human
To speak truth, remarks Udalric,
gpt
Manual work, however, remained always part of the strict rule.
human
Then will you be monks, said St. Benedict,
gpt
Bitter must it have been to Pierre le Vénérable, the last of the great abbots, to have to write as he did of the growing decadence:--
human
Idleness is the enemy of the soul: and do we not see the greater part of the brothers ... both within and without the cloister, in a state of absolute inactivity. How few are they who read, still fewer they who write! Do not the greater number sleep, leaning against the walls, or do they not waste their day from dawn to sunset in vain and idle, or in what is yet worse, malicious conversation. But, in the earlier years of Cluny, the rule was not easily broken, nor broken with impunity. A continuous surveillance, day and night, was exercised so regularly, by monks called