صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

position above the chapter-house, to the south of the transept. As peculiarities of arrangement may be noticed the position of the kitchen (Q), between the refectory and calefactory, and of the infirmary (W) (unless there is some error in its designation) above the river to the west, adjoining the guest-houses (XX). We may also call attention to the greatly lengthened choir, commenced by Abbot John of York, 1203-1211, and carried on by his successor, terminating, like Durham Cathedral, in an eastern transept, the work of Abbot John of Kent, 1220-1247, and to the tower (D), added not long before the dissolution by Abbot Huby, 1494-1526, in a very unusual position at the northern end of the north transept. The abbot's house, the largest and most remarkable example of this class of buildings in the kingdom, stands south to the east of the church and cloister, from which it is divided by the kitchen court (K), surrounded by the ordinary domestic offices. A considerable portion of this house was erected on arches over the Skell. The size and character of this house, probably, at the time of its erection, the most spacious house of a subject in the kingdom, not a castle, bespeaks the wide departure of the Cistercian order from the stern simplicity of the original foundation. The hall (2) was one of the most spacious and magnificent apartments in medieval times, measuring 170 ft. by 70 ft. Like the hall in the castle at Winchester, and Westminster Hall, as originally built, it was divided by 18 pillars and arches, with 3 aisles. Among other apartments, for the designation of which we must refer to the ground-plan, was a domestic oratory or chapel, 46 ft. by 23 ft. and a kitchen (7), 50 ft. by 38 ft. The whole arrangements and character of the building bespeak the rich and powerful feudal lord, not the humble father of a body of hard-working brethren, bound by vows to a life of poverty and self-denying toil. In the words of Dean Milman, "the superior, once a man bowed to the earth with humility, care-worn, pale, emaciated, with a coarse habit bound with a cord, with naked feet, had become an abbot on his curvetting palfrey, in rich attire, with his silver cross before him, travelling to take his place amid the lordliest of the realm.” -(Lat. Christ. vol. iii. p. 330.)

Austin Canons.

The buildings of the Austin canons or Black canons (so called from the colour of their habit) present few distinctive peculiarities. This order had its first seat in England at Colchester, where a house for Austin canons was founded about A.D. 1105, and it very soon spread widely. As an order of regular clergy, holding a middle position between monks and secular canons, almost resembling a community of parish priests living under rule, they adopted naves of great length to accommodate large congregations. The choir is usually long, and is sometimes, as at Llanthony and Christ Church (Twynham), shut off from the aisles, or, as at Bolton, Kirkham, &c., is destitute of aisles altogether. The nave in the northern houses, not unfrequently, had only a north aisle, as at Bolton, Brinkburn and Lanercost. The arrangement of the monastic buildings followed the ordinary type. The prior's lodge was almost invariably attached to the S.W. angle of the nave. The annexed plan of the Abbey of St Augustine's at Bristol, now the cathedral church of Cathedral. that city, shows the arrangement of the buildings, which departs very little from the ordinary Benedictine type. The Austin canons' house at Thornton, in Lincolnshire, is remarkable for the size and magnificence of its gate-house, the upper floors of which formed the guest-house of the establishment, and for possessing an octagonal chapter-house of Decorated date.

Bristol

The Premonstratensian regular canons, or White canons, had as many as 35 houses in England, of which the most perfect remaining are those of Easby, Yorkshire, and Bayham, PremonsKent. The head house of the order in England was tratenWelbeck. This order was a reformed branch of the sians. Austin canons, founded, A.D. 1119, by Norbert (born at Xanten, on the Lower Rhine, c. 1080) at Prémontré, a secluded marshy valley in the forest of Coucy in the diocese of Laon. The order spread widely. Even in the founder's lifetime it possessed houses in Syria and Palestine. It long

maintained its rigid austerity, till in the course of years wealth impaired its discipline, and its members sank into indolence and luxury. The Premonstratensians were brought to England shortly after A.D. 1140, and were first settled at Newhouse, in Lincolnshire, near the Humber. The ground-plan of Easby Abbey, owing to its situation on the edge of the steeply sloping banks of a river, is singularly irregular. The cloister is duly placed on the south side of the church, and the chief buildings occupy their usual positions round it. But the cloister garth, as at Chichester, is not rectangular, and all the surrounding buildings are thus made to sprawl in a very awkward fashion. The church follows the plan adopted by the Austin canons in their northern abbeys, and has only one aisle to the nave-that to the north; while the choir is long, narrow and aisleless. Each transept has an aisle to the east, forming three chapels.

