igious Orders," were of later
institution. From the oriental deserts of the Thebaid, where Saint
Anthony had early practised the austerities of monkish life, Saint
Martin drew his inspiration for the monasticism of the West. But it was
not until the last of the IV century that he founded, near Poitiers, the
first great monastery in France. The success of this form of pious life,
if not altogether edifying, was immediate. Devotional excesses were less
common in the temperate climate of France than under the exciting
oriental sun, yet that most bizarre of Eastern fanatics, the "Pillar
Saint," had at least one disciple in Gaul. He--the good Brother
Wulfailich--began the life of sanctity by climbing a column near Treves,
and prepared himself to stand on it, barefooted, through winter and
summer, till, presumably, angels should bear him triumphantly to heaven.
But the West is not the East. And the good Bishops of the neighbourhood
drew off, instead of waiting at the pillar, as an exalted emperor had
humbly stood beneath that of Saint Simeon Stylites. Far from being
awe-struck, they were scandalised; and they forced Wulfailich to descend
from his eminence, and destroyed it. This is one of the first Gallic
instances of the antagonisms between the "secular" and the "regular"
branches of the reverend clergy.

Within the French Church from early times, these two great forces were
arrayed, marching toward the same great end,--but never marching
together. It is claimed they were, and are, inimical. In theory, in
ideal, nothing could be further from truth. They were in fact sometimes
unfriendly; and more often than not mutually suspicious. For the great
Abbot inevitably lived in a Bishop's See; and with human tempers beneath
their churchly garb, Abbot and Bishop could not always agree. Now the
Bishop was lord of the clergy, supreme in his diocese; but should he
call to account the lowest friar of any monastery, my Lord Abbot replied
that he was "answerable only to the Pope," and retired to his vexatious
"imperium in imperio."

The beginning of the VI century saw much that was irregular in monastic
life. The whole country was either in a state of war or of unrestful
expectation of war. Many Abbeys were yet to be established; many merely
in process of foundation. Wandering brothers were naturally beset by the
dangers and temptations of an unsettled life; and if history may be
believed, fell into many irregularities and even shamed th