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400 MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
new discipline of canon law and in soliciting new papal pro/
nouncements. Henceforward the canon law, as approved by
popes and interpreted by the great canonists, was the ruling
code in the EngKsh ecclesiastical courts.
3. The Religious Orders and Institutions
Hitherto the Church has been considered in its organization
and administration, with only passing references to the monks
and other religious orders who filled so large a space in the
medieval canvas. Here again the story is one of great growth
and steady elaboration. England, indeed, even before the days
ofBede, had filled a notable page in monastic history, and had
subsequently taken a large part in giving the monastic life to
Germany. But long before the reign of Alfred organized mo/
nastic life had ceased to exist within the bounds ofwhat is now
England.The revival of the tenth century is always associated
with the names ofDunstan and his two colleagues in the habit
and in the episcopate, Ethelwold and Oswald;
it is also asso/
ciated with the name of King Edgar, and the combination of
Church and State is once more characteristic of the land and
the age.
Before the death ofthe last survivor ofthe three bishops there
were more than thirty large houses of monks and seven nun/
neries in England, and by 1066 their numbers had risen to
forty and twelve. All these monasteries followed the Rule of
St. Benedict; they were entirely English in origin and spirit,
though they drew many oftheir customs and observances from
Cluniac and Lotharingian sources, They, and all the monas/
teries of the body known throughout the middle ages as the
'black* monks, and in more recent times as Benedictines, fol/
lowed the way oflife expressed in the Rule of St. Benedict with
the traditional modifications that four centuries of European
history had introduced. They were all fairly large and fairly
well endowed communities ofmen devoted to a common life
of liturgical service, meditative reading, and such work as the
copying, adorning, and binding ofservice and other books, to/