their ranks poor men, who were esteemed as highly as those of noble
birth on entering the cloister. All men were equal who wore the monk's
robe.

Amongst other services the monks rendered was the cultivation of
learning and knowledge. With wonderful assiduity they poured forth
works of erudition, of history, of criticism, recorded the annals of
their own times, and stored these priceless records in their libraries,
which have done such good service to the historians of modern times. The
monasteries absorbed nearly all the social and intellectual movement of
the thirteenth century. Men fired with poetical imagination frequently
betook themselves to the cloister, and consecrated their lives to the
ornamentation of a single sacred book destined for the monastery which
gave them in exchange all the necessaries of life. Thus the libraries of
the monastic houses were rich in treasures of beautifully illuminated
manuscripts, which were bound by members of the community. The Abbot of
Spanheim in the fifteenth century gives the following directions to his
monks:--

"Let that one fasten the leaves together, and bind the book with boards.
You, prepare those boards; you, dress the leather; you, the metal
plates, which are to adorn the binding."

[Illustration: NETLEY ABBEY, SOUTH TRANSEPT]

Terrible is it to think of the dreadful destruction of these libraries
at the time of the spoliation of monasteries and of the priceless
treasures which they contained.

We are apt to suppose that the lives of the monks were gloomy, hard,
severe, and that few rays of the sunshine of happiness could have
penetrated the stern walls of the cloister. But this does not appear to
have been the case. The very names of monasteries show that they
rejoiced in their solitude and labour. Netley Abbey was called the
Joyous Place, _loeto loco_; and on the Continent there are many names
which bear witness to the happiness that reigned in the cloister.
Moreover the writings of the monks proclaim the same truth. Cluny is
called by Peter Damien his _hortus deliciarum_ (garden of delights), and
it is recorded that when Peter de Blois left the Abbey of Croyland to
return to France he stopped seven times to look back and contemplate
again the place where he had been so happy. Hear how Alcuin laments on
leaving the cloister for the Court of Charlemagne:--

"O my cell! sweet and well-beloved home, adieu for ever! I shall see no
more the woods which surround th