"You must be much honored of the Senate, holy monk," observed the latter while they proceeded, "to hold so near a trust about the person of one in whom the state takes so great an interest?"

It seems that in the year 1204, just a year after he had given the manor of Faringdon in Berkshire to St Mary of Citeaux, and established there a small house of Cistercian monks, King John founded this great monastery of St Mary of Beaulieu for the same Order, making provision for not less than thirty brethren, and giving it Faringdon for a cell.

It leads from the Jordan valley north-west of Jericho, and passes beneath the frowning height of Jebel Kuruntul with its bare face relieved by a monastery built into the rock about half-way up, and a walled garden on top to mark the Mount of Temptation, as the pious monks believe it to be.

Now above the abbey was a great mountain, inhabited by three fierce giants, one of whom was named Passamonte, another Alabastro, and the third Morgante; and these giants used to disturb the abbey by throwing things down upon it from the mountain with slings, so that the poor little monks could not go out to fetch wood or water.

On the third night an aged monk stood by Otto's grave, and wept plentifully.

" "True, reverend monk; I cannot do thisnor would it be well for him who could, to trust his fortune on so reckless a risk.

Now I will unmask you, villain!" "Forgive me, lady!" begged the terrified monk.

They lived in communities and ate in common, like the primitive monks.

Then the Old Testament, with the honour which it puts upon family and national life, became precious to man, as it had never been before; and such a history as David's became, not as it was with the mediaeval monks, a mere repertory of fanciful metaphors and allegories, but the solemn example, for good and for evil, of a man of like passions and like duties with the men of the modern world.

Mochuda thereupon set out alone, which, Molua's monks observing, they remark:"It were time for that aged man to remain in some monastery, for it is unbecoming such a (senior) monk to wander about alone."

For two years at a monastery in Pontigny then for four at Sens, the archbishop lived the life of an austere Cistercian monk, edifying the community with his fastings, scourgings, and prayers.

But the monks, ignorant and degenerate as they were, guarded what little literature had escaped the ruin of the ancient civilization.

In the nave of the small church sat in comfortable arm-chairs two monks, one black, one white, leaning their ears to gilded grates and receiving the confessions of the sisterhood.

They invited him to receive the imperial crown, in the ancient manner, from the "senate and Roman people," and not from the heretical and recreant clergy and false monks, who acted in contradiction to their calling, exercising lordship despite of the evangelical and apostolical doctrine; and in contempt of all laws, divine and human, brought the Church of God and the kingdom of the world into confusion.

Shortly after, just as the day began to dawn, a certain foreign monk told Robert Fitz Haman one of the principal nobility that he had that night dreamed a strange and fearful dream about the King: "That he had come into a certain church, with menacing and insolent gesture as was his custom, looking contemptuously on the standers by.

Between mad monks and mad women, bedlam's broke loose, I think.

It was the age of bad popes and quarrelsome nobles, and lazy monks and haughty bishops, and ignorant people, steeped in gloomy superstitions, two hundred years before America was discovered, and two hundred and fifty years before Michael Angelo erected the dome of St. Peter's.

But when, in 816, the Franks saw Louis the Pious not only go out of Rheims to meet Stephen IV, but prostrate himself, from head to foot, and rise only when the Pope held out a hand to him, the spectators felt saddened and humiliated at the sight of their Emperor in the posture of a penitent monk.

Later in the day, after he had presented himself to Archbishop Cyril, Philammon learnt from an old priest, and from a fanatical monk named Peter, that the very name of Hypatia was enough to rouse the clergy to a fury of execration.

Finally Henry sent them a monk unknown to the chapter, who had been elected in his chamber, at his bedside, in the presence of his paid servants, and according to his orders, "after the fashion of an English tyrant," and who had then and there raised his tremulous and fearful song of thanksgiving.

It was painted for the Vallombrosian monks.

The hospitable monks, though their revenue is scanty, open their doors to every stranger that presents himself.

And it were bad for them (the two wicked monks) for it is with Judas the betrayer of his Lord they should be tortured for ever, who had desired my death for their own advancement.

Father Xavier, thou art a neutral, for thy dwelling is on the dividing ridge between the two countries, and I appeal to thee to know if these Helvetians have much of this quality of evening?" The worthy monk met the question in the spirit with which it was asked, for the elasticity of the air, and the heavenly tranquillity and bewitching loveliness of the hour, well disposed him to be joyous.

Beowulf and Roland are ideal heroes, essentially creatures of the imagination; but the merry host of the Tabard Inn, Madame Eglantyne, the fat monk, the parish priest, the kindly plowman, the poor scholar with his "bookës black and red,"all seem more like personal acquaintances than characters in a book.