The church at Bayham was destitute of aisles either to nave or choir. The latter terminated in a three-sided apse. This church is remarkable for its exceeding narrowness in proportion to its length. Extending in longitudinal dimensions 257 ft., it is

[ocr errors]

|

including the church, the sanctuary (A), divided from B, the monks' choir, by a screen with two altars, the smaller cloister to the south buildings occupying their normal position and the chapel of (S) surrounded by the chapter-house (E), the refectory (X)-these Pontgibaud (K). The kitchen with its offices (V) lies behind the refeotory, accessible from the outer court without entering the cloister. To the north of the church, beyond the sacristy (L), and the side lodgings of the prior (G) occupy the centre of the outer court, imchapels (M), we find the cell of the sub-prior (a), with its garden. The mediately in front of the west door of the church, and face the gateway of the convent (O). A small raised court with a fountain (C) is before it. This outer court also contains the guest-chambers (P), the (Q), the dovecot (H) and the bakehouse (T). At Z is the prison. stables and lodgings of the lay brothers (N), the barns and granaries (In this outer court, in all the earlier foundations, as at Witham, there was a smaller church in addition to the larger church of the monks.) The outer and inner courts are connected by a long passage (F), wide enough to admit a cart laden with wood to supply the cells of the brethren with fuel. The number of cells surrounding the great

[blocks in formation]

Carthusians.

ment of a monastic institution. The principle of this order, which combined the coenobitic with the solitary life, demanded the erection of buildings on a novel plan. This plan, which was first adopted by St Bruno and his twelve companions at the original institution at Chartreux, near Grenoble, was maintained in all the Carthusian establishments throughout Europe, even after the ascetic severity of the order had been to some extent relaxed, and the primitive simplicity of their buildings had been exchanged for the magnificence of decoration which characterizes such foundations as the Certosas of Pavia and Florence. According to the rule of St Bruno, all the members of a Carthusian brotherhood lived in the most absolute solitude and silence. Each occupied a small detached cottage, standing by itself in a small garden surrounded by high walls and connected by a common corridor or cloister. In these cottages or cells a Carthusian monk passed his time in the strictest asceticism, only leaving his solitary dwelling to attend the services of the Church, except on certain days when the brotherhood assembled in the refectory. The peculiarity of the arrangements of a Carthusian monastery, or charter-house, as it was called in England, from a corruption of the French chartreux, is exhibited in the plan of that of Clermont, from Viollet-le-Duc.

The whole establishment is surrounded by a wall, furnished at intervals with watch towers (R). The enclosure is divided into two courts, Clermont. of which the eastern court, surrounded by a cloister, from which the cottages of the monks (I) open, is much the larger. The two courts are divided by the main buildings of the monastery,

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

FIG. 12.-Carthusian monastery of Clermont. cloister is 18. They are all arranged on a uniform plan. Each little dwelling contains three rooms: a sitting-room (C), warmed by a stove in winter; a sleeping-room (D), furnished with a bed, a table, a bench, and a bookcase; and a closet (E). Between the cell and. the cloister gallery (A) is a passage or corridor (B), cutting off the inmate of the cell from all sound or movement which might interrupt his meditations. The superior had free access to this corridor, and through open niches was able to inspect the garden without being seen. At I is the hatch or turn-table, in which the daily allowance of food was deposited by a brother appointed for that purpose, affording no view either inwards or outwards. H is the garden, cultivated by the occupant of the cell. At K is the wood-house. F is a covered walk, with the necessary at the end.

The above arrangements are found with scarcely any variation in all the charter-houses of western Europe. The Yorkshire Charter-house of Mount Grace, founded by Thomas Holland, the young duke of Surrey, nephew of Richard II. and marshal of England, during the revival of the popularity of the order, about A.D. 1397, is the most perfect and best preserved English example. It is characterized by all the simplicity of the order. The church is a modest building, long, narrow and aisleless. Within the wall of enclosure are two courts. The smaller of the two, the south, presents the usual arrangement of church, refectory, &c., opening out of a cloister. The buildings are plain and solid. The northern court contains the cells, 14 in number. It is surrounded by a double stone wall, the two walls being about 30 ft. or 40 ft. apart. Between these, each in its own

garden, stand the cells; low-built two-storied cottages, of two or three rooms on the ground-floor, lighted by a larger and a smaller window to the side, and provided with a doorway to the court, and one at the back, opposite to one in the outer wall, through which the monk may have conveyed the sweepings of his cell and the refuse of his garden to the " eremus" beyond. By the side of the door to the court is a little hatch through which the daily pittance of food was supplied, so contrived by turning at an angle in the wall that no one could either look in or look out. A very perfect example of this hatch-an arrangement belonging to all Carthusian houses-exists at Miraflores, near Burgos, which remains nearly as it was completed in 1480.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

