Scenes & characters of the Middle Ages / by the Rev. Edward L. Cutts ; with 182 illustrations.

  • Cutts, Edward Lewes, 1824-1901.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Scenes & characters of the Middle Ages / by the Rev. Edward L. Cutts ; with 182 illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    THE MONKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. CHAPTER I. THE ORIGIN OF MONACHISM. E do not aim in these chapters at writing general history, or systematic treatises. Our business is to give a series of sketclies of medieval life and mediaeval characters, looked at especially from the artists point of view. And first we have to do with the monKs of the Middle Ages. One branch of this subject has already been treated in Mrs. Jameson’s “ Legends of the Monastic Orders.” This accomplished lady has very pleasingly narrated the traditionary histories of the founders and saints of the orders, which have furnished subjects for the greatest works of mediaeval art j and she has placed monachism before her readers in its noblest and most poetical aspect. Our humbler task is to give a view of the familiar daily life of ordinary monks in their monasteries, and of the way in which they enter into the general life without the cloister ;—such a sketch as an art-student might wish to have who is about to study that picturesque mediaeval period of English history for subjects for his pencil. The religious orders occupied so important a position in mediaeval society, that they cannot be overlooked by the historical student; and the flowing black robe and severe intellectual features of the Benedictine monk, or the coarse frock and sandalled feet of the mendicant friar, are too characteristic and too effective, in contrast with the gleaming armour B