when traveling was difficult and dangerous.^377 They were training schools of ascetic virtue, and
the nurseries of saints. They saved the remnants of ancient civilization for future use. Every large
convent had a library and a school. Scribes were employed in copying manuscripts of the ancient
classics, of the Bible, and the writings of the fathers. To these quiet literary monks we are indebted
for the preservation and transmission of nearly all the learning, sacred and secular, of ancient times.
If they had done nothing else, they would be entitled to the lasting gratitude of the church and the
world.
During the wild commotion and confusion of the ninth and tenth centuries, monastic
discipline went into decay. Often the very richs of convents, which were the reward of industry
and virtue, became a snare and a root of evil. Avaricious laymen (Abba-comites) seized the control
and perpetuated it in their families. Even princesses received the titles and emoluments of abbesses.
§ 83. St. Benedict. St. Nilus. St. Romuald.
Yet even in this dark period there were a few shining lights.
St. Benedict of Aniane (750–821), of a distinguished family in the south of France, after
serving at the court of Charlemagne, became disgusted with the world, entered a convent, founded
a new one at Aniane after the strict rule of St. Benedict of Nursia, collected a library, exercised
charity, especially during a famine, labored for the reform of monasticism, was entrusted by Louis
the Pious with the superintendence of all the convents in Western France, and formed them into a
"congregation," by bringing them under one rule. He attended the Synod of Aix-la-Chapelle in 817.
Soon after his death (Feb. 12, 821) the fruits of his labors were destroyed, and the disorder became
worse than before.^378
St. Nilus the younger,^379 of Greek descent, born at Rossano in Calabria^380 (hence Nilus
Rossanensis), enlightened the darkness of the tenth century. He devoted himself, after the death of
his wife, about 940, to a solitary life, following the model of St. Anthony and St. Hilarion, and
founded several convents in Southern Italy. He was often consulted by dignitaries, and answered,
like St. Anthony, without respect of person. He boldly rebuked Pope Gregory V. and Emperor Otho
III. for bad treatment of an archbishop. When the emperor afterwards offered him any favor he
might ask, Nilus replied: "I ask nothing from you but that you would save your soul; for you must
(^377) As they are still in the East and on the Alps. Travelers will not easily forget the convents of Mt. Sinai in the Desert,
Mar Saba near the Dead Sea, and the hospices on the Alpine passes of St. Bernard, St. Gotthard, and the Simplon. Lecky (II.
84) says: "By the monks the nobles were overawed, the poor protected, the sick tended, travelers sheltered, prisoners ransomed,
the remotest spheres of suffering explored. During the darkest period of the middle ages, monks founded a refuge for pilgrims
amid the horrors of the Alpine snows. A solitary hermit often planted himself, with his little boat, by a bridgeless stream, and
the charity of his life was to ferry over the traveler."
(^378) The life of B. was written by Ardo. See theActa Sanct. mens. Februar. sub Feb. 12; Mabillon,Acta Sanct. ord. S.
Bened.; Nicolai,Der heil. Benedict Gründer von Aniane und Cornelimünster(Köln, 1865); Gfrörer,Kirchengesch. III. 704 sqq.
(^379) To distinguish him from the older Nilus, who was a pupil and friend of Chrysostom, a fertile ascetic writer and monk
on Mt. Sinai (d. about 440). There were more than twenty distinguished persons of that name in the Greek church. See Allatius,
Diatriba de Nilis et Psellis; Fabricius, Bibl. Gr. X. 3.
(^380) The place where two German scholars, O. von Gebhardt and Harnack, discovered the Codex Rossanensis of the Greek
Matthew and Mark in the library of the archbishop (March, 1879). It dates from the sixth or seventh century, is beautifully
written in silver letters on very fine purple-colored vellum, and was published by O. von Gebhardt in 1883. See Schaff’s
Companion to the Gr. T., p. 131, and Gregory’s Prolegomena, I. 408.