VI - MONKS IN COLLEGE

Summary

About the time, towards the middle fifties, when the country at large was beginning to feel a revived interest in the constitution and condition of the old Universities, and was coming to the decided conclusion that they stood in need of some reformation, few complaints were commoner than that which was directed against the so-called “monkish” character and position of the college Fellow, The resemblance was a rather superficial one, for the essence of the religious life lay in its incessant devotion, not to study, but to prayer and praise; and in its perpetual enforcement of these duties, under the triple vow of chastity, poverty and obedience. It would have been a strange sort of monastery in which the abbot was generally married, and which any monk might quit at once, in case he should feel inclined to go out into the world; and where, moreover, each brother had at least one or two rooms for his own private use, and could spend his time just as he pleased. It is no doubt true that if we go some centuries back this contrast becomes less striking. Though there was not in general, strictly speaking, any vow of obedience to the Head on the part of the Fellow, it is certain that the Master possessed, and often exercised, a considerable amount of autocratic power; a power the exercise of which would have startled the whole house a couple of centuries later.