occasioned by the inroads and conquests of the barbarians, and the unceasing wars of the barons. But justice, surely, claims our gratitude to those venerable communities, who strove against the barbarism of the times, and preserved for us all the precious remains of sacred or profane antiquity, that have reached us; all that we know of our own history, and almost all the historical records that we possess.

9. Far be it from the writer to deny due praisé to the biblical exertions of modern times :-but it ought not to be forgotten, that the holy inmates of monasteries were the principal instruments employed by divine Providence in preserving the sacred volumes which compose the bible. We have the names of seven English monks, who translated the scriptures, or some parts of them, into the English language. The venerable Bede expired while he was dictating a translation of the gospel of St. John.-It has been invidiously observed, that, in these times, copies of the bible were few perhaps the scarcity has been exaggerated; but, that there should have been a scarcity, is not surprising. Copies were then only procured by the slow labour of transcription; they were not, as now, instantaneously multiplied by the simultaneous operations of innumerable presses. The. transcription of a whole bible must have employed several months; and would, it is supposed, have cost upwards of fifty pounds. Taking this into account, and considering how few among the laity, even in the higher ranks of life, could then read;

considering also the destruction of monuments of antiquity at the time of the reformation, we shall rather be surprised at the number, than scandalised at the scarcity of the ascertained manuscripts of the sacred volume.

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Such, then, were the advantages, derived by the public, and by individuals, from monastic establishments. "The world," says a writer in the Quarterly Review for the month of December 1811, speaking of the Benedictine monks, "has "never been so deeply indebted to any other body "of men as to this illustrious order; but historians, "when relating the evil, of which they were the "occasion, have too frequently forgotten the good "which they produced. Even the commonest "readers are familiar with the arch miraclemonger, St. Dunstan, while the most learned of "our countrymen scarcely remember the names "of those admirable men, who went forth from “ England, and became the apostles of the north. (6 Tinian, and Juan Fernandez are not more beauti"ful spots on the ocean, than Malmesbury, and "Lindisfarne, and Jarrow, in the ages of our heptarchy. A community of pious men, devoted "to literature, and to the useful arts, as well as to religion, seems, in those ages, like a green oasis "amid the desert. Like stars in a moonless night, they shine upon us, with a tranquil ray. If ever "there was a man, who could truly be called "venerable, it is he, to whom that appellation is "constantly affixed-Bede,-whose life was passed "in instructing his own generation, and preparing

"records for posterity. In those days, the church "offered the only asylum from the evils, to which

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every country was exposed; amidst continual "wars, the church enjoyed peace: it was regarded "as a sacred realm, by men, who, though they "hated each other, believed and feared the same "God. Abused, as it was, by the worldly-minded “and ambitious, and disgraced by the artifices of "the designing, and the follies of the fanatic, it "afforded a shelter to those, who were better than "the world, in their youth, or weary of it in their 66 age; the wise, as well as the timid and the 'gentle, fled to this Goshen of God, which enjoyed "its own light and calm, amid darkness and "storms."-This just and generous tribute of gratitude and respect, should be inscribed on every ruin, which still exists, of these venerable establishments.

TWO events, I. The suppression of the order of the Knights Templars: II. And the suppression of the Alien Priories, preceded, and in some measure prepared the public mind in England for the general dissolution of all the monasteries within the realm Succinct historical minutes of each of these events, may, therefore, be acceptable to the reader..

An account will follow, III. Of the license granted by the pope to cardinal Wolsey, to dissolve some of the smaller monasteries: IV. Of the dissolution of the remaining smaller monasteries: V. and of the subsequent dissolution of the greater.

XVII. 1.

The Suppression of the Order of the Knights Templars.

It has been mentioned, that the Knights Templars were one of the military orders, established in the church, for the defence of the faith in the east, against the Saracens, and for the protection of the pilgrims, who resorted to the Holy Land. They took their name from a monastery in Jerusalem, given to them by Baldwin, the second king in that city, after its conquest, in the first crusade. The order was founded in 1118: as we have said of the order of Malta, it was divided into three classes, to the nobles was assigned the profession of arms, for the purposes just expressed; the ecclesiastics were appointed to exercise their religious functions, for the benefit of the order; the lay-brothers had the care of the pilgrims and sick. For several years, the members of the order were distinguished equally for their piety and valour. St. Bernard composed a panegyric on them; in which language seems to sink under him while he celebrates their virtues but insensibly their fervour decayed, and luxury found its way among them. This led to the dissolution of the order. The best view of it is

given in a recent work of M. Renouard *. He makes it highly probable, not only, that some laxity of morals prevailed in the order, but that there were also some associations in it, among which the disbelief of christianity was avowed and expressed by grotesque and obscene rites: but he equally shows, that neither this infidelity, nor these infidel practices, were general; and that the credit of the charges, brought against the order, is fundamentally shaken by the very means, which were used to prove its guilt.

On the 13th of October 1307, the grand master, and every Knight Templar, in France, were arrested, imprisoned, and put in irons. A bare sustenance was allowed them; they were refused counsel ; the visit of their friends was interdicted. Life, liberty, and reward were offered to those, whose confessions would charge the order with guilt; and, as an inducement to such confessions, a forged one, by the grand master, of its general criminality, was produced.

The individuals who denied the charge, were delivered to the most horrid tortures. The most common of these was the torture of the pulley: the hands of the sufferer were tied behind him; enormous weights fixed to his feet; and the cord, which tied his hands, was brought over a pulley. On a signal, he was suddenly drawn up; then,

* Mémoires Historiques rélatifs à la Condemnation des Chevaliers du Temple, et à l'Abolition de leur Ordre; par M. Rénouard, membre de l'Institut Impérial de France, et de la Légion d'Honneur. 8vo. Paris, 1813.