C H A

II.

146 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

p. render themselves useful to it. They wereemployed in the education os youth I “ : Theyhad the disposal of their own time and industry:They were not subjected to the rigid rules ofan order: They had made no vows of implicitobedience to their superiors " s : And they stillretained the choice , without quitting the con-vent, either of a married or a single life I '*.But a mistaken piety had produced in Italy anew species of monks, called Benedictines, who,carrying farther the plausible principles of morti-fication , secluded themselves entirely from theworld, renounced all claim to liberty, and madea merit of the most inviolable chastity. Thesepractices and principles, which superstition atfirst engendered, were greedily embraced andpromoted by the policy of the court of Rome.The Roman pontiff, who was making everyday great advances towards an absolute sovereigntyover the ecclesiastics, perceived, that the celibacyof the clergy alone could break off entirelytheir connexion with the civil power, anddepriving them of every other object of ambi-tion, engage them to promote, with unceasingindustry, the grandeur of their own order. HeW4S sensible, that, so long as the monks were

:!7 Osberne in Anglia Sacra , tom. ii. p. 92.

Ibid. p. 91.

See Wharton’s notes to Anglia Sacra, torn. ii. p. yr.Gervase, p. 1645. Chron. \Cint. MS, apud Spell. Cone.P- 434-