Gloucester and the Lady Anne'' at the Royal Academy in 1896,
and in that year was elected A.R.A., becoming a full R.A. in
1898. Apart from his other paintings, special mention must
be made of the large frescoes entitled ``The Quest of the Holy
Grail,'' in the Boston Public Library, on which he was occupied
for some years; and in 1901 he was commissioned by King Edward
VII. to paint a picture of the coronation, containing many
portraits elaborately grouped. The dramatic subjects, and the
brilliant colouring of his on pictures, gave them pronounced
individuality among the works of contemporary painters.
Abbey became a member not only of the Royal Academy, but also
of the National Academy of Design of New York, and honorary
member of the Royal Bavarian Society, the Societe Nationale
des Beaux Arts (Paris), the American Water-Colour Society,
etc. He received first class gold medals at the International
Art Exhibition of Vienna in 1898, at Philadelphia in 1898,
at the Paris Exhibitions of 1889 and 1900, and at Berlin in
1903; and was made a chevalier of the French Legion of Honour.
ABBEY (Lat. abbatia; from Syr. abba, father), a
monastery, or conventual establishment, under the government
of an ABBOT or an ABBESS. A priory only differed from
an abbey in that the superior bore the name of prior instead
of abbot. This was the case in all the English conventual
cathedrals, e.g. Canterbury, Ely, Norwich, &c., where the
archbishop or bishop occupied the abbot's place, the superior
of the monastery being termed prior. Other priories were
originally offshoots from the larger abbeys, to the abbots
of which they continued subordinate; but in later times the
actual distinction between abbeys and priories was lost.
The earliest Christian monastic communities (see MONASTICISM)
with which we are acquainted consisted of groups of cells or
huts collected about a common centre, which was usually the abode
of some anchorite celebrated for superior holiness or singular
asceticism, but without any attempt at orderly arrangement.
The formation of such communities in the East does not date
from the introduction of Christianity. The example had been
already set by the Essenes in Judea and the Therapeutae in Egypt.
In the earliest age of Christian monasticism the ascetics
were accustomed to live singly, independent of one another,
at no great distance from some village, supporting themselves
by the labour of their own hands, and distributing the
surplus after the supply of their own scanty wants to the
poor. Increasing religious fervour, aided by persecution,
drove them farther and farther away from the abodes of men
into mountain solitudes or lonely deserts. The deserts
of Egypt swarmed with the ``cells'' or huts of these
anchorites. Anthony, who had retired to the Egyptian Thebaid
during the persecution of Maximin, A.D. 312, was the most
celebrated among them for his austerities, his sanctity, and
his power as an exorcist. His fame collected round him a
host of followers, emulous of his sanctity. The deeper he
withdrew into the wilderness, the more numerous his disciples
became. They refused to be separated from him, and built
their ceils round that of their spiritual father. Thus arose
the first monastic community, consisting of anchorites living
each in his own little dwelling, united together under one
superior. Anthony, as Neander remarks (Church History,
vol. iii. p. 316, Clark's trans.), ``without any conscious
design of his own, had become the founder of a new mode
of living in common, Coenobitism.'' By degrees order was
introduced in the groups of huts. They were arranged in
lines like the tents in an encampment, or the houses in a
street. From this arrangement these lines of single cells
came to be known as Laurae, Laurai, "streets" or "lanes."
The real founder of coenobian koinos, common, and bios,
life) monasteries in the modern sense was Pachomius, an Egyptian
of the beginning of the 4th century. The first community
established by him was at Tabennae, an island of the Nile in Upper
Egypt. Eight others were founded in his lifetime, numbering 3000
monks. Within fifty years from his death his societies could
reckon 50,000 members. These coenobia resembled vilIages,
peopled by a hard-working religious community, ail of one
sex. The buildings were detached, small and of the humblest
character. Each cell or hut, according to Sozomen (H.R. iii.
14), contained three monks. They took their chief meal in a
common refectory at 3 P.M., up to which hour they usually
fasted. They ate in silence, with hoods so drawn over their
faces that they could see nothing but what was on the table
before them. The monks spent all the time, not devoted to
religious services or study, in manual labour. Palladius,
who visited the Egyptian monasteries about the close of the
4th century, found among the 300 members of the coenobium of
Panopolis, under the Pachomian rule, 15 tailors, 7 smiths, 4
carpenters, 12 cameldrivers and 15 tanners. Each separate
community had its own oeconomus or steward, who was subject
to a chief oeconomus stationed at the head establishment.
