The Age of Erasmus

15. Perterreo, perterres; meaning, in pauorem conuertere.

Active.

17. Cinci (the Kenites): middle syllable long.

15. Desilio, desilis, desilii or desiliui: middle syllable short in trisyllables in the present; meaning, de aliquo salire siue descendere festinanter.

21. clauus, masc., claui: meaning, acutum ferrum, malleus, masc., mallei: meaning, martellus.

tempus, neut.: meaning, pars capitis, for which some people say timpus.

For Daniel vi, the story of Daniel in the lions" den, the commentary is even briefer:

6. surripuerunt: meaning, falso suggesserunt. Surripio, surripis, surrepsi(!): meaning, latenter rapere, subtrahere, furari.

10. comperisset; meaning, cognouisset. Comperio, comperis, comperi: fourth conjugation.

20. affatus: meaning, allocutus. From affor, affaris; and governs the accusative.

We must not exalt ourselves above the author. He is very humble. "Let any imperfections in the book", says his preface, "be attributed to me: and if there is anything good, let it be thought to have come from G.o.d." He gave them of his best, explaining away such as he could of the difficulties which had confronted him. But one can imagine the disgust of even a moderate scholar if, wishing to study the Bible more carefully, he could obtain access to nothing better than Mammotrectus.

Though Erasmus has not much to tell us of his time at Deventer, a fuller account of the school may be found in the autobiography of John Butzbach (_c._ 1478-1526), who for the last nineteen years of his life was Prior of Laach.[12] Indeed, his narrative is so detailed and so ill.u.s.trative of the age that it may well detain us here. He was the son of a weaver in the town of Miltenberg (hence Piemonta.n.u.s) on the Maine, above Aschaffenburg. At the age of six he was put to school and already began to learn Latin; one of his nightly exercises that he brought home with him being to get by heart a number of Latin words for vocabulary. After a few years he came into trouble with his master for laziness and truancy, and received a severe beating; his mother intervened and got the master dismissed from his post, and Butzbach was removed from the school.

[12] Butzbach"s ma.n.u.scripts from Laach are now in the University Library at Bonn, but have never been printed.

I have used a German translation by D.J. Becker, Regensburg, 1869.

An opportunity then offered for him to get a wider education. The son of a neighbour who had commenced scholar, returned home for a time, and offered to take Butzbach with him when he went off again to pursue his courses for his degree. The consent of his parents was obtained; and the scholar having received a liberal contribution towards expenses, and Butzbach being equipped with new clothes, the pair set out together. The boy was now ten, and looked forward hopefully to the future; but the scholar quickly showed himself in his true colours.

He treated Butzbach as a f.a.g, made him trudge behind carrying the larger share of their bundles, and when they came to an inn feasted royally himself off the money given to him for the boy, leaving him to the charity of the innkeepers. At the end of two months the money was spent, and they had found no place of settlement. Henceforward Butzbach was set to beg, going from house to house in the villages they pa.s.sed, asking for food; and when this failed to produce enough, he was required to steal. The scholar treated him shamefully and beat him often; and as it was a well-known practice for f.a.gs, when begging, to eat up delicacies at once, instead of bringing them in, Butzbach was sometimes subjected to the regular test, being required to fill his mouth with water and then spit it out into a basin for his master to examine whether there were traces of fat.

The scholar"s aim was to find some school, having attached to it a Bursa or hostel, in which they could obtain quarters; apparently he was not yet qualified for a university. They made their way to Bamberg, but there was no room for them in the Bursa. So on they went into Bohemia, where at the town of Kaaden the rector of the school was able to allot them a room--just a bare, unfurnished chamber, in which they were permitted to settle. Such teaching as Butzbach received was spasmodic and ineffectual, and after two years of this bondage he ran away. For the next five years he was in Bohemia in private service, longing for home, hating his durance among the heathen, as he called the Bohemians for following John Hus, but lacking courage to make his escape from masters who could send hors.e.m.e.n to scour the countryside for fugitive servants and string them up to trees when caught.

However, at length the opportunity came, and after varying fortunes, Butzbach made his way home to Miltenberg, to find his father dead and his mother married again.

