a Rule, cuts away all possibility of that narrowing
_esprit de corps_ which comes so easily to a widespread and
highly-organized body."

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, however, it became necessary
for the general good of each family to secure some kind of union. The
Chapter then came into existence, which was a representative body,
composed of the heads of the different houses and ordinary monks
regularly appointed as delegates. To the Chapter were committed various
matters of jurisdiction, and also the power of sending visitors to the
different abbeys in the pope's name.

Each society was ruled by an abbot, who governed in Christ's stead.
Sometimes the members of the monastery were consulted, the older ones
ordinarily, the whole congregation; in important matters. But implicit
obedience to the abbot, as the representative of God, was demanded
by the vows.

The abbot was to be elected by the monks. At various periods popes and
princes usurped this power, but the monks always claimed the right as an
original privilege. Carlyle quotes Jocelin on Abbot Samson, who says
that the monks of St. Edmundsbury were compelled to submit their choice
to Henry II., who, looking at the committee of monks somewhat sternly,
said: "You present to me Samson; I do not know him; had it been your
prior, whom I do know, I should have accepted him; however, I will now
do as you wish. But have a care of yourselves. By the true eyes of God,
if you manage badly, I will be upon you."

In Walter Scott's novel, "The Abbot," there is an interesting contrast
drawn between the ceremonies attending an abbot's installation, when the
monasteries were in the