<g>The Cloister</g>, which is so often described in poetry as the abode of religious harmony, was nevertheless subject, at times, to all those unruly passions which in the world engender strife amongst brethren, and destroy the quiet of secular life. Every monastery contained within its own walls, those elements of malice and dissension, which it required no common energy on the part of the abbot to regulate and subdue. Perverse men, clothed in the robe of meekness, were a constant source of trial to those patterns of monastic discipline, who laboured to correct and reform them.[89] Persecution within the cloister existed occasionally under two forms: men of eminent sanctity suffered it from degenerate brethren, sometimes, simply on account of their superior justice; and at others, in consequence of their endeavours to reform them. Sometimes when the monastery fell under the dominion of an evil superior, the monks who persevered in sanctity fled from his persecution.[90]
The character of a good <g>Cistercian</g> monk, contrasted with one of an opposite disposition, is thus drawn:--It happened that the pious <g>Gobert</g>, a monk of Villars, having to undertake a journey for the arrangement of certain affairs, set out accompanied by one of the brothers named Peter. Arriving late in the evening at a town where they were to pass the night, they were fatigued and exhausted with the labour and heat of the day; and Peter, causing a table to be spread, drew from the bag he carried, abundant provisions, and then ordered cups to be served, and many things made ready for their repast. To the pious Gobert, all this seemed to be more than necessary, more than was consistent with perfect moderation, and his conscience silently accused him of yielding too readily to the force of temptation. But after both had supped, he did not venture to give utterance to the compunctious feelings that were then passing in his mind. Next morning, however, as they were again prosecuting their journey through umbrageous lanes, he began meekly and humbly to disclose his thoughts; expressing his fears that the expense of the previous day had exceeded their wants; adding, that the patrimony of <g>Christ</g> ought not to be spent in superfluities, but given to the poor; that beneficed clerks are only dispensers of the <g>Church</g>, not lords of its substance; that when, in the words of St. Ambrose, we _assist the poor, we give nothing of our own, but only that which the church appoints us to dispense_; and, therefore, that ecclesiastical goods belong not to clerks, but to the poor.[91]