For the substantial accuracy of Butzbach"s narrative his character is sufficient warranty. He was a pious, honest man, and at the time when he wrote his autobiography at the request of his half-brother Philip, he was already a monk at Laach. But the picture of a young student"s sufferings under an elder"s cruelty can be paralleled with surprising closeness from the autobiography of Thomas Platter, mentioned above; the wandering from one school to another, the maltreatment, the begging, the enforced stealing, all these are reproduced with just the difference of surroundings.

Platter"s account of his life at Breslau is worth quoting. "I was ill three times in one winter, so that they were obliged to bring me into the hospital; for the travelling scholars had a particular hospital and physicians for themselves. Care was taken of the patients, and they had good beds, only the vermin were so abundant that, like many others, I lay much rather upon the floor than in the beds. Through the winter the f.a.gs lay upon the floor in the school, but the Bacchants in small chambers, of which at St. Elizabeth"s there were several hundreds. But in summer, when it was hot, we lay in the church-yard, collected together gra.s.s such as is spread in summer on Sat.u.r.days in the gentlemen"s streets before the doors, and lay in it like pigs in the straw. When it rained, we ran into the school, and when there was thunder, we sang the whole night with the Subcantor, responses and other sacred music. Now and then after supper in summer we went into the beerhouses to beg for beer. The drunken Polish peasants would give us so much that I often could not find my way to the school again, though only a stone"s throw from it." Platter wrote his autobiography at the age of 73, when his memories of his youth must have been growing dim; but though on this account we must not press him in details, his main outlines are doubtless correct.

On his return, Butzbach was apprenticed to Aschaffenburg, to learn the trade of tailoring; and having mastered this, he procured for himself, in 1496, the position of a lay-brother in the Benedictine Abbey of Johannisberg in the Rheingau, opposite Bingen. His duties were manifold. Besides doing the tailoring of the community, he was expected to make himself generally useful: to carry water and fetch supplies, to look after guests, to attend the Abbot when he rode abroad (on one occasion he was thrown thus into the company of Abbot Trithemius of Sponheim, whose work on the Ecclesiastical writers of his time he afterwards attempted to carry on), to help in the hay harvest, and in gathering the grapes. Before a year was out he grew tired of these humble duties, and bethought him anew of his father"s wish that he should become a professed monk. He had omens too. One morning his father appeared to him as he was dressing, and smiled upon him. Another day he was sitting at his work and talking about his wish with an old monk who was sick and under his care. On the wall in front of his table he had fastened a piece of bread, to be a reminder of the host and of Christ"s sufferings. Suddenly this fell to the ground. The old man started up from his place by the stove, and steadying his tottering limbs cried out aloud that this was a sign that the wish was granted. He had the reputation among his fellows of being a prophet and had foretold the day of his own death. Butzbach accepted the omen, and obtained leave to go to school again.

His choice was Deventer. One of the brethren wrote him an elegant letter to Hegius applying for admission; and though, as he says, he answered no questions in his entrance examination (which appears to have been oral), on the strength of the letter he was admitted and placed in the seventh cla.s.s, a young man of twenty amongst the little boys who were making a beginning at grammar. But he had no means of support except occasional jobs of tailor"s work, and hunger drove him back to Johannisberg. There he might have continued, had not a chance meeting with his mother, when he had ridden over to Frankfort with the Abbot, given him a new spur. She could not bear to think of his remaining a Lollhard, that is a lay-brother, all his days; and pressing money privily into his hands, she besought the Abbot to let him return to Deventer. In August 1498 he was there again, was examined by Hegius, and was placed this time in the lowest cla.s.s, the eighth, in company with a number of stolid louts, who had fled to school to escape being forced to serve as soldiers. There was reason in their fears. The Duke of Gueldres was at war with the Bishop of Utrecht. A hundred prisoners had been executed in the three days before Butzbach"s return, and as he strode into Deventer to take up his books again, he may have seen their scarce-cold bodies swinging on gibbets against the summer sunset. The schoolboy of to-day works in happier surroundings.

Butzbach"s career henceforward was fortunate. He was taken up by a good and pious woman, Gutta Kortenhorff, who without regular vows had devoted herself to a life of abstinence and self-sacrifice; taking special pleasure in helping young men who were preparing for the Franciscan or the reformed Benedictine Orders. For nine months Butzbach lived in her house, doubtless out of grat.i.tude rendering such service as he could to his kind patroness. From the eighth cla.s.s he pa.s.sed direct into the sixth, and at Easter 1499 he was promoted into the fifth. This ent.i.tled him to admission to the Domus Pauperum maintained by the Brethren of the Common Life for boys who were intending to become monks; and so he transferred himself thither for the remainder of his course. But he suffered much from illness, and five several times made up his mind to give up and return home--once indeed this was only averted by a swelling of his feet, which for a prolonged period made it impossible for him to walk. After six months in the fifth, and a year in the fourth cla.s.s, he was moved up into the third, thus traversing in little over two years what had occupied Erasmus for something like nine.

