672
CHARI T Y
AND
CHARITIES
orphans and wards; and (4) there were houses for infant the system of institutional relief parallel to the more children (brephotropheia). Thus a large number of en- personal almsgiving of the parish. Monasticism, in acting on men of strong character, endowed charities had grown up. This new movement it is necessary to consider in connexion with the law relating dowed them with a double strength of will, and to men to religious property and bequests, in its bearing on the like St Gregory it seemed to give back with administrative power the relentless firmness of the Roman. In the East rule of the monasteries, and in its effect on the family. produced the turbulent soldiery of the Church, in the The sacred property {res sacra) of Roman law consisted of things it dedicated to the gods by the pontiff with the authority of the West its missionaries) and each mission-monastery was a civil authority, in turn, the people, the senate, and the emperor. centre of relief. Things so consecrated were inalienable. Apart from this in the In Benedictine monasteries, on the east side (sec Smith’s Diet. empire, the municipalities as they grew up were considered Christian Antiq.) of the quadrangle, separated from the rest of “juristic persons” who were entitled to receive and hold property. the house (cf. the guest arrangements) were the dormitory and In a similar position were authorized collegia, amongst which were kitchen of the strangers. A hospitularius attended to their the mutual aid societies referred to above. Christians associated needs and novices waited on them. Guests who were laymen in these societies would leave legacies to them. Thus _(W. M. might stay on, either taking the vow, or working in return for Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, I. i. 119), an inscrip- board and lodging. Usually the almonry was at the gate. (Cf. tion mentions a bequest (possibly by a Christian) to the council Dugdale, ii. 43, &c.) Also the monasteries were centres of local {synedrion) of the presidents of the dyers in purple for a cere- relief: thus, for instance (cf. Rule ; St Dunst. Cant. Archep. p. xlii. monial, on the condition that, if the ceremony be neglected, the Dugdale), every day three of those who were continuously fed iu legacy shall become the property of the guild for the care of the monastery were selected to share the food of the brothers. nurslings ; and in the same way a bequest is left in Rome But whatever the services monasticism rendered, it can {Orelli, 4420) for a memorial sacrifice, on the condition that, if it be not performed, double the cost be paid to the treasury hardly be said to have furthered true charity from the social of the corn-supply {fisco stationis annonce). No unauthorized standpoint, even if we include its institutional work. collegia could receive a legacy. “The law recognized no The movement was necessarily anti-parochial, and thus out of freedom of association.” Nor could any private individual create a foundation with separate property of its own. Property sympathy with the charities of the parish, where personal relations could only be left to an authorized juristic person, being a with the poor at their homes count for most. In later times, municipality or a collegium. But as the problem of poverty not unfrequently, property and tithe which belonged to a parish was considered from a broader standpoint, there was a desire to and supported its church and priest were diverted to a monastery ; deal with it in a more permanent manner than by the annona and the clergy of the church first becoming canonici, or bound rule, and then assuming the collegiate or monastic character, civica. The pueri alimentarii (see above) were considered to by hold their property as part of the jiscus or property of the state. introduced the hybrid system of parochial management by Pliny {Ep. vii. 18), seeking a method of endowment, transferred monastic bodies. How far this was beneficial to the parish property in land to the steward of public property, and then took and the life and charities of the family is very doubtful. The good evil may be weighed. Monasticism working through St it back again subject to a permanent charge for the aid of children and of freemen. By the law of Constantine and subsequent laws no Augustine helped the world to realize the mood of love as the real such devices were necessary. Widows or deaconesses, or virgins or eternal life. Of the natural life of the world and its responsidedicated to God, or nuns (a.d. 455), could leave bequests to a bilities, through which that mood would have borne its completest church or memorial church {martyrum), or to a priest or a monk, or fruit, it took but little heed, except in so far as, by creating a possessed of leisure, it created able scholars, lawyers, and to the poor in any shape or form, in writing or without it. Later class (a.d. 475) donations of every kind, “ to the person of any administrators, and disciplined the will of strong men. It had martyr, or apostle, or prophet, or the holy angels,” for building no