On looking at the social influence of monachism, one of the first things which strikes us, is, the effect which it was calculated to produce upon the mind of the fraternity; who, after the order had spread, formed no small portion of the population of Europe. Strict conformity to the rules of St. Benedict, and obedience to the superior of the convent, formed the beau ideal of the monk. Implicit submission, moral and religious, was yielded to a fellow man. The more abject this submission, the more meritorious it was deemed. St. Columbanus, who has been described as "the most remarkable character of his age,"[1] stretched the principle of obedience so far, in his penitential discipline, as to lay down the following rules: that any monk who did not sign with a cross the spoon with which he ate, or who struck the table with his knife, or who should cough at the beginning of a psalm, should receive the punishment of six lashes.[2] The way in which submission to a superior was sometimes expressed, by the monkish fraternity, is amusing enough. We read of one of these worthies, who, when his superior, an illiterate man, stopped him as he was reading a Latin sentence, and bade him pronounce the _e_ in _dŏcēre_ short, he at once gave up the right pronunciation: knowing, it is remarked, that to disobey his abbot, who commanded him in Christ's name, was a greater sin than to adopt a false quantity.[3] And this very monk was no other than the celebrated Lanfranc, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. This picture of the prostration of the human understanding to the vows of monastic obedience is truly humiliating; and, in many cases, there can be no doubt that the minds of the monks were decidedly enfeebled by the discipline they observed. Monasteries soon became, but too generally, most corrupt establishments, which the energy and zeal of the more devout of the order in vain attempted to reform. There is sufficient evidence running through the whole history of the middle ages, of the moral evils of the system. While an extreme party often appeared doing their utmost to tighten the cords of discipline, and rushing to the most ridiculous excesses of monkish severity; another party, more numerous, was never wanting, who practically relaxed the bonds of their order, and indulged in various irregularities. Nor were the scenes of monastic seclusion quite so peaceful as the romantic imagination is wont to picture, or the vows of obedience quite so binding as would appear from the theory of the system established by Benedict: for, if we are to believe the testimony of those times, it not seldom happened that one fraternity quarrelled with another; that monasteries were scenes of confusion; that monk fell out with monk; that the brotherhood rebelled against their superior, and that some discontented member turned fugitive, fairly escaped from the convent, and sought refuge in another establishment,