His Father even unto the death of the cross. The smallest peccadillo, the least negligence in service, was punished with strokes of the rod. The monk must have no possessions; he must never even use the word "my." This rule became common to all the other abbeys which were founded subsequently by Columbanus himself or his disciples. For Columbanus did not remain undisturbed within the walls of Luxeuil. Twice he was torn from his refuge by Brunhild, whose orders he refused to obey. He wandered through Champagne, and under his influence a monastery arose at Rebais and convents for women at Faremoutiers and Jouarre. Later he found his way to the shores of the Lake of Constance in Alemannia where his disciple Gallus founded the monastery which bore his name, St Gall. He ended his days on 23 November 615 in Italy, where the monastery of Bobbio claims him as its founder. Loyal disciples of his had reformed or founded in Gaul a large number of monasteries; in no similar period were so many founded as between the years 610 and 650. We can mention only the most famous — Echternach, Prüm, Etival, Senones, Moyenmoutier, St Mihiel-sur- Meuse, Malmédy, and Stavelot. Many of these monasteries received from one hundred to two hundred monks.
All these abbeys obeyed the same rule and were animated by the same spirit; they formed a sort of congregation. In general they declared themselves independent of the bishop — ad modum Luxovensium. They chose their abbots and administered their property freely. Moreover these monks did not confine themselves within the walls of their monasteries; they desired to play a part in the Church. St Wandrille claimed that the monks should not merely be allowed to count the years which they spent in the cloister, but those also in which they travelled in the service of God. The disciples of Columbanus were preachers like himself; they proclaimed the necessity of penance, the expiation of every mistake according to a fixed scale, as in the rule of the monastery, and at this time penitentials began to be widely circulated. The sense of sin became very keen among the people, and they multiplied gifts to the Church in order to atone for their transgressions. The monks also became missionaries; each abbey was, so to speak, the head-quarters of a mission. St Gall completed the conversion of the Alemans, Eustasius abbot of Luxeuil converted the heretical Warasci in the neighbourhood of Besançon and went to preach the Gospel in Bavaria. But the very number of these monasteries caused the defects of the rule of Columbanus to be quickly perceived. This rule did not provide for the administration of the monastery; it did not prescribe, hour by hour, the employments of the day; then, again, it was too severe, too crushing, and often reduced men to despair. Now, about a hundred years earlier (c. 529), Benedict of Nursia had given to the monastery of Monte Cassino an admirable rule; this rule was not known in France until after the death of Columbanus and the remarkable growth of monasteries