Butzbach was by temperament inclined to glorify the past; in the present he himself had a share, and therefore in his humility he thought little of it. In consequence we must not take him too literally in his account of the condition of the school; but it is too interesting to pa.s.s over. "In the old days", he says, "Deventer was a nursery for the Reformed Orders; they drew better boys, more suited to religion, out of the fifth cla.s.s, than they do now out of the second or first, although now much better authors are read there. Formerly there was nothing but the Parables of Alan , the moral distichs of Cato, Aesop"s Fables, and a few others, whom the moderns despise; but the boys worked hard, and made their own way over difficulties. Now when even in small schools the choicest authors are read, ancient and modern, prose and poetry, there is not the same profit; for virtue and industry are declining. With the decay of that school, religion also is decaying, especially in our Order, which drew so many good men from there. And yet it is not a hundred years since our reformation."

He does not indicate how far back he was turning his regretful gaze; whether to the early years of the fifteenth century when Nicholas of Cues was a scholar at Deventer, or to the more recent times of Erasmus, who was about three school-generations ahead of him. But of the books used there in the last quarter of the fifteenth century we can form a clear notion from the productions of the Deventer printers, Richard Paffraet and Jacobus of Breda. School-books then as now were profitable undertakings, if printed cheap enough for the needy student; and Paffraet, with Hegius living in his house, must have had plenty of opportunities for antic.i.p.ating the school"s requirements.

Between 1477 and 1499 he printed Virgil"s Eclogues, Cicero"s _De Senectute_ and _De Amicitia_, Horace"s _Ars Poetica_, the _Axiochus_ in Agricola"s translation, Cyprian"s Epistles, Prudentius" poems, Juvencus" _Historia Euangelica_, and the _Legenda Aurea_: also the grammar of Alexander with the commentary of Synthius and Hegius, Agostino Dato"s _Ars scribendi epistolas_, Aesop"s Fables, and the _Dialogus Creaturarum_, the latter two being moralized in a way which must surely have pleased Butzbach. Jacobus of Breda, who began printing at Deventer in 1486, produced Virgil"s Eclogues, Cicero"s _De Senectute_ and _De Officiis_, Boethius" _De consolatione philosophiae_ and _De disciplina scholarium_, Aesop, a poem by Baptista Mantua.n.u.s, the "Christian Virgil", Alan of Lille"s _Parabolae_, Alexander, two grammatical treatises by Synthius and the _Epistola mythologica_ of Bartholomew of Cologne.

This last, as being the work of a master in the school, deserves attention; and also for its intrinsic interest. As its t.i.tle implies, it is cast in the form of a letter, addressed to a friend Pancratius; and it is dated from Deventer 10 July 1489--nine years before Butzbach entered the school. It opens with the customary apologies, and after some ordinary topics the writer, Bartholomew, says that he is sending back some books borrowed from Pancratius, including a Sidonius which he has had on loan for three years. At this point there is a transformation. Sidonius is personified and becomes the centre of a series of semi-comic incidents, which afford an opportunity for introducing various words for the common objects of everyday life; and a glossary explains many of these with precision. There is a long and vivid account of the waking of Sidonius from his three years" slumber.

The door has to be broken open, and Sidonius is found lying to all appearances dead. A feather burnt under his nose produces slight signs of life; and when a good beating with the bar of the door is threatened, he at length rouses himself. Servants come in, and their different duties are described. They fall to quarrelling and become uproarious; and in the scuffle Sidonius is hurt. A lotion is prepared for his bruises, and he is offered diet suitable for an invalid: boiled sturgeon, washed down with wine or beer, the latter being from Bremen or Hamburg.

Afterwards the room is cleared up, and thus an opportunity is given to describe it. Then a table is spread for the rest of the party, and the various requisites are specified--tablecloth and napkins, pewter plates, earthenware mugs, a salt-cellar and two bra.s.s stands for the dishes. Bread is put round to each place, chairs are brought up with cushions; and jugs of wine and beer placed in the centre of the table.

