ople. They however remained hospitable
to the last. Their convents were hotels as well as bee-hives; any
stranger could remain two nights at a convent without compensation and
without being questioned. The brothers dined together at the refectory,
according to the rules, on bread, vegetables, and a little meat;
although it was noticed that they had a great variety in cooking eggs,
which were turned and roasted and beaten up, and hardened and minced and
fried and stuffed. It is said that subsequently they drank enormous
quantities of beer and wine, and sometimes even to disgraceful excess.
Their rules required them to keep silence at their meals; but their
humanity got the better of them, and they have been censured for their
hilarious and frivolous conversation,--for jests and stories and puns.
Bernard accused the monks of degeneracy, of being given to the pleasures
of the table, of loving the good things which they professed to
scorn,--rare fish, game, and elaborate cookery.

That the monks sadly degenerated in morals and discipline, and even
became objects of scandal, is questioned by no respectable historian. No
one was more bitter and vehement in his denunciations of this almost
universal corruption of monastic life than Saint Bernard himself,--the
impersonation of an ideal monk. Hence reforms were attempted; and the
Cluniacs and Cistercians and other orders arose, modelled after the
original institution on Monte Cassino. These were only branches of the
Benedictines. Their vows and habits and duties were the same. It would
seem that the prevailing vices of the Benedictines, in their decline,
were those which were fostered by great wealth, and consequent idleness
and luxury. But at their worst estate the monks, or regular clergy, were
no worse than the secular clergy, or parish priests, in their ordinary
lives, and were more intelligent,--at least more learned. The ignorance
of the secular clergy was notorious and scandalous. They could not even
write letters of common salutation; and what little knowledge they had
was extolled and exaggerated. It was confined to the acquisition of the
Psalter by heart, while a little grammar, writing, and accounts were
regarded as extraordinary. He who could write a few homilies, drawn from
the Fathers, was a wonder and a prodigy. There was a total absence of
classical literature.

But the monks, ignorant and degenerate as they were, guarded what little
literature had escaped the r