READING
673
REASON
study of languages. He was one of the pioneers of
Romance philologj- and made a lasting reputation
by his researches on the troubadours, although his
conclusions now seem hasty and often mere con-
jectures. He was admitted to the Academy of In-
scriptions and Belles-Lettres in 1815. His chief
works besides the dramas above mentioned are the
tragedy "Les etats de Blois" (1S09), and a few others
never produced on
the stage: "Caton
d'Utique", "Don
Carlos", "D6-
bora", "Charles
I", "Jeanne d' Arc
a Orleans"; var-
ious contributions
to Romance philol-
ogj': "Recherches
sur I'antiquite de
la langue romane
Paris, 1816) ;
"Elements de la
grammaire de la
langue romane"
(Paris, 1816); "La
grammaire des
troubadours
(1S16); "Des trou-
badours et les cours
d'amour" (1817);
FB.VNC0I3 R..VN-OU..RD "Grammaire com-
paree des langues de I'Europe latine dans leurs rapports avee la langue des troubadours" (1821); "Choix des poesies originales des troubadours" (Paris, 1821); "Lexique de la langue des trouba- dours" (Paris, 1824); "Nouveau choix des po&ies originales des troubadours" (Paris, 1836-44).
JuLLiEN, La po^sie fran^aise d Vepoquf imperiale (Paris, 1S44): Merlet, Tableau de la lilt, franf. de 1800 a 1815 (Paris, 1878); GiDEL. Hist, de la litt. fram;.. Ill (1883) ; Albert, Hist, de la tilt, sous la Retolution, fEmpire el la Restauration (Paris, 1891).
Louis N. Delamarre.
Reading Abbey, Surrey, England, was founded by Henry I in 1121, who built it, ^Tites William of Malmesbury, " between therivers Kennet and Thames, in a spot calculated for the reception of almost all who might have occasion to travel to the most populous cities of England, where he placed monks of the Cluniac Order, who are to this day a noble pattern of holiness and an example of unwearied and delightful hospital- ity". The foundation charter declares that the new monastery takes the place of three others, Reading, Cholsey, and Leominster; dedicates it to the Blessed Virgin and St. John the Evangelist; accords it everj' civil privilege conceded to royal monasteries, and in- structs the abbot to employ the alms at his disposal for "the entertainment of the poor, pilgrims, and guests". The first abbot was Hugues de Boves, late Prior of St. Pancras, Lewes, afterwards Archbishop of Rouen. From the beginning it was an independent English abbey, which, whilst retaining the Cluniac observance, elected its own abbots, paid no impost to the mother-house, was exempt from Cluniac visita- tion, and never acknowledged the jurisfliction of the General Chapter or Abbot of Cluny. Hence, though it has been described as a Cluniac establishment in ancient documents, even in papal letters of so late a date as 1309, it was never an "alien " house, and Cluny can only claim the credit of having set it going with monks and monastic customs.
The abbey precincts covered about thirty acres and were surrounded on three sides by a great wall with four embattled gateways, one of which, the western or compter gate, ser\'ed as the town prison. It was entered through an inner gatehouse (existing, restored by Sir G. Scott in 1861) wherein the abbot held his manorial court.. The church, consecrated by St. XII.— 43
Thomas a Becket in 1 164, was 450 feet long and 95 feet
broad, with transepts (200 ft.), a Lady-chapel (75 by
50 ft.) built in 1314, and a square central tower with
spire. The monastic buildings were on the same scale,
and the chapter-house, an apsidal, vaulted hall (79 by
42 ft.), was frequently used as a national council
chamber, where Parliament sat, and many synods and
ecclesiastical councils were held. There was a leper-
hospital, closed in 1413 for lack of inmates. The
hospitium had a guest haU (120 ft.), a dormitory
(200 ft.) and pro\asion for twenty-six poor pensioners.
Part of the building (the dormitory) still exists and
for many years wxs in use as the Royal Grammar
School of King Henry VII. The abbot was mitred
(1288), a feudal baron, had a seat in Parhament, his
own mint, the rectorship of the three Reading parishes
and the rents of a number of churches and granges.
His chief country-seat was Bere Court, Pangbourne.
His officials and servants were some forty, at a time
when their number had been cut down for the sake of
economy. Three priories (cells) were under his juris-
diction, Leominster (Herefordshire) in England, Rin-
delgros, and May in Scotland (afterwards resigned
into the hands of the Bishop of Aberdeen). At the
dissolution the revenues were valued at £2116 3s.
9J4d. The last abbot was Blessed Hugh Cook, alias
Faringdon. After seridng as a royal palace during
some reigns, the buildings were stripped of their
carved and dressed stonework for the repairing and
building of churches, bridges, and the hke, and not
much more than the core of some of the walls, huge
masses of flint-concrete, is left to preserve the memory
of the great abbey which Henry I designed as the
monument of his piety and where his body and that
of his son were buried. The chief spiritual treasures
of the abbey were the hand of St. James the Apostle
(now in the sacristy of St. Peter's, Marlow-on-
Thames), presented by Henry I, and the skull of St.
Philip, given by King John.
Reyxer, Apostolatus Benedictinorum, 152; HuRRT, Reading Abbey (London, 1901); DcGD.\LE, Monasticon Anglicanum, IV (London. 1846).
J. C. Almond. Realism. See Nominalism, Realism, Concep-
TUALISM.
Real Presence, The. See Eucharist.
Reason. — General Meanings. — Both in ordinary life and in philosophical discussions the term reason is of frequent occurrence in different significations. Etymologically the word comes to us, through the French, from the Latin ratio, which is originally the functional noun of the verb rear, " I think" (i. e. I pro- pose a res to my mind). According to Donaldson, res=k-ra-is,a,dm\ative horn hir=x^^P (hand); hence res is "that which is handled", and means an object of thought, in accordance with that practical tendency of the Roman mind which treated all realities as palpable. Ratio, in opposition to res, denotes the mode or act of thinking: by extension it comes to designate on the one hand the faculty of thinking and on the other the formal element of thought, such as plan, account, ground, etc. This wide use of the word reason to denote the cognitive faculty (especially when dealing with intrinsic evidence, as opposed to authority) is still the commonest. The word has been used in this sense in a definition of the Vatican Council (Denzinger, "Enchiridion", 11th ed., Freiburg, 1911, nn. 178.5-6); but already in Aristotle we have a clear distinction between intellect (I'oCs), as the intuitive faculty, and reason (X670S), as the discursive or infer- entiaf faculty. This distinction was maintained by the Schoolmen. Yet, since Kant, the word reason has been used to shelter a bewildering chaos of no- tions. Besides using reason (Ventunft) as distin- guishedfromthefacultiesof conception (Verstand) and judgment (Urteilskraft), Kant employed the word in a