Finally a basin is brought with ewer and towel for the guests to wash their hands, and as one o"clock strikes, dinner appears, and all sit down together, including the servants. After the meal a dice-box and board are produced; but one of the guests demurs, and it is put aside.

In the conversation that ensues it is arranged that Sidonius shall go back to his master next morning after breakfast. The servant who is to accompany him asks that they may go in a carriage; but this is overruled, because of a recent accident in which one had been upset, and it is determined that a Spanish palfrey of easy paces shall be provided for Sidonius. At six supper is served; and then the curtain falls, the letter relapsing into normal matters--inquiries for a Euclid, regrets at being unable to send to Pancratius Hyginus and the _Astronomica_ of Manilius.

It is clear that the object of the book, which is of no great length, was to give boys correct Latin words for the material objects of their daily life: something like Bekker"s _Gallus_ and _Charicles_ on a small scale. In carrying out this idea Bartholomew of Cologne has provided us with a sketch of the world that he knew.

III

MONASTERIES

Erasmus was not fitted for the monastic life. This is not to say that he was a bad man. Few men outside the ranks of the holy have worked harder or made greater sacrifices to do G.o.d service. But his was a free spirit. His work could only be done in his own way; and to live according to another"s rule fretted him beyond endurance. His experience in the matter was not fortunate. In 1483 his mother died of plague at Deventer, whither she had accompanied him. His father recalled him next year to Gouda, but died soon afterwards; and his guardians then sent him with his elder brother to a school kept by the Brethren of the Common Life at Hertogenbosch--doubtless to a Domus Pauperum for intending monks, such as Butzbach entered at Deventer; for in this connexion Erasmus describes the schools of the Brethren as seminaries for the regular orders. After two years they returned to Gouda, and Erasmus begged to be sent to a university; but no means were forthcoming, and the guardian prevailed upon the elder brother Peter to enter the monastery of Sion, near Delft. Erasmus held out for some time; but he was without resources and the influences at work upon him were strong. One day he fell in with a school-friend, Cornelius of Woerden, who had recently entered the house of Augustinian canons at Steyn, near Gouda. In his loneliness any friend was welcome. He paid visits to Steyn and saw that the life there offered leisure and even possibilities of study; Cornelius, too, seemed inclined to be a ready companion in literary pursuits. Urged by his guardian, invited by his friend, he gave way at length to the double pressure and entered Steyn.

After a novitiate of a year, during which life was made easy to him, he took his canonical vows; and soon began to repent of the step he had made. For about seven years he lived in what seemed to him a prison. There were, no doubt, good men amongst his fellow-canons. In all his diatribes against monasticism he was ready to admit that the Orders contained plenty of G.o.d-fearing souls, doing their duty honestly; and the evidence shows clearly enough that this was correct.

It is, however, equally true that there were mediocrities among them, and even worse; men with low standards and no ideals, who brought their fellows to shame. Vows in those days were indissoluble, except in rare cases; as a rule it was only by flight and disappearance for ever that a man could escape social disgrace and the penalties threatened by the spiritual arm to a renegade monk. To-day, when orders can be laid down at the holder"s will, the Church of England contains priests of whom it cannot get rid.

The good, even when they rule, do not always lead; nor are they always learned. Erasmus found the atmosphere of Steyn hopelessly distasteful.

It was not that he was prevented from study. His compositions of this period show a wide acquaintance with the cla.s.sics and the Fathers; and his style, though it had not yet attained to the ease and lucidity of his later years, has much of the elegance beyond which his contemporaries never advanced. The fact, too, that he left Steyn to become Latin Secretary to a powerful bishop implies that he must have had many opportunities for study and have made good use of them. But from what he says it is clear that the tone of the place was set by the mediocrities. We need not suppose that vice was rampant among them, to shock the young and enthusiastic scholar. There was quite enough to daunt him in the prospect of a life spent among the narrow-minded. Sinners who feel waves of repentance may be better house-mates than those who have worldly credit enough to make them self-satisfied.