FIG. 13.-Carthusian cell, Clermont. There were only nine Carthusian houses in England. The earliest was that at Witham in Somersetshire, founded by Henry II., by whom the order was first brought into England. The wealthiest and most magnificent was that of Sheen or Richmond in Surrey, founded by Henry V. about A.D. 1414. The dimensions of the buildings at Sheen are stated to have been remarkably large. The great court measured 300 ft. by 250 ft.; the cloisters were a square of 500 ft.; the hall was 110 ft. in length by 60 ft. in breadth. The most celebrated historically is the Charter-house of London, founded by Sir Walter Manny A.D. 1371, the name of which is preserved by the famous public school established on the site by Thomas Sutton A.D. 1611, now removed to Godalming.

An article on monastic arrangements would be incomplete without some account of the convents of the Mendicant or Preaching Friars, including the Black Friars or DominiMendicant Friars. cans, the Grey or Franciscans, the White or Carmelites, the Eremite or Austin Friars. These orders arose at the beginning of the 13th century, when the Benedictines, together with their various reformed branches, had terminated their active mission, and Christian Europe was ready for a new religious revival. Planting themselves, as a rule, in large towns, and by preference in the poorest and most densely populated districts, the Preaching Friars were obliged to adapt their buildings to the requirements of the site. Regularity of arrangement, therefore, was not possible, even if they had studied it. Their churches, built for the reception of large congregations of hearers rather than worshippers, form a class by themselves, totally unlike those of the elder orders in ground-plan and character. They were usually long parallelograms unbroken by transepts. The nave very usually consisted of two equal bodies, one containing the stalls of the brotherhood, the other left entirely free for the congregation. The constructional choir is often wanting, the whole church forming one uninterrupted structure, with a continuous range of windows. The east end was usually square, but the Friars Church at Winchelsea had a polygonal apse. We not unfrequently find a single transept, sometimes of great size, rivalling or exceeding the nave. This arrangement is frequent in Ireland, where the numerous small friaries afford admirable exemplifications of these peculiarities

|

of ground-plan. The friars' churches were at first destitute of towers; but in the 14th and 15th centuries, tall, slender towers were commonly inserted between the nave and the choir. The Grey Friars at Lynn, where the tower is hexagonal, is a good example. The arrangement of the monastic buildings is equally peculiar and characteristic. We miss entirely the regularity of the buildings of the earlier orders. At the Jacobins at Paris, a cloister lay to the north of the long narrow church of two parallel aisles, while the refectory-a room of immense length, quite detached from the cloister-stretched across the area before the west front of the church. At Toulouse the nave also has two parallel aisles, but the choir is apsidal, with radiating chapel. The refectory stretches northwards at right angles to the cloister, which lies to the north of the church, having the chapter-house

Hulne.

