The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol. I., Part A. · David Hume
EDRED
From the introduction of Christianity among the Saxons, there had been monasteries in England; and these establishments had extremely multiplied by the donations of the princes and nobles, whose superstition, derived from their ignorance and precarious life, and increased by remorses for the crimes into which they were so frequently betrayed, knew no other expedient for appeasing the Deity, than a profuse liberality towards the ecclesiastics. But the monks had hitherto been a species of secular priests, who lived after the manner of the present canons or prebendaries, and were both intermingled, in some degree, with the world, and endeavored to render themselves useful to it. They were employed in the education of youth;[*] they had the disposal of their own time and industry; they were not subjected to the rigid rules of an order; they had made no vows of implicit to their superiors;[*] and they still retained the choice, without quitting the convent, either of a married or a single life.[**] [* Osberne in Anglia Sacra, tom. ii. p. 91.]
But a mistaken piety had produced in Italy a new species of monks, called Benedictines; who, carrying farther the plan sible principles of mortification, secluded themselves entirely from the world, renounced all claim to liberty, and made a merit of the most inviolable chastity. These practices and principles, which superstition at first engendered, were greedily embraced and promoted by the policy of the court of Rome. The Roman pontiff, who was making every day great advances towards an absolute sovereignty over the ecclesiastics, perceived that the celibacy of the clergy alone could break off entirely their connection with the civil power, and, depriving them of every other object of ambition, engage them to promote, with unceasing industry, the grandeur of their own order. He was sensible that so long as the monks were indulged in marriage, and were permitted to rear families, they never could be subjected to strict discipline, or reduced to that slavery, under their superiors, which was requisite to procure to the mandates, issued from Rome, a ready and zealous obedience. Celibacy, therefore, began to be extolled as the indispensable duty of priests; and the pope undertook to make all the clergy, throughout the western world, renounce at once the privilege of marriage; a fortunate policy, but at the same time an undertaking the most difficult of any, since he had the strongest propensities of human nature to encounter, and found that the same connections with the female sex, which generally encourage devotion, were here unfavorable to the success of his project. It is no wonder, therefore, that this master-stroke of art should have met with violent contradiction, and that the interests of the hierarchy, and the inclinations of the priests, being now placed in this singular opposition, should, notwithstanding the continued efforts of Rome have retarded the execution of that bold scheme during the course of near three centuries.
Dunstan was born of noble parents in the west of England; and being educated under his uncle Aldhelm, then archbishop of Canterbury, had betaken himself to the ecclesiastical life, and had acquired some character in the court of Edmund. He was, however, represented to that prince as a man of licentious manners;[*] and finding his fortune blasted by these suspicions, his ardent ambition prompted him to repair his indiscretions, by running into an opposite extreme. He secluded himself entirely from the world; he framed a cell so small, that he could neither stand erect in it, nor stretch out his limbs during his repose; and he here employed himself perpetually either in devotion or in manual labor.[**] It is probable that his brain became gradually crazed by these solitary occupations, and that his head was filled with chimeras, which, being believed by himself and his stupid votaries, procured him the general character of sanctity among the people. He fancied that the devil, among the frequent visits which he paid him, was one day more earnest than usual in his temptations, till Dunstan, provoked at his importunity, seized him by the nose with a pair of red-hot pincers, as he put his head into the cell; and he held him there till that malignant spirit made the whole neighborhood resound with his bellowings. This notable exploit was seriously credited and extolled by the public; it is transmitted to posterity by one, who, considering the age in which he lived, may pass for a writer of some elegance;[***] and it insured to Dunstan a reputation which no real piety, much less virtue, could, even in the most enlightened period, have ever procured him with the people.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.