Fortunately all houses of religion were not alike, any more than colleges are alike to-day. Butzbach"s lot was very different; and it is a pleasant contrast to turn to his experiences at Laach, an important Benedictine abbey some miles west of Andernach. In the autumn of 1500, when he had been two years at Deventer, there appeared one day in the school the Steward of the Abbey of Niederwerth, an island in the Rhine below Coblenz. What the business was which had brought him from his own monastery, is not stated; but he had also been asked to do some recruiting for the Benedictines at Laach. The Abbot there was nephew of the Prior at Niederwerth, and had taken this opportunity to extend his quest further afield. The Steward brought with him letters from the Abbot to the Rector of Deventer, now Ostendorp, and also to the Brethren of the Common Life, asking for some good and well-educated young men. The Rector"s first appeal evoked no response; so the Steward went on about his business. After three weeks he returned, having visited other schools, but bringing no one with him. Once more Ostendorp addressed the third and fourth cla.s.ses in impressive words. But all seemed in vain. The students had paid their school fees for the half-year, and were ashamed to ask for them back from the Rector and other teachers--into whose pockets they appear to have gone direct. Their money paid for board and lodging would have been sacrificed also. It happened, too, to be exceptionally cold--not the weather in which any one would lightly set out on a journey. We must remember that the calendar had not yet been rectified, and that they were about ten days nearer to midwinter than their dates show.

On occasions the whole school came together to hear the Rector--it was at such times, Erasmus tells us, that he heard Hegius. At one of these gatherings during the Steward"s second visit Butzbach was sitting next to two friends from his own part of the world, Peter of Spires and Paul of Kitzingen. They were above him in the school, having pa.s.sed their entrance examination before the Rector with such credit that they were placed at once in the third cla.s.s--a rare distinction--and Paul indeed at the end of his first half-year had come out top and pa.s.sed into the second. The friends talked together of the life of the cloister, of the happiness of study amid the practice of holiness and in the presence of G.o.d. At the end Peter and Butzbach sought out the Steward and gave him their names: Paul, the brilliant leader of the trio, remained behind in the world, and became a professor at Cologne.

Butzbach said farewell to the masters who had taught him, and to his various benefactors in the town, all of whom applauded his decision.

On St. Barbara"s Day, 4 Dec. 1500, the party set out, and were accompanied out of the town by students who swarmed about them like bees; Butzbach, when they at length took leave, urging them to follow his example. Two days later they were at Emmerich, and after crossing the Rhine on the ice, so bitter was the frost, they were overtaken by the night at a convent and sought shelter. It proved to be a house of Brigittines, with separate orders of men and women. One of the party, a priest from Deventer, had a kinswoman among the nuns, but was not allowed to see her. On 8 December the feast of the Conception of the Virgin, as they pa.s.sed through a village, the two priests asked leave to say a ma.s.s for themselves in the parish church; and only with difficulty obtained it from the pfarrer in charge, so great was the jealousy between seculars and regulars. At night they found hospitality in a Benedictine house at Neuss, where Butzbach notes the peculiarity--which he discusses at length but is quite unable to explain--that no one could be accepted as a monk with the name of Peter.

Next day the party was obliged to divide. Peter of Spires, who from the first had been ailing and easily tired, was suffering acute pain from a sore on his finger; so Butzbach remained behind with him in a village, while the others went on to Cologne. After twenty-four hours the sufferer was no better; and as sleep for either of them seemed impossible, they arose at midnight, hired a cart, and journeying under the stars, arrived at Cologne just as the gates were being opened.

They rejoined their friends, and the whole party was entertained in the house of a rich widow, whose son, recently dead, had been a monk at Niederwerth.

The Steward had business at Cologne; so for two days the young men were free to wander about the town, looking into the churches and worried by the schoolboy tricks of the university students. Three days journeying brought them late at night and dead tired to Niederwerth.

The aged Prior--he had been sixty years in the monastery--on learning their destination showed them great courtesy and kindness; and when they had supped, insisted, despite all their protests, on washing their feet himself. Next day he showed them over the monastery, took them into the rooms where the brethren were at work, and explained what each of them had to do: "just as though we were his equals," says Butzbach, on whom his modesty and friendliness made a deep impression.

Indeed, his conversation greatly strengthened them in their determination to enter the religious life; although he did not conceal from them the temptations which they might expect, from the Devil.