and sacristy on the east. As examples of English Norwich. friaries, the Dominican house at Norwich, and those Gloucester. of the Dominicans and Franciscans at Gloucester, may be mentioned. The church of the Black Friars of Norwich departs from the original type in the nave (now St Andrew's Hall), in having regular aisles. In this it resembles the earlier examples of the Grey Friars at Reading. The choir is long and aisleless; an hexagonal tower between the two, like that existing at Lynn, has perished. The cloister and monastic buildings remain tolerably perfect to the north. The Dominican convent at Gloucester still exhibits the cloister-court, on the north side of which is the desecrated church. The refectory is on the west side and on the south the dormitory of the 13th century. This is a remarkably good example. There were 18 cells or cubicles on each side, divided by partitions, the bases of which remain. On the east side was the prior's house, a building of later date. At the Grey or Franciscan Friars, the church followed the ordinary type in having two equal bodies, each gabled, with a continuous range of windows. There was a slender tower between the nave and the choir. Of the convents of the Carmelite or White Friars we have a good example in the Abbey of Hulne, near Alnwick, the first of the order in England, founded A.D. 1240. The church is a narrow oblong, destitute of aisles, 123 ft. long by only 26 ft. wide. The cloisters are to the south, with the chapter-house, &c., to the east, with the dormitory over. The prior's lodge is placed to the west of the cloister. The guest-houses adjoin the entrance gateway, to which a chapel was annexed on the south side of the conventual area. The nave of the church of the Austin Friars or Eremites in London is still standing. It is of Decorated date, and has wide centre and side aisles, divided by a very light and graceful arcade. Some fragments of the south walk of the cloister of the Grey Friars remained among the buildings of Christ's Hospital (the Blue-Coat School), while they were still standing. Of the Black Friars all has perished but the name. Taken as a whole, the remains of the establishments of the friars afford little warrant for the bitter invective of the Benedictine of St Alban's, Matthew Paris:-"The friars who have been founded hardly 40 years have built residences as the palaces of kings. These are they who, enlarging day by day their sumptuous edifices, encircling them with lofty walls, lay up in them their incalculable treasures, imprudently transgressing the bounds of poverty and violating the very fundamental rules of their profession." Allowance must here be made for jealousy of a rival order just rising in popularity.

Cells.

Every large monastery had depending upon it one or more smaller establishments known as cells. These cells were monastic colonies, sent forth by the parent house, and planted on some outlying estate. As an example, we may refer to the small religious house of St Mary Magdalene's, a cell of the great Benedictine house of St Mary's, York, in the valley of the Witham, to the south-east of the city of Lincoln. This consists of one long narrow range of building, of which the eastern part formed the chapel and the western contained the apartments of the handful of monks of which it was the home. To the east may be traced the site of the abbey mill, with its dam and mill-lead. These cells, when belonging to a Cluniac house, were called Obedientiae. The plan given by

Viollet-le-Duc of the Priory of St Jean des Bons Hommes, a | James Bible; and aided in the preparation of Caspar René Cluniac cell, situated between the town of Avallon and the village of Savigny, shows that these diminutive establishments comprised every essential feature of a monastery,-chapel, cloister, chapter-room, refectory, dormitory, all grouped according to the recognized arrangement. These Cluniac obedientiae differed from the ordinary Benedictine cells in being also places of punishment, to which monks who had been guilty of any grave infringement of the rules were relegated as to a kind of penitentiary. Here they were placed under the authority of a prior, and were condemned to severe manual labour, fulfilling the duties usually executed by the lay brothers, who acted as farmservants. The outlying farming establishments belonging to the monastic foundations were known as villae or granges. They gave employment to a body of conversi and labourers under the management of a monk, who bore the title of Brother Hospitaller the granges, like their parent institutions, affording shelter and hospitality to belated travellers.

AUTHORITIES.-Dugdale, Monasticon; Lenoir, Architecture monastique (1852-1856); Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire raisonnée de l'architecture française: Springer, Klosterleben und Klosterkunst (1886); Kraus, Geschichte der christlichen Kunst (1896). (E. V.) ABBON OF FLEURY, or ABBO FLORIACENSIS (c. 9451004), a learned Frenchman, born near Orleans about 945. He distinguished himself in the schools of Paris and Reims, and was especially proficient in science as known in his time. He spent two years in England, assisting Archbishop Oswald of York in restoring the monastic system, and was abbot of Romsey. After his return to France he was made abbot of Fleury on the Loire (988). He was twice sent to Rome by King Robert the Pious (986, 996), and on each occasion succeeded in warding off a threatened papal interdict. He was killed at La Réole in 1004, endeavouring to quell a monkish revolt. He wrote an Epitome de vitis Romanorum pontificum, besides controversial treatises, letters, &c. (see Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 139). His life, written by his disciple Aimoin of Fleury, in which much of Abbon's correspondence was reproduced, is of great importance as a source for the reign of Robert II., especially with reference to the papacy (cf. Migne, op. cit. vol. 139).

in

See Ch. Pfister, Études sur le règne de Robert le Pieux (1885); Cuissard-Gaucheron, "L'École de Fleury-sur-Loire à la fin du 10 siècle," in Mémoires de la société archéol. de l'Orléanais, xiv. (Orleans, 1875); A. Molinier, Sources de l'histoire de France.

