ARBRISSEL (The Singular Life of).

Robert D’Arbrissel, founder of the famous abbey of Fontevraud, in the diocese of Poitiers, in the province of Anjou, was born about the year 1047, in the village of Arbrissel, seven leagues from Rennes. He went to Paris in the year 1074, and was there made a doctor of divinity. A bishop of Rennes, who though no scholar loved learned men and employed them, called him back to Britanny about the year 1085, and conferred upon him the dignities of arch-priest and official, and had the satisfaction to see him boldly struggle with the disorders that disgraced his diocese, in which the quarrels, simony, and concubinage of the clergy caused a great deal of disturbance and scandal. After Robert had for four years endeavoured to stop these disorders, seeing himself exposed by the death of his bishop to the ill will of the canons, who did not like his spirit of reformation, he bent his thoughts another way. He first went to Angers to teach divinity, but seeing the depraved manners of the age, he grew out of conceit with the world, and withdrew into a desert. His austere life in that place making a noise, many came to him to see and hear a saint, and he kept some of them with whom he began to make a sort of regular canons about the year 1094. Urban II. being in France two years after, heard so good a character of him that he sent for him, and willing to hear him preach, he ordered him to preach a sermon at the consecration of a church. He was so edified, that he created him apostolical preacher, and the Baron of Craon was so affected with this discourse, that he founded, the next day, an abbey, and gave it to Robert, who performed the office of abbot till the year 1098. He then concluded that his character of apostolical preacher did not allow that he should

be always shut up in the same place with his regular canons, and therefore quitted his abbey, and went from place to place to employ his talent of preaching. Having done this for two years, followed by a great multitude of men and women, he resolved to rest himself, and to fix his tabernacles in, the forest of Fontevraud. He wanted for nothing, every body striving to send him what was necessary to subsist the pious souls who remained with him; and in a short time he was in a capacity to give alms out of the surplus.

There was at the same time two other famous preachers, who agreed with him to share the two sexes between them, and to leave him the care of the women, whilst they took charge of the men. The names of these preachers were Bernard de Tiron, and Vitalis de Moriton. In vain were representations made to Robert of the hazard he would run by his zeal to instruct the fair sex, he rejected the advice as an artifice of the devil, and fortified himself with the example of St Jerome He despised the tempter, bade defiance to his cunning, and persevered in his female charge—imitating therein St Jerome, who was reviled by certain dealers in defamation for writing to the women, and preferring them to the men, whose cavils he refuted in a beautiful and copious encomium upon the fair sex.”—Main ferme,Clypei, vol. i. ⁴⁰. As soon as he had settled some good laws in his monastery of Fontevraud, he betook himself again to his business of ambulatory preacher, and preached in several provinces of France, and principally in Britanny and Normandy. He accomplished at Rouen one of the greatest things that one of his profession can effect, for in one of his exhortations he converted all the ladies of pleasure that were in a brothel wherein he went to preach the word. In the year 1104 he was present at the council of Beaugenci, and sat among the prelates. During

the years 1107 and 1108 he travelled all over Anjou, Poitou and Touraine, exercising his function of apostolical preacher, and his travels at least produced the effect of spreading the order of Fonteraud in all these provinces. The bishop of Poitiers went to Rome in the year 1106, to beg of his holiness the confirmation of this order. He obtained of Paschal II. a bull, whereby this pope declared, that he would take a particular care of it, and put it immediately under the jurisdiction of the Holy See, and pressingly exhorted Christians to be kind to this new institution. He confirmed all its privileges by a new bull in the year 1113. This order was already mightily increased, because its founder going into other provinces of France to preach, omitted not to settle convents in all of them. He also persuaded queen Bertrada to take the habit of his order, which she did not wear long, because its austerity soon killed her.

Robert found himself declining in the year 1115, and with the advice of several prelates, abbots and monks, whom he called together,conferred the generalship of the order on a woman. This choice hath been much censured; and there is nothing more singular in the monastic world, than to see a very numerous order composed of monks and nuns acknowledge a woman for their head and general; which is what the monks and nuns of the order of Fontevraud are obliged to do by their statutes. Robert d’Arbrissel made a law diametrically opposite to the Salic law; he thought it not enough that his ordermight fall under the government of a woman; he ordered that a woman should always succeed another woman in the dignity of its head and general. Father de la Mainferme employs all his third volume to justify this management of his founder. He answers all the objections that are commonly made, and he insists very much on

