ULT
93
LAY
Lay Brothers. — ^Religious occupied solely with
m^nni^l labouT and with the secular affairs of a monas-
tery or friary. They have been known, in various
places and at various times, hs/ratres conversi, laid
oarbcUif iUitercUi, or tdiotoBf and, though members of
their respective orders, are entirely distinct from the
choir monks or brothers, who are devoted mainly to
the opus Dei and to study. There is some dispute as
to the origin of lay brothers. They are first heard of
in the eleventh century, and are stated by Mabillon to
have been first instituted by St. John Gualbert at Val-
lombrosa, about 1038. But, though the name con-
vert is first applied to religious of this kind in the life
of St. John Uualbert, written by the Bl. Andrea
Strumensis about the end of the eleventh century, it
seems certain they were instituted before the f oimding
of Vallombrosa. St. Peter Damian indicates that
servants who were also religious were set apart to per-
form the manual labour at Fonte Avellana, which was
founded about the year 1000, while, at the monastery
of Fonte Buono, at Camaldoli, founded about 1012,
there were certainly brethren who were distinct from
the choir monks, and were devoted entirely to the
secular needs of the house.
In early Western monasticism no such distinction existed. The majority of St. Benedict's monks were not clerics, and all performed manual labour, the word conversi being used only to designate those who had received the fiabit late in life, to distinguish them from the obiaH and nutriti. But bv the beginning of the eleventh century the time devoted to study had greatly increased, a larger proportion of the monks were in Holy orders, while great numbers of illiterate persons embraced the religious life. At the same time it was found necessary to regulate the position of the famuli, the hired servants of the monastery, and to include some of these in the monastic familv. So in Ital^ the lay brothers were instituted, and we find similar attempts at organization at the abbey of St. Benignus, at Dijon, under William of Dijon (d. 1031) and Kichard of Verdun (d. 1046), while at Hirschau the Abbot William (d. 1091) gave a special rule to the fratres barboH and exteriores. At Cluny the manual work was relegated mostly to paid servants, but the Carthusians, the Cistercians, the Order of Grandmont, and most subsequent religious orders possessed lay brothers, to whom they committed their secular cares. At Grandmont, indeed, the complete control of the order's property by the lay brothers led to serious dis- turbances, and finally to the ruin of the order; but the wiser regulations of the Cistercians provided against this danger and have formed the model for the later orders. The English Black Monks have made but slight use of lay brothers, finding the service of paid attendants more convenient; but Father Taun- ton was mistaken in his assertion that " in those days in English Benedictine monasteries there were no lay brothers", for they are mentioned in the customaries of St. Augustine's at Canterbury and St. Peter's at Westminster.
Lay brothers are now to be found in most of the re- ligious orders. They are mostly pious and laborious persons, usuallv drawn from the working classes of the community, who, while unable to attain to the degree of learning rec]uisite for Holy orders, are yet drawn to the religious life and able to contribute by their toil to the prosperity of the house or order of their vocation. Not selclom they are skilled in artistic handicrafts, sometimes they are efficient administrators of tem- poral possessions, always they are able to perform domestic services or to follow agricultural pursuits. The Cistercians, especially their lay brethren, are fa- mous for their Skill in agriculture, and many a now fertile spot owes its productiveness to their unremit- ting labour in modern as well as in medieval times.
Lay brothers are usuallv distinguished from the choir brethren by some difference in their habit: for
instance, the Cistercian lay brother wears a brown
habit, instead of white, with a black scapular; in choir
they wear a large cloak instead of a cowl; the Vallom-
brosan lay' brothers wore a cap instead of a hood, and
their habit was shorter; the English Benedictine lay
brothers wear a hood of a different shape from that of
the choir monks, and no cowl; a Dominican lay
brother wears a black, instead of a white, scapular.
In some orders they are required to recite daily the
Little Office of Our Lady, but usually their office con-
sists of a certain number of Paters, Aves, and Glorias.
Wherever they are found in considerable niunbers
they possess their own quarters in the monastery; the
domus conversorum is still noticeable in many of the
ruins of English monasteries.
Lay sisters are to be found in most of the orders of women, and their origin, like that of the lay brothers, is to be found in the necessity at once of providing the choir nuns with more time for the Office and study, and of enabling the unlearned to embrace the religious life. They, too, are distinguished by their different habit from the choir sisters, and their Office consists of the Little Office of Our Lady or a certain number of Paters, etc. They seem to have been instituted earlier than the lay brothers, being first mentioned in a life of St. Denis written in the ninth century. In the early medieval period we even hear of lav brothers at- tached to convents of women and of lav sisters at- tached to monasteries. In each case, of course, the two sexes occupied distinct buildings. This curious arrangement has long been abolished.
Bessb. Le Moine Ben^ictin (Ligug6, 1898), 190-1; GrDtz- HACHER in Hjbrzog u. Hauck, Realencyklopddie (LeipzijS, 1903), s. V. Monchtum; Heimbucher, Die Orden u. Kongregationen der katholischen Kirche, I (Paderbom, 1907), 268-271; HAltot, Dictionnaire des Ordres Rdiqieux (Paris, 1863), s. v. Hiraauge; Hergott, Vetiu DUciplina Monaatica (Paris, 1726); Hoffman, Daa Konversen-Institul dea Ciatercienaerordena in aeinem Ur- aprung und aeiner Oroaniaation (FreiburK, 1905); Mabillon, Acta Sanctorum O.S.B. (Venice, 1732-40). ssc. Ill (I), v-ix: saec. VI (II), xl-xli, 281, 733; Mabillon, Annalea O^.B., IV (Lucca, 1739), 411; Mart^ne, De arUiquia Morutchorum ritibua (Lyons, 1690); Mart^nr and Durand, Theaaurua Novua Ante- dotorum (Paris, 1617). IV, 1547-1(^2; Mittarslli and Costa- DONi. Annalea Camatdulenaea O.S.B.t I (Venice, 1755; App., 336-457; Thompson. Cuatomarv of Uie Benedictine Monaateriea of St. Auguatine, Canterbury^ and St. Peter , Weatminater^ ed. Henrt Bradsuaw Society (London, 1902-4); Zocklbr, Aakeaeund Monchtum, 403, 405, 407.
Leslie A. St. L. Toke.
Lay Gommunion. — ^The primitive discipline of the Church established a different punishment for certain crimes according as they were committed by laymen or clerics. The former entailed a shorter and ordina- rily lighter penance than the latter, which were pim- ished with a special penalty. The lavman was ex- cluded from the community of the faitnful, the cleric was excluded from the hierarchy and reduced to the lay communion, that is to say, he was forbidden to exercise his functions. The nature of the latter punishment is not quite certain. According to one opinion, it consisted in excommunication, together with a prohibition to receive the Blessed Eucharist; according to another, the penitent was allowed to receive Holy Communion, out only with the laity. Canon xv of the so-called Apostolical Canons (see Canons, Apostolic) forbids any priest, residing out- side his diocese without authorization, to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice, but grants him permission to receive the Eucharist along with the faithful. The canon Ixii ordained that clerics who apostatized dur- ing the persecutions were to be received among the laity. In 251, a letter of Pope Cornelius to Fsu)ius, Bishop of Antioch, informs us that the pope, in presence of all the i>eople, received into his commim- lon, but as a layman, one of the bishops guilty of having conferred sacerdotal ordination on the heretic Novatian. A letter of St. Cyprian of Carthage men- tions a certain Trophimus, who was admitted to communion among the laity. It would be easy to mention similar cases, in wmch we find it stated that