Gregory's Prolegomena to the revised Greek New Testament of
Tischendorf. His principal single production, representing his
scholarly method and conservative conclusions, was The Author-
ship of the Fourth Gospel: External Evidences (1880; second
edition, by J. H. Thayer, with other essays, 1889), originally a
lecture, and in spite of the compression due to its form, up to
that time probably the ablest defence, based on external evi-
dence, of the Johannine authorship, and certainly the com-
pletest treatment of the relation of Justin Martyr to this gospel.
Abbot, though a layman, received the degree of S. T. D. from
Harvard in 1872, and that of D.D. from Edinburgh in 1884.
He died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 21st of March
1884.
See S. J. Barrows, Ezra Abbot (Cambridge, Mass., 1884).
ABBOT, GEORGE (1562-1633), English divine, archbishop of
Canterbury, was born on the 19th of October 1562, at Guildford
in Surrey, where his father was a cloth-worker. He studied,
and then taught, at Balliol College, Oxford, was chosen master
of University College in 1597, and appointed dean of Winchester
in 1600. He was three times vice-chancellor of the university,
and took a leading part in preparing the authorized version of
the New Testament. In 1608 he went to Scotland with the earl
of Dunbar to arrange for a union between the churches of
England and Scotland. He so pleased the king (James I.) in
this affair that he was made bishop of Lichfield and Coventry
in 1609, was translated to the see of London a month afterwards,
and in less than a year was raised to that of Canterbury. His
puritan instincts frequently led him not only into harsh treat-
ment of Roman Catholics, but also into courageous resistance to
the royal will, e.g. when he opposed the scandalous divorce suit
of the Lady Frances Howard against the earl of Essex, and again
in 1618 when, at Croydon, he forbade the reading of the declara-
tion permitting Sunday sports. He was naturally, therefore, a
promoter of the match between the elector palatine and the
Princess Elizabeth, and a firm opponent of the projected mar-
riage of the prince of Wales with the infanta of Spain. This
policy brought upon him the hatred of Laud (with whom he
had previously come into collision at Oxford) and the court,
though the king himself never forsook him. In 1622, while
hunting in Lord Zouch's park at Bramshill, Hampshire, a bolt
from his cross-bow aimed at a deer happened to strike one of
the keepers, who died within an hour, and Abbot was so greatly
distressed by the event that he fell into a state of settled melan-
choly. His enemies maintained that the fatal issue of this
accident disqualified him for his office, and argued that, though
the homicide was involuntary, the sport of hunting which had
led to it was one in which no clerical person could lawfully
indulge. The king had to refer the matter to a commission of
ten, though he said that "an angel might have miscarried after
this sort." The commission was equally divided, and the king
gave a casting vote in the archbishop's favour, though signing
also a formal pardon or dispensation. After this the arch-
bishop seldom appeared at the council, chiefly on account of
his infirmities. He attended the king constantly, however, in
his last illness, and performed the ceremony of the coronation
of Charles I. His refusal to license the assize sermon preached
by Dr Robert Sibthorp at Northampton on the 22nd of February
1626-1627, in which cheerful obedience was urged to the king's
demand for a general loan, and the duty proclaimed of absolute
non-resistance even to the most arbitrary royal commands, led
Charles to deprive him of his functions as primate, putting them

ABBOT, EZRA (1819-1884), American biblical scholar, was born at Jackson, Waldo county, Maine, on the 28th of April 1819. He graduated at Bowdoin College in 1840; and in 1847, at the request of Prof. Andrews Norton, went to Cambridge, where he was principal of a public school until 1856. He was assistant librarian of Harvard University from 1856 to 1872, and planned and perfected an alphabetical card catalogue, combining many of the advantages of the ordinary dictionary catalogues with the grouping of the minor topics under more general heads, which is characteristic of a systematic catalogue. From 1872 until his death he was Bussey Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation in the Harvard Divinity School. His studies were chiefly in Oriental languages and the textual criticism of the New Testament, though his work as a bibliographer showed such results as the exhaustive list of writings (5300 in all) on the doctrine of the future life, appended to W. R. Alger's History of the Doctrine of a Future | Life, as it has prevailed in all Nations and Ages (1862), and published separately in 1864. His publications, though always of the most thorough and scholarly character, were to a large extent dispersed in the pages of reviews, dictionaries, concord-in commission. The need of summoning parliament, however, ances, texts edited by others, Unitarian controversial treatises, &c.; but he took a more conspicuous and more personal part in the preparation (with the Baptist scholar, Horatio B. Hackett) of the enlarged American edition of Dr (afterwards Sir) William Smith's Dictionary of the Bible (1867-1870), to which he contributed more than 400 articles besides greatly improving the bibliographical completeness of the work; was an efficient member of the American revision committee employed in connexion with the Revised Version (1881-1885) of the King

