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44 YORK.
The monasteries which arose in Northumbria at
this period, as well as those which were due to the
zeal and piety of Aidan, were different in their constitution
from the communities which in after years
became the great centres of religion, learning, and
civilisation under the rule of St. Benedict. They
followed the type of that which St. Columba founded
in 563 in the island of lona. The great object of
those whose Christian love impelled them to engage
in the arduous task of winning over a barbarous and
savage race of Pagans to a belief in Jesus, was to
exhibit the Christian life to them under its purest outward
form. They were missionary centres, homes of
peace and order, houses of prayer, from which a light,
not of divine instruction alone, but of holy living,
streamed forth upon the darkness around.
They were called a " family," for all were brethren,
admitted under a solemn vow, and divided into three
classes. The chief duty of the first, or seniors, was
to attend to the services of the House of God, and to
read and transcribe the Scriptures. Another division
consisted of working brethren, whose business it was
to cultivate the ground attached to the monastery
and attend to its domestic economy. Whilst a third
class included the young who were under instruction.
The penitential discipline was severe, and even the
ordinary mode of living of an ascetic character.
Submission to rule and simplicity characterised all
their arrangements and all their teaching. Their
earliest monasteries were built of wood. The teaching
was simple also, unincumbered with minuteness
•or splendour of ritual observance. The recitation of