the blessed Virgin’s having commanded God himself; for it is said in Scripture that Jesus Christ was subject to his mother. If God, the necessary Being and Creator of all things hath not refused to obey a woman, shall we men, who are but vile creatures think much to do it? If ever the Romish church should do knowingly, what some pretend that she did ignorantly in the reign of pope Joan, father de la Mainferme’s book contains an apology ready for her; and I cannot see if the apology for Fontevraud be once allowed, why they should scruple to create a female pope. Besides, according to the hypothesis of most of the votaries of the communion of Rome, God hath bestowed on the blessed Virgin the empire of the world; for nothing is more common in these gentlemen’s books than the title of “ Queen of Heaven, Queen of Angels,” when they speak of the Virgin; it is even the language of their public worship, I mean the hymns of the church. A monk of Fontevraud made use one day of the following argument, and Father de la Mainferme relates it without censuring him for it: “ It happened once, that a monk, whose name I omit, and who could not digest our institution, told me speaking of it, that our kingdom was fallen into the hands of a woman; and he spoke more truly than he thought, and contrary to his intention, did us a great deal of honour. For it is true that it is in the hands of a woman, as the kingdom of the universe, heaven and earth is in the hands of a woman; namely, as it is ruled and governed by the sovereign power and authority of her, who, a strong woman,manam suam misit ad fortia; et digiti ejus apprehenderunt fusum, Prov. xxxi. v. 19:—layeth her hands to the spindle, and her fingers to the distaff.”

Robert fell sick as he was preaching in the diocese of Bourges in the year 1117, and caused

himself to be carried to the monastery of Orsan, where some few days after he died. The archbishop of Bourges with his clergy, and a great number of gentlemen and plebeians went with the corpse as far as the monastery of Fontevraud, where he solemnised his funeral twelve days after his decease. The earl of Anjou, the archbishop of Tours, the bishop of Angers, several abbots, and an incredible multitude of clergymen and other people went to meet this funeral pomp before it went out of the diocese of Tours.

Father de la Mainferme, a monk of Fontevraud, hath put out three apologetic volumes, wherein he earnestly labours to justify his patriarch, whom some have accused of sleeping with his nuns, only to expose himself to the strongest temptations. The accusation is founded upon a letter of Geoffry, abbot of Vendome, published by father Sirmond in 1610, from a manuscript in the abbey of La Couture. It informs Robert of the scandalous report that was spread concerning his conduct, and of the inconveniences which might arise from it. The words of the letter are, “Fœminarium quasdam, ut dicitur, minis familiariter tecum habitare per-mittis, et cum ipsis etiam, et inter ipsas, noctu frequenter cubare non erubescis. Hoc si modo agis, vel aliquando egisti, novum, et inauditum sed infructuosum martyrii genus invenisti.... Mulierum quibusdam, sicut fama sparsit, et nos ante diximus, sæpe privatim loqueris et earum accubitu novo martyrii genere crucians.— It is said that you suffer some of the women to live with you in too great a familiarity, and scruple not to lie with them and among them frequently in the night. If this be, or have been your practice, you have found a new and indeed unheard of, but fruitless kind of martyrdom ! It is reported, as I have said before, that you converse in private with some of the

women, and inflict upon yourself a new kind of martyrdom by laying with them.”

Another letter which is ascribed to Marbodue, bishop of Rennes, contains the same information. “ Mulierum cohabitationem diceris plus amare. Has ergo non solum communi mensi per diem, sed et communi accubitu per noctum dignaris, ut re-ferunt.—It is reported that you are too fond of living with women, and that you do not only admit them to your table by day, but into your bed at night.” He also blames Robert for allowing young girls to take the habit too rashly, and represents to him the ill consequences of such a proceeding. Some of them, as the ninth month drew on had broken out of the cloister to lie in elsewhere, and others were brought to bed in the midst of their cells. “ Taceo de juvenculis, quas sine examine religionem professas mutata veste per di versas cellulas protinus inclusisti. Hujus igitur facti temeritatem miserabilis exitus probat. Aliæ enim urgente partu, fractis ergastulis elapsæ sunt aliæ in ipsis ergastulis pepererunt.” In the letter ascribed to Godfrey ‘of Vendome, Robert d’Arbrissel is also accused of having a respect of persons. “There are some women, says the letter, with whom you are in a pleasant humour, quick, active, brisk, and so complaisant, that you spare nothing to express your civility to them; but to others, you never vouchsafe to speak, but scold them; use them with a great deal of severity, and leave them exposed to hunger, thirst, and cold. Illis siquidem te semper sermone jocundum os tendis, et alacrem actione, omneque genus humanitatis exhibes, nulla servata parcitate.” And again “Aliis vero, si quando cum ipsis loqueris, semper locutione nimis durus appares, nimis districtus correctione: illas etiam fame, et siti ac nuditate crucias omni relicta pietate.” This insinuates what Theophilus Raynaud affirms, that Robert pitched upon the

