f
the "bond of brotherhood" and "fellowship." Venerable Bede favours the
word "communion." Alcuin, in his epistles, alternates between the more
precise description "pacts of charity" and the vaguer expressions
"brotherhood" and "familiarity." The last he employs very commonly. The
fame of Cluny as a spiritual centre led to the term "brotherhood" being
preferred, and from the eleventh century onwards it became general.

The privilege of fraternal alliance with other religious communities was
greatly valued, and admission was craved in language at once humble,
eloquent, and touchingly sincere. Venerable Bede implores the monks of
Lindisfarne to receive him as their "little household slave"--he desires
that "my name also" may be inscribed in the register of the holy flock.
Many a time does Alcuin avow his longing to "merit" being one of some
congregation in communion of love; and, in writing to the Abbeys of
Girwy and Wearmouth, he fails not to remind them of the "brotherhood"
they have granted him.

The term "brother," in some contexts, bore the distinctive meaning of
one to whom had been vouchsafed the prayers and spiritual boons of a
convent other than that of which he was a member, if, as was not always
or necessarily the case, he was incorporated in a religious order. The
definition furnished by Ducange, who quotes from the diptych of the
Abbey of Bath, proves how wide a field the term covers, even when
restricted to confederated prayer:

"Fratres interdum inde vocantur qui in ejusmodi Fraternitatem sive
participationem orationum aliorumque bonorum spiritualium sive
monachorum sive aliarum Ecclesiarum et jam Cathedralium admissi errant,
sive laici sive ecclesiastici."

Thus the secular clergy and the laity were recognized as fully eligible
for all the benefits of this high privilege, but it is identified for
the most part with the functions of the regular clergy, whose leisured
and tranquil existence was more consonant with the punctual observance
of the custom, and by whom it was handed down to successive generations
as a laudable and edifying practice importing much comfort for the
living, and, it might be hoped, true succour for the pious dead.

In so far as the custom was founded on any particular text of Scripture,
it may be considered to rest on the exhortation of St. James, which is
cited by St. Boniface: "Pray for one another that ye may be saved, for
the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availe