power to stay the social evils of the day. Unlike the friars, at an oratory were made valid, even if the building were promised their best the monks were a class apart, not a class mixed up only and not begun; and the same rule applied to infirmaries with the people. So were their charities. The belief in poverty {noscomia) and poor-houses {ptocheia)—the bishop or steward being as a fixed condition—irretrievable and ever to be alleviated withcompetent to appear as plaintiff in such cases. Later, again, out any regard to science or observation, subjected charity (a.d.528) contributions of 50 solidi (say about £19:10s.) to a church, to a perpetual stagnation. Charity requires belief in growth, hostel {xenodocheion), &c., were made legal, though not registered ; in the sharing of life, in the utility and nobility of what is. here and now for the hereafter ol this present world, while larger sums, if registered, were also legalized. So (a.d. done 529) property might be given for “churches, hostels, poor-houses, Monasticism had no thought of this. It was based on a belie! in infant and orphan homes, and homes for the aged, or any such the evil of matter ; and from that root could spring no social community ” [consortium), even though not registered, and such charity. Economic difficulties also fostered monasticism. Gold; property was free from taxation. The next year (530) it was was appreciated in value, and necessaries were expensive, and the enacted that prescription even for 100 years did not alienate cost of maintaining a family was great. It was an economy to. Church and charitable property. The broadest interpretation was force a son or a brother into the Church. The population was allowed. If by will a share of an estate was left “ to Christ our decreasing ; and in spite of Church feeling Marjorian (a.d. 461) Lord,” the church of the city or other locality might receive it had to forbid women from taking the veil before forty, and to as heir ; “let these, the law says, belong to the holy churches, require the remarriage of widows, subject to a large forfeit of so that they may become the alimony of the poor.” It was property (Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, ii. 420). Monasticism sufficient to leave property to the poor {Corpus Juris Civilis, was inconsistent with the social good. As to the family—like ed. Krueger, 1877, ii. 25). The bequest was legal. It went to the moderns who depreciate thrift and are careless of the life of the legal representative of the poor—the Church. Charitable the family, the monks, believing that marriage was a lower form property was thus Church property. The word “alms” covered of morality, if not indeed, as would at times appear, hardly both. It was given to pious uses, and as a kind of public moral at all, could feel hardly any enthusiasm for what is socially institution “ shared that corporate capacity which belonged to all the very source of the health of the community and the wellecclesiastical institutions by virtue of a general rule of law.” On spring of all charitable feeling. By the sacerdotal - monastic a pia causa it was not necessary to confer a juristic personality. movement the moralizing force of Christianity was denaturalized. Other laws preserved or regulated alienation (a.d. 477, a.d. 530), The falsity of its position revealed itself in unrecognized and and checked negligence or fraud in management. The clergy- degrading relations between men and women. But, worse than it pushed charity from its pivot. For this no monasteries or had thus become the owners of large properties, with the coloni all, no domination of religious belief, could atone.. The and slaves upon the estates and the allowances of civic corn institutions, {annona civica) ; and (a.d. 357) it was stipulated that whatever Church that had fostered chastity and marriage was betraying its It was out of touch with the primal unit of social life, the they acquired by thrift or trading should be used for the service trust. of dawning habits and the loving economy of the of the poor and needy, though what they acquired from the child-school It produced no treatise on economy in the older Greek labour of their slaves in the labour houses {ergastula) or inns home. of the word. The home was nothing to it; and the popular {tabernce) might be considered a profit of religion {religionis sense worship of the family, the Holy Family, marks the reaction, lucrum). expressing itself in the only way through which it could find an Tlius grew up the system ot endowed charities, which effective and untrammelled outlet, in a popular cult, which was, with certain modifications continued throughout the Middle strictly speaking, inconsistent with the later tenets ot the religion Ages, and, though it assumed different forms in connexion with which it could not but remain associated. We may ask, then, What were the results of charity at with guilds and municipalities, in England it still retains, partially at least, its relation to the Church. It remained the close of the period, which ends with St Gregory and the