All the produce of the monks' labour was committed to him, and
by him shipped to Alexandria. The money raised by the sale
was expended in the purchase of stores for the support of the
communities, and what was over was devoted to charity. Twice
in the year the superiors of the several coenobia met at
the chief monastery, under the presidency of an archimandrite
(``the chief of the fold,'' from miandra, a fold), and at
the last meeting gave in reports of their administration for the
year. The coenobia of Syria belonged to the Pachomian
institution. We learn many details concerning those in the
vicinity of Antioch from Chrysostom's writings. The monks
lived in separate huts, kalbbia, forming a religious hamlet
on the mountain side. They were subject to an abbot, and
observed a common rule. (They had no refectory, but ate their
common meal, of bread and water only, when the day's labour
was over, reclining on strewn grass, sometimes out of doors,)
Four times in the day they joined in prayers and psalms.
Santa Laura, Mount Athos.
The necessity for defence from hostile attacks, economy of
space and convenience of access from one part of the community
to another, by degrees dictated a more compact and orderly
arrangement of the buildings of a monastic coenobium. Large
piles of building were erected, with strong outside walls,
capable of resisting the assaults of an enemy, within which
all the necessary edifices were ranged round one or more
open courts, usually surrounded with cloisters. The usual
Eastern arrangement is exemplified in the plan of the convent
of Santa Laura, Mount Athos (Laura, the designation of a
monastery generally, being converted into a female saint).
This monastery, like the oriental monasteries generally, is
surrounded by a strong and lofty blank stone wall, enclosing
an area of between 3 and 4 acres. The longer side extends to
a length of about 500 feet. There is only one main entrance,
on the north side (A), defended by three separate iron
doors. Near the entrance is a large tower (M), a constant
feature in the monasteries of the Levant. There is a small
postern gate at L. The enceinte comprises two large open
courts, surrounded with buildings connected with cloister
galleries of wood or stone. The outer court, which is much the
larger, contains the granaries and storehouses (K), and the
kitchen (H) and other offices connected with the refectory
(G). Immediately adjacent to the gateway is a two-storied
guest-house, opening from a cloister (C). The inner court is
surrounded by a cloister (EE), from which open the monks' cells
(II). In the centre of this court stands the catholicon
or conventual church, a square building with an apse of
the cruciform domical Byzantine type, approached by a domed
narthex. In front of the church stands a marble fountain
(F), covered by a dome supported on columns. Opening from
the western side of the cloister, but actually standing in
the outer court, is the refectory (G), a large cruciform
building, about 100 feet each way, decorated within with
frescoes of saints. At the upper end is a semicircular
recess, recalling the triclinium of the Lateran Palace
A. Gateway.
B. Chapels.
C. Guest-house.
D. Church.
E. Cloister.
F. Fountain.
G. Refectory.
H. Kitchen.
I. Cells.
K. Storehouses.
L. Postern gate.
M. Tower.
FIG. 1.---Monastery of Santa Laura, Mount Athos (Lenoir).
at Rome, in which is placed the seat of the hegumenos or
abbot. This apartment is chiefly used as a hall of meeting, the
oriental monks usually taking their meals in their separate cells.
Vatopede
St Laura is exceeded in magnitude by the convent of Vatopede
also on Mount Athos. This enormous establishment covers at
least 4 acres of ground, and contains so many separate buildings
within its massive walls that it resembles a fortified town. It
lodges above 300 monks, and the establishment of the hegumenos is
described as resembling the court of a petty sovereign prince.
The immense refectory, of the same cruciform shape as that of
St Laura, will accommodate 500 guests at its 24 marble tables.
The annexed plan of a Coptic monastery, from Lenoir,
shows a church of three aisles, with cellular apses, and
two ranges of cells on either side of an oblong gallery.
Benedictine.
Monasticism in the West owes its extension and development
to Benedict of Nursia (born A.D. 480). His rule was
diffused with miraculous rapidity from the parent foundation
on Monte Cassino through the whole of western Europe, and
every country witnessed the erection of monasteries far
exceeding anything that had yet been seen in spaciousness and
splendour. Few great towns in Italy were without their
Benedictine convent, and they quickly rose in all the great
centres of population in England, France and Spain. The number
of these monasteries founded between A.D. 520 and 700 is
amazing. Before the Council of Constance, A.D. 1415, no
fewer than 15,070 abbeys had been established of this order
alone. The buildings of a Benedictine abbey were uniformly
arranged ofter one plan, modified where necessary (as at
Durham and Worcester, where the monasteries stand close to the
steep bank of a river) to accommodate the arrangement to local
circumstances. We have no existing examples of the earlier
monasteries of the Benedictine order. They have all yielded
to the ravages of time and the violence of man. But we
have fortunately preserved to us an elaborate plan of the
great Swiss monastery of St Gall, erected about A.D. 820,
which puts us in possession of the whole arrangements of a
monastery of the first class towards the early part of the 9th
century. This curious and interesting plan has been made
the subject of a memoir both by Keller (Zurich, 1844) and by
Professor Robert Willis (Arch. Journal, 1848, vol. v. pp.