most beautiful when he had a mind to expose himself to temptation by being a bed with a woman. Observe, in the second place, that father de la Mainferme doth not quote all that is said in the pretended letter of Marbodus. I have seen it more full in Mr Menage, and have found that Robert is told, that he had been formerly faulty with women. It is not strange that the father should so earnestly exert himself against the author of this accusation. He denies the matter of fact Father de la Mainferme with great safety denied the existence of the epistle of Geoffry of Vendome, since according to the testimony of Menage, it had been abstracted from the collection at the instance of Joan Baptiste de Bourbon, a legitimate daughter of Frances, abbess of Fontevraud, after its publication by father Sirmond. Menage’s quotation from the letters of Marbodus mentions in addition to the passage in the text, that “Robert was reproached with taking a great many women with him in his travels, and dispersing great numbers of them in divers provinces, in the inns and hospitals promiscuously with the men, under the pretence of serving the poor and strangers.” It is added, that this fine arrangement produced a sufficient number of children to prove beyond all doubt that Robert exposed his female followers to very great dangers.—Ed. ⁴¹, and it is the best way to form his apology, for nothing is more inconsistent with purity of heart and person, than this mortification in the resistance of a voluntary temptation. Mr Menage deserves to be consulted on the proofs that father de la Mainferme hath rejected, as also “ The Apologetical Dissertation for theBlessed Robert d’ Arbrissel.”

Remarks on continency, as connected with the conduct of Robert d’Arbrissel.

The sins arising out of sexual desire are not of the nature of those that are to be conquered by assaulting, encountering, and crushing them. À running fight, or rather a downright flight, is the surest way to obtain victory. Is it not a strange

rashness, and a punishable contempt of this wholesome advice,Quisquis amat periculum peribit in illo, to provoke so dangerous an enemy, and to attack him in his strong holds? Arbrissel ought scarcely to have looked him in the face, and yet he was rash enough to take him by the neck, (as is reported) in order to wrestle with him:

Cervi luporum præda rapacium
Sectamur ultro, quos opimus
Fallere et effugere est triumphus Horat. Ode iv.lib, 4,

We feeble stags the ravenous wolves defy,
And madly follow what we ought to fly,
To scape from such a foe is victory.

If those that make a vow of chastity be wise, they ought carefully to seek for the gift of forgetfulness, and wholly exclude from their minds all lascivious ideas, far from sleeping by living objects.

Let us see what Socrates advised his disciples:— “ Thou thinkest, 'thou senseless fellow,” says he, “ that love kisses are not poisoned, because thou dost not see their venom: know that a fine woman is an animal more dangerous than scorpions, because these cannot wound us unless they touch us; but beauty wounds at a distance: on which side soever we perceive it, it darts its venom upon us, and oversets our understanding. It is perhaps for this reason that love is represented with bows and arrows, because a handsome face wounds us afar off. I advise thee therefore, Xenophon, when thou seest a beauty, to run away, and never look back; and as for thee, Critobulus, I think it convenient that thou shouldest be absent for one whole year; for this absence will not be too long to cure thee of thy wound Xenophon’s Memorabilia. ⁴².” Let us add what St Jerome said to those who approved not a retirement in deserts, and