On 17 December he gave them leave to proceed, and sent one of the monastery servants and a lay-brother to escort them. Their way lay through Coblenz; and Peter as a weaker vessel was sent on, to go slowly ahead with the lay-brother, whilst the servant and Butzbach stopped in the town to execute some commissions. But they had under-estimated Peter"s weakness. After a midday meal the second pair set out briskly, in the comfortable reflection that the others were already part-way to Laach. To their disgust as they crossed the bridge over the Moselle, they found Peter and his companion lolling outside an inn, unable to talk properly or to stand upright. The Prior"s warning against the Devil had been speedily justified. Peter had been tempted to spend his last day of freedom in a carouse, and every penny he possessed had gone over a fine dinner and costly wines.

To Butzbach this was the more serious, because he had given his purse to Peter to carry, and all that had gone too. Johannisberg still had strong ties for him. He had found peace there and made friends, and it was near his home. Many times, at silent moments as he journeyed along from Deventer, it had come into his head to wonder whether Laach too could give him peace, whether he could settle so far off. Now, if the old ties should be too strong to resist, thanks to Peter, he would have to set out on his way penniless.

Sharp words brought the offenders to some measure of their senses; but it was a dismal party that splashed along the muddy roads that December afternoon. Evening brought them to Saffig, and hospitable reception in the house of George von Leyen, brother of the Prior of Niederwerth and father of the Abbot to whom they were going; and the parents" praises of their son"s goodness and kindness were comforting to hear. Ten miles next morning brought them to Laach; and when they came over the hill, and saw the great abbey with its towers and dome beside the lake, which even in winter could smile amid its woods, Butzbach felt that in all his travels he had seen no sight more lovely. Their guide led them straight into the church, and as Butzbach"s eye glanced along the plain Romanesque columns, past the gorgeous tomb of the founder, to the dim splendours of the choir, the words of the familiar Psalm rose to his lips: "Haec requies mea in saeculum saeculi; hic habitabo, quoniam elegi eam." Peace had come to him at once, and he received it.

After a generous meal in the refectory they were brought in to the tall, dignified Abbot; and while they stood before him answering his questions, they felt that he had not been praised more highly than was his due. Abbot and Prior took them round the monastery; the latter a busy little man in whom they could hardly recognize so exalted a dignitary. At the back they found the brethren busy with the week"s washing. All crowded round them, full of questions and congratulations and pleasant laughter. For three days they were lodged in the guest-chambers, and then the Prior asked them whether they stood firm in their wish to enter the Order. On their a.s.sent he expounded to them the severities of the life, the self-abnegation that would be required of them, bidding them consider whether they could face it; at the same time instructing them in all the customs and practices of the house.

The dress was put upon them, they were led into the convent and cells allotted to them; and told that till St. Benedict"s Day (21 March) they would be on probation. Before the day came Peter"s spirit faltered, and he went. But his weakness was not for long. He repented and found his peace in a Cistercian house near Worms; and Butzbach"s sympathy went with him, back to the Upper Germany which both loved.

The time of probation was hard to Butzbach; not because of the life, which the good Prior tempered to his tenderness, but through the temptations of the Devil, who seemed ever present with him. He was specially tormented with the thought of Johannisberg, and the feeling that he had deserted it. But the wise heads in charge of him gave comfort and stablishment; and he persevered. On the Founder"s Day, 1501, he entered upon the novitiate, which was followed a year later by his profession; and in 1503 he was sent to Treves and ordained priest.

In the course of his numerous writings Butzbach gives sketches of many of the inmates of Laach. The senior brother at the time of his arrival was Jacob of Breden in Westphalia, a man of strong character and force of will. As a boy, when at school at Cleves, he was laughed at for his provincial accent; and therefore determined henceforward to speak nothing but Latin, with the result that he acquired a complete mastery of it. He had at first joined the Brethren of the Common Life at Zwolle, then became a Benedictine in St. Martin"s at Cologne, and came to Laach to introduce the Bursfeld reforms. So tender-hearted was he that he would not kill even the insects which worried him, but would catch them and throw them out of window. John of Andernach is mentioned as having appeared to the brethren after his death; and he and G.o.dfrey of Cologne are praised for their skill in astronomy. We hear of various activities among the monks. One is good at writing, another at dictating and correcting, another has taste in painting flowers and illuminating. Henry of Coblenz combined the offices of precentor, master of the robes, gardener, glazier and barber; and also unofficial counsellor to the young, who frequently turned to him for sympathy. Antony of St. Hubert, besides the care of the refectory, was bee-master and hive-maker; and a great preacher in German, though he had come to Laach knowing only his native French. At the end of the list came the lay-brothers and the pensioners (donati), one of whom was nearly 100.