soon brought about a nominal restoration of the archbishop's powers. His presence being unwelcome at court, he lived from that time in retirement, leaving Laud and his party in undisputed ascendancy. He died at Croydon on the 5th of August 1633, and was buried at Guildford, his native place, where he had endowed a hospital with lands to the value of £300 a year. Abbot was a conscientious prelate, though narrow in view and often harsh towards both separatists and Romanists. He wrote a large number of works, the most interesting being

his discursive Exposition on the Prophet Jonah (1600), which was reprinted in 1845. His Geography, or a Brief Description of the Whole World (1599), passed through numerous editions.

The best account of him is in S. R. Gardiner's History of England. ABBOT, GEORGE (1603-1648), English writer, known as "The Puritan," has been oddly and persistently mistaken for others. He has been described as a clergyman, which he never was, and as son of Sir Morris (or Maurice) Abbot, and his writings accordingly entered in the bibliographical authorities as by the nephew of the archbishop of Canterbury. One of the sons of Sir Morris Abbot was, indeed, named George, and he was a man of mark, but the more famous George Abbot was of a different family altogether. He was son or grandson (it is not clear which) of Sir Thomas Abbot, knight of Easington, East Yorkshire, having been born there in 1603-1604, his mother (or grandmother) being of the ancient house of Pickering. Of his early life and training nothing is known. He married a daughter of Colonel Purefoy of Caldecote, Warwickshire, and as his monument, which may still be seen in the church there, tells, he bravely held the manor house against Princes Rupert and Maurice during the civil war. As a layman, and nevertheless a theologian and scholar of rare ripeness and critical ability, he holds an almost unique place in the literature of the period. The terseness of his Whole Bookc of Job Paraphrased, or made easy for any to understand (1640, 4to), contrasts favourably with the usual prolixity of the Puritan expositors and commentators. His Vindiciae Sabbathi (1641, 8vo) had a profound and lasting influence in the long Sabbatarian controversy. His Brief Notes upon the Whole Book of Psalms (1651, 4to), as its date shows, was posthumous. He died on the 2nd of February 1648. AUTHORITIES.-MS. collections at Abbeyville for history of all of the name of Abbot, by J. T. Abbot, Esq., F.S.A., Darlington; Dug dale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, 1730, p. 1099; Wood's Athenae (Bliss), ii. 141, 594; Cox's Literature of the Sabbath.

ABBOT, ROBERT (1588?-1662?), English Puritan divine. Noted as this worthy was in his own time, and representative in various ways, he has often since been confounded with others, e.g. Robert Abbot, bishop of Salisbury. He is also wrongly described as a relative of Archbishop Abbot, from whom he acknowledges very gratefully, in the first of his epistles dedicatory of A Hand of Fellowship to Helpe Keepe out Sinne and Antichrist (1623, 4to), that he had " received all " his "worldly maintenance," as well as "best earthly countenance" and "fatherly incouragements." The worldly maintenance was the presentation in 1616 to the vicarage of Cranbrook in Kent. He had received his education at Cambridge, where he proceeded M.A., and was afterwards incorporated at Oxford. In 1639, in the epistle to the reader of his most noticeable book historically, his Triall of our Church-Forsakers, he tells us, "I have lived now, by God's gratious dispensation, above fifty years, and in the place of my allotment two and twenty full." The former date carries us back to 1588-1589, or perhaps 1587-1588 -the "Armada " year-as his birth-time; the latter to 16161617 (ut supra). In his Bee Thankfull London and her Sisters (1626), he describes himself as formerly "assistant to a reverend divine. . . now with God," and the name on the margin is Master Haiward of Wool Church (Dorset)." This was doubtless previous to his going to Cranbrook. Very remarkable and effective was Abbot's ministry at Cranbrook, where his parishioners were as his own sons and daughters" to him. Yet, Puritan though he was, he was extremely and often unfairly antagonistic to Nonconformists. He remained at Cranbrook until 1643, when, Parliament deciding against pluralities of ecclesiastical offices, he chose the very inferior living of Southwick, Hants, as between the one and the other. He afterwards succeeded the "extruded " Udall of St Austin's, London, where according to the Warning-piece he was still pastor in 1657. He disappears silently between 1657-1658 and 1662. Robert Abbot's books are conspicuous amongst the productions of his time by their terseness and variety. In addition to those mentioned above he wrote Milk for Babes, or a Mother's Catechism for her Children (1646), and A Christian Family builded by God, or Directions for Governors of Families (1653).

66

[ocr errors]

AUTHORITIES.-Brook's Puritans, iii. 182, 3; Walker's Sufferings, ii. 183; Wood's Athenae (Bliss), i. 323; Palmer's Nonconf. Mem. ii. 218, which confuses him most oddly of all with one of the ejected ministers of 1662.

ABBOT, WILLIAM (1798–1843), English actor, was born in Chelsea, and made his first appearance on the stage at Bath in 1806, and his first London appearance in 1808. At Covent Garden in 1813, in light comedy and melodrama, he made his first decided success. He was Pylades to Macready's Orestes in Ambrose Philips's Distressed Mother when Macready made his first appearance at that theatre (1816). He created the parts of Appius Claudius in Sheridan Knowles's Virginius (1820) and of Modus in his Hunchback (1832). In 1827 he organized the company, including Macready and Miss Smithson, which acted Shakespeare in Paris. On his return to London he played Romeo to Fanny Kemble's Juliet (1830). Two of Abbot's melodramas, The Youthful Days of Frederick the Great (1817) and Swedish Patriotism (1819), were produced at Covent Garden. He died in poverty at Baltimore, Maryland.

ABBOT (from the Hebrew ab, a father, through the Syriac abba, Lat. abbas, gen. abbatis, O.E. abbad, fr. late Lat. form abbad-em changed in 13th century under influence of the Lat. form to abbat, used alternatively till the end of the 17th century; Ger. Abt; Fr. abbé), the head and chief governor of a community of monks, called also in the East hegumenos or archimandrite. The title had its origin in the monasteries of Syria, whence it spread through the East, and soon became accepted generally in all languages as the designation of the head of a monastery. At first it was employed as a respectful title for any monk, as we learn from St Jerome, who denounced the custom on the ground that Christ had said, " Call no man father on earth" (in Epist. ad Gal. iv. 6, in Matt. xxiii. 9), but it was soon restricted to the superior. The name "abbot," though general in the West, was never universal. Among the Dominicans, Carmelites, Augustinians, &c., the superior was called Praepositus, "provost," and Prior; among the Franciscans, Custos, "guardian"; and by the monks of Camaldoli, Major.

In Egypt, the first home of monasticism, the jurisdiction of the abbot, or archimandrite, was but loosely defined. Sometimes he ruled over only one community, sometimes over several, each of which had its own abbot as well. Cassian speaks of an abbot of the Thebaid who had 500 monks under him, a number exceeded in other cases. By the rule of St Benedict, which, until the reform of Cluny, was the norm in the West, the abbot has jurisdiction over only one community. The rule, as was inevitable, was subject to frequent violations; but it was not until the foundation of the Cluniac Order 'that the idea of a supreme abbot, exercising jurisdiction over all the houses of an order, was definitely recognized. New styles were devised to express this new relation; thus the abbot of Monte Cassino was called abbas abbatum, while the chiefs of other orders had the titles abbas generalis, or magister or minister generalis.

Monks, as a rule, were laymen, nor at the outset was the abbot any exception. All orders of clergy, therefore, even the "doorkeeper," took precedence of him. For the reception of the sacraments, and for other religious offices, the abbot and his monks were commanded to attend the nearest church (Novellae, 133, c. ii.). This rule naturally proved inconvenient when a monastery was situated in a desert or at a distance from a city, and necessity compelled the ordination of abbots. This innovation was not introduced without a struggle, ecclesiastical dignity being regarded as inconsistent with the higher spiritual life, but, before the close of the 5th century, at least in the East, abbots seem almost universally to have become deacons, if not presbyters. The change spread more slowly in the West, where the office of abbot was commonly filled by laymen till the end of the 7th century, and partially so up to the 11th. Ecclesiastical councils were, however, attended by abbots. Thus at that held at Constantinople, A.D. 448, for the condemnation of Eutyches, 23 archimandrites or abbots sign, with 30 bishops, and, c. A.D. 690, Archbishop Theodore promulgated a canon, inhibiting

« السابقةمتابعة »