Oblates and Oblate Sisters

OBLATES AND OBLATE SISTERS. - This was the name given to children consecrated to God in a monastery by their own parents, and to those adults who in the late Middle Ages offered themselves, their services and their possessions for ascetic purposes to a monastery, a hospital or a church.

1. The oblation of children

The custom that became established among Christian parents, at least from the 4th century onward, of offering their own children to God in order to destine them perpetually to his service, besides being supported by the example of the typical offering of the young Samuel (1 Sam. 1:28), was in conformity with the rights that the Roman "patria potestas" and, later, the Germanic "mundio" recognized for parents over their own children. St. Gregory of Nazianzus mentions with pleasure that he was offered to God as soon as he was born (cf. Carm. de seipso, vv. 424-34: PG 37, 1001-1002); St. Jerome reminds Leta that her daughter Paula is "oblata" to God (Epist., 107, ad Laetam, 6: PL 27, 874); Salvian speaks of a "monachus ab incunabulis" (Ad ecclesiam, II, 4: PL 53, 192) and of the disinheritance of children offered to God: "indigni iudicantur haereditate, qui digni fuerunt consecciatione" (op. cit., III, 4: ibid., col. 209), a concept that is also found in the Regula Magistri (cap. 91: PL 88, 1044) and that would be taken up and codified by St. Benedict. But already in his own time St. Jerome alludes to the abuse of "miseri parentes"

who offered to God deformed creatures (Epist., 130, ad Demetriadem, 6: PL 22, 1111), an abuse that became entrenched over the centuries, as is evident from the letter prefixed by Abbot Ulrich (or Udalrich) of Cluny (d. 1093) to his Consuetudines Cluniacenses (PL 149, 635-36).

The oblation of children of both sexes to monasteries was soon regulated by the monastic rules of the 4th-6th centuries: a) in the East, St. Basil provided for it first of all in the so-called Great Rule: orphan children were to be received without any further formality, while others were to be offered in the presence of witnesses; they could be admitted to the « castitatis professio » only if they had reached the « aetas rationis complementum », that is, not before the age of 16-17, and the profession was to be made in the presence of witnesses. It was further prescribed that they be housed and educated in buildings separate from the monastery, that is, in the « metochia » situated outside the monastic enclosure. Byzantine law proved extremely strict in the observance of this precautionary norm (cf. Reg. fusias tract., resp. ad interrog. XV: PG 31, 951, 955; Epist., 199 ad Amphilochium, 18: PG 32, 719: for the later canonical prescriptions on the matter, cf. F. de Meester, De monachico statu iuxta disciplinam byzantinam, Vatican City 1942, pp. 164-65, 167-68, 172-73, 352-53). References to the presence of « pueri » in Egyptian monasteries are found in §§ 166 and 172 of the Rule of St. Pachomius (ed. A. Boon, Pachomiana latina, Louvain 1932, pp. 66, 68). From the Coptic monastery of Apa Phoebammon on the Gêmeh (Thebes) come some interesting acts of oblation of children, destined principally for the domestic and agricultural services of the monastery (late 8th century-early 9th): the donation is irrevocable and the act, drawn up by a notary and signed by the donor and by witnesses, was kept in the Archive of the monastery (cf. F. de Villenoisy, Les donations d'enfants à l'époque copte, in Rev. égyptologique, 6 [1891], pp. 30-35, 150-53; 7 [1892], pp. 199-200, 146-49, article summarized by H. Leclercq, Oblats, in DACL, XII, II, 1867-71).

b) In the West. The question of the presence of children in monasteries and of their charter of oblation, which they would ratify when they reached the appropriate age, is treated both in the Statuta Sanctarum Virginum of St. Caesarius of Arles (§§ 6-7: ed. G. Morin, S. Caesarii opera omnia, II, Maredsous 1942, pp. 103-104) and in the Regula ad monachos of St. Aurelian of Arles (§§ 17, 22: PL 68, 390, 392). The Regula Magistri too (cap. 91: PL 88, 2042-45) deals with noble youths who wish to enter the monastery and who must be, as it were, offered by their parents and disinherited by them. However, the norms that regulated the oblation of « pueri » throughout the Middle Ages were laid down by St. Benedict (Regula, cap. 59): the donor must present the « petitio » and offer the child at the altar; if the oblate is noble or a property owner he must disinherit the o., if poor the offering is to be made in the presence of witnesses. The rite of oblation was subsequently established as follows: after the Gospel of the abbot's Mass, the child was led to the altar holding in his hand the host, the cruet of wine and the « petitio », all wrapped in the corporal or the altar cloth (cf. the commentary on the Rule attributed to Paul the Deacon, cap. 59: Biblioth. Casinensis, IV, Montecassino 1880, Florilegium, pp. 151-52; B. Albers, Consuetudines monasticae, II, Stuttgart 1900, p. 157; III, Montecassino 1907, pp. 180, 185). The oblation was considered irrevocable both in the Benedictine milieu (Riepenhoff, cited in the bibl., denies that it was so for St. Benedict) and outside it (cf., for example, for girls canon 19 [irrevocable after one year or three years depending on the case] of the Council of Orléans of 549 and canon 12 [more severe than the preceding] of the Council of Mâcon of 583: Mansi, IX, 133, 934), and for a good part of the Middle Ages (until the 13th century) the norm laid down in canon 49 of the Fourth Council of Toledo of 633 was repeated on the matter: « monachum aut paterna devotio aut propria professio facit: quidquid horum fuerit, alligatum tenebit. Proinde his ad mundum reverti intercludimus aditum et omnem ad saeculum interdicimus regressum » (Mansi, X, 631; cf. Decretum Gratiani: causa XX, q. 1). However, from the 7th century onward attempts are noted here and there to temper this severe discipline, as is evident, for example, from canon 6 of the Tenth Council of Toledo of 656 (Mansi, XI, 36-37), from the Capitulary of Aachen of 817, drawn up under the influence of St. Benedict of Aniane (§ 36: ed. A. Boretius, in MGH, Capitularia, I [1883], p. 346), from the Council of Mainz of 820 which discussed and resolved in the affirmative the case of the forced profession of the young monk Gottschalk (ed. A. Werminghoff, in MGH, Concilia aevi Karolini, II [1906-1908], p. 205), against which the abbot Rabanus Maurus protested vigorously, struck by the conciliar decision, with his opuscule Contra eos qui repugnant institutis beati Patris Benedicti (PL 107, 419-40). Only toward the end of the 12th century did certain pontifical decisions, later received into the Decretals of Gregory IX [1234], mitigate the earlier legislative harshness and guarantee the personal freedom of the young o., raising the age of profession to 12 and to 14 years completed according to whether they were women or men (X, III, 31 de regul.); this norm practically helped to accelerate the disappearance of oblation, which had already been repudiated by certain monastic reforms of the 11th-12th centuries, such as by Cluny (at a later stage), Hirsau, the Grande Chartreuse, etc. Often the o., who normally constituted the intellectual element of the monastery, formed within it a group in opposition to that of the « conversi », who entered the monastery as adults and were for the most part « illitterati ». The little that is known of the life the young o. led in monasteries in the early Middle Ages is contained in the Commentary on the Benedictine Rule attributed to Paul the Deacon (cf., for example, the commentary on cap. 37: ed. cit., p. 124).

The institution of oblation was also in force among the Canons Regular and among the Mendicants, Dominicans and Franciscans. With the decree of the Council of Trent, which declared null the profession made before the age of 16, the last vestiges of the oblation of children disappeared (cf. sess. XXV, de regularibus, cap. 15).

2. The oblation of adults

From the 7th century onward and throughout the entire Middle Ages there are examples of pious women (« Deo dedicatæ, Deo sacratae, Deo devotæ ») who offered themselves not only to female monasteries but also to male ones. At St. Gall, for example, in the 10th century, the o. wove, worked at the binding of codices, made hosts for the abbey (cf. G. de Valous, cited in the bibl., I, 46). Their dwelling was situated outside the monastic enclosure, and the abbots Ulrich and Peter the Venerable of Cluny (d. 1156) insist greatly that this precautionary norm be strictly observed (cf. PL. 149, 637 [letter of Ulrich]; ibid., 189, 1038 [Statuta Congreg. Cluniac., 47]).

The oblation of men assumed greater importance: they gave themselves, their labor and their possessions to a monastery, either by entering it or by living in the world, sometimes retaining the use of the goods offered. Of such oblation there are sporadic examples from the 8th century onward; at that time these were "hospites" who asked to be able to work at their "conversio morum" in the monastery, without assuming monastic obligations. The oblation of adults, which took the most varied forms in the carrying out of the donation, had its first strong affirmation, however, in the 11th century, an era in which among the monks the tendency was accentuated to abandon manual labor in order to devote more time to liturgical prayer and intellectual culture. It began to flourish at Cluny, at Camaldoli, at Vallombrosa, then took, toward the end of the century and at the beginning of the 12th century, broader development at Hirsau, through the work of Abbot William, at Cîteaux, at the Grande Chartreuse and at Prémontré; but in each of these centers it had its own regulation and character. Besides individual oblation there were also cases of oblations of entire families whose members became servants of the monastery. As for the rite of oblation, it was similar to that in use for the oblation of children: the oblation took place into the hands of the abbot, and great care was taken to wrap the hand of the oblate who held the document of oblation, signed by the person concerned and by witnesses, with the altar cloth. With these adult oblates, called in documents by the most varied names ("donati, devoti, commissi, offerti, monaci laici, conversi," etc.) and recruited, at first, from among the "famuli," the "hospites," the "nutriti" and the "monaci ad succurrendum," the monastic congregations of the 11th and 12th centuries were able to free themselves in good part from the mercenary "famuli" whom the abbot of Cluny, Peter the Venerable, rightly called "quorundam monasteriorum pessimi destructores" (Statuta Congr. Cluniacensis, 48: PL. 189, 1038).

At Camaldoli, at Vallombrosa, at the Grande Chartreuse, at Cîteaux the canonical position of the oblates, who entered to become part of the monastery, later commonly called "conversi," became ever more precisely defined: they became true religious (cf. canon 7 of the Second Lateran Council, of 1139, where "conversi professi" are spoken of; Mansi, XXI, 527) while remaining separate from the monks to whom they rendered their humble services. At Cluny this evolution appears complete in the already mentioned Statuta of Peter the Venerable. With the end of the 12