humility, it is difficult to believe that, in embracing Christianity, they gave up a single pagan vice
or adopted a single Christian virtue.
"It was against this barbarity of the soul, far more alarming than grossness and violence of
manners, that the Church triumphantly struggled. From the midst of these frightful disorders, of
this double current of corruption and ferocity, the pure and resplendent light of Christian sanctity
was about to rise. But the secular clergy, itself tainted by the general demoralization of the two
races, was not sufficient for this task. They needed the powerful and soon preponderating assistance
of the monastic Army. It did not fail: the church and France owe to it the decisive victory of Christian
civilization over a race much more difficult to subdue than the degenerate subjects of Rome or
Byzantium. While the Franks, coming from the North, completed the subjugation of Gaul, the
Benedictines were about to approach from the South, and super-impose a pacific and beneficent
dominion upon the Germanic barbarian conquest. The junction and union of these forces, so unequal
in their civilizing power, were destined to exercise a sovereign influence over the future of our
country."
Among these Benedictine monks, St. Maurus occupies the most prominent place. He left
Monte Casino before the death of St. Benedict (about 540), with four companions, crossed the
Alps, founded Glanfeuil on the Loire, the first Benedictine monastery in France, and gave his name
to that noble band of scholars who, more than a thousand years after, enriched the church with the
best editions of the fathers and other works of sacred learning.^105 He had an interview with King
Theodebert (the grandson of Clovis), was treated with great reverence and received from him a
large donation of crown lands. Monastic establishments soon multiplied and contributed greatly to
the civilization of France.^106
§ 23. Columbanus and the Irish Missionaries on the Continent.
I. Sources.
The works of Columbanus in Patrick Fleming’s Collectanea sacra (Lovanii, 1667), and in Migne:
Patrolog., Tom. 87, pp. 1013–1055. His life by Jonas in the Acta Sanct. Ord. Bened., Tom. II.,
Sec. II., 2–26. (Also in Fleming’s Coll.)
II. Works.
Lanigan (R. K.): Eccles. Hist. of Ireland (1829), II. 263 sqq.
Montalembert: Monks of the West, II. 397 sqq.
Ph. Heber: Die vorkarolingischen Glaubenshelden am Rhein, 1867.
Lütolf (R.C.): Die Glaubensboten der Schweiz vor St. Gallus. Luzern, 1871.
Ebrard: Die iroschottische Missionskirche (1873), pp. 25–31; 284–340.
Killen: Ecclesiast. Hist. of Ireland (1875), I. 41 sqq.
W. Smith and H. Wace: Dict. Christ. Biography (1877), I. 605–607.
G. Hertel: Ueber des heil. Columba Leben und Wirken, besonders seine Klosterregel. In the
"Zeitschrift für Hist. Theol.," 1875, p. 396; and another article in Brieger’s "Zeitschrift für
Kirchengesch.," 1879, p. 145.
(^105) The brotherhood of St. Maur was founded in 1618, and numbered such scholars as Mabillon, Montfaucon, and Ruinart.
(^106) The legendary history of monasticism under the Merovingians is well told by Montalembert, II. 236-386.