lly industrious; every
convent was a beehive, in which various kinds of manufactures were
produced. The monks aspired even to be artists. They illuminated
manuscripts, as well as copied them; they made tapestries and beautiful
vestments. They were a peaceful and useful set of men, at this period
outside their spiritual functions; they built grand churches; they had
fruitful gardens; they were exceedingly hospitable. Every monastery was
an inn, as well as a beehive, to which all travellers resorted, and
where no pay was exacted. It was a retreat for the unfortunate, which no
one dared assail. And it was vocal with songs and anthems.

The clergy were not only thus general benefactors in an age of
turbulence and crime, in spite of all their narrowness and spiritual
pride and ghostly arts and ambition for power, but they lent a helping
hand to the peasantry. The Church was democratic, and enabled the poor
to rise according to their merits, while nobles combined to crush them
or keep them in an ignoble sphere. In the Church, the son of a murdered
peasant could rise according to his deserts; but if he followed a
warrior to the battle-field, no virtues, no talents, no bravery could
elevate him,--he was still a peasant, a low-born menial. If he entered
a monastery, he might pass from office to office until as a mitred abbot
he would become the master of ten thousand acres, the counsellor of
kings, the equal of that proud baron in whose service his father spent
his abject life. The great Hildebrand was the son of a carpenter. The
Church ever recognized, what feudality did not,--the claims of man as
man; and enabled peasants' sons, if they had abilities and virtues, to
rise to proud positions,--to be the patrons of the learned, the
companions of princes, the ministers of kings.

And that is the reason why Charlemagne befriended the Church and
elevated it, because its influence was civilizing. He sought to
establish among the clergy a counterbalancing power to that of nobles.
Who can doubt that the influence of the Church was better than that of
nobles in the Middle Ages? If it ground down society by a spiritual
yoke, that yoke was necessary, for the rude Middle Ages could be ruled
only by fear. What fear more potent than the destruction of the soul in
a future life! It was by this weapon--excommunication--that Europe was
governed. We may abhor it, but it was the great idea of Mediaeval
Europe, which no one could resist, and whic