who pretended that it was not fighting vice but flying it, and that none but those who encountered and overcame it, deserved to be crowned. Among other things he answered, that the surest way ought to be selected; and therefore that it was better to fly than to keep the field, when one might as well be beaten as conquered. There is no safety, added he, to sleep near a serpent; for it may happen that it will not bite, but it may also happen to bite. He expresses himself so handsomely on this head, that I cannot forbear transcribing his own words. They are so many thunderbolts against that carriage which is laid to Arbrissel’s charge. “ Who being conscious of his own inferiority, and sensible that the vessel which he carries is brittle, is afraid to make a false step lest he should fall and break it. For which reason he shuns the sight of woman, especially of the younger sort, and keeps so strict a guard over himself as to be afraid in the midst of security. You will ask the reason of my retiring into solitude. It is that I may not hear or see you, that I may not be moved by your passions, that I may not be exposed to a war with you, that no wanton eye may enslave me, that no ravishing beauty may lead me to forbidden embraces. You will answer that this is not to fight but to fly; keep your rank, stand to your arms, that having conquered you may receive the crown. I own my weakness; I would not fight in hopes of victory, lest I should fail in the success. If I fly, I escape the sword. If I encounter, I must conquer or fall. Where is the necessity of quitting certainty and following uncertainty. Death may be avoided either by fighting or by flying. You who fight may be either conquered or a conqueror; I that fly do not conquer by flight, but fly that I may not be conquered. No man can sleep in safety when a serpent is near him. It is possible it may not bite, but it is also possible that it may.”—Hieronym. Epis. adv. Viqilantium. The author of a book printed at Paris in the year 1630, and entitled “ Le Miroir des Chanoines,’ hath gathered a great many sentences, which loudly condemn the rash behaviour of those who draw as near danger as they can. “ Joseph,” says he, “ leaves his mantle, rather than to struggle with Potiphar’s wife; because as it is contagious and venemous to touch a woman, it ought to be as much dreaded as the biting of a mad dog.” This comparison is of St Jerome, “ Ipse mulieris contactus quasi contagiosus et venenatus est viro fugiendus, non minus quàm rabidissimi canis morsus.” Our author adds, that St Jordan, in St Antoninus, chides severely a monk for having only touched a woman’s hand. But she is a pious woman, answered the monk: No matter, replies St Jordan, for the earth is good, water is also good; but if these two elements are mixed, the result is dirt. St Jerome perceiving what prejudice the resort of women, however free from suspicion and scandal, did to clergymen,—“ Let a woman,” says he, “ never, or at least seldom, come into thy chamber; because whoever loves their company cannot dwell with God with all his heart. A woman burns the conscience of him with whom she dwells. Let women know thy name, but not thy face; neither do thou know theirs.—St Cyprian confutes subtilely and learnedly those daring spirits who, presuming on their integrity, are not in the least afraid of women, generously hoping not to he foiled by them. This is his thought: It is impossible to be surrounded with flames without being burnt; and it is more expedient to fear well, than to presume ill. It is more useful that man should acknowledge his weakness to become strong, than appear strong to become weak. That man is deceived, who believes himself something, and is really nothing. Who can place a firebrand to his breast and not bum his clothes? Yes, but I would overcome, that I may afterwards triumph. Hast not thou thy own flesh to encounter with and to conquer? Why wilt thou have laurels out of another soil? The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. Let this be said once for all: the conversation of women is the devil’s own birdlime, to catch and enslave men. Unaccountable blindness ! to choose one's abode in a place where there is every day an absolute necessity to perish or overcome; and to imagine that it is possible to sleep securely near a viper.” Our author prescribing afterwards some remedies against the lust of the flesh, puts abstinence in the first place, and to frequent good company in the second; and then he says that the third must be never to come near women, and to see them afar off; as Lacides (in Lærtius) said to king Attalus, that pictures ought to be seen. St Augustin, on these words of St Paul,fuqitefornicationem, observes, that St Paul doth not say resist, but flee; because victory is more certain by flight than by resistance.

Tu fugiendo fuga, quem fuga sola fugat:
Defeat by flight, what flight alone defeats.

These maxims, so certain, and in themselves so considerable, and besides so commendable, because they are laid down and approved in the writings of great saints, for whom people have a mighty veneration; these maxims, I say, are very often inculcated into the minds of those who have most need of them. All this is every day preached to them, and exposed to their view in an infinite number of books, and yet they willingly follow the custom of venturing themselves. One would think that they set up for bravery, and that running

away seems to them as shameful an act of cowardice as it would be to soldiers. They boldly and cheerfully expose themselves to blows. And the fair sex, whose business is not to be brave, yet shows in that respect a great deal of undaunted courage; for these are as well pleased to be visited in their cloisters as men are to visit them. They behave themselves on both sides as if neither feared an overthrow; and it is very likely they are so secure, not because they rely on their strength, but because neither party is very willing to come off conqueror in this conflict; and at the worst the encounter itself, let the issue be what it may, is not without some pleasure. If they get a victory, it is so much got from Nature; but if they be overcome, it. is so much gained for her. Let this be said without doing any prejudice to those who have sincerely made a vow of chastity, and who no doubt, if they do not put in practice St Jerome’s advice, are assured that their visits, their long conversations, will not excite in them any evil desires. However, they will readily condemn the excessive rashness whereof some thought the founder of Fontevraud guilty The learning displayed by Bayle on this curious subject, is evidently made a vehicle for the poignant irony of his conclusion. It may be suspected that a literal attention to the advice of St Jerome, on the part of the priesthood of any religion would materially check its propagation.—Ed. ⁴³.—Art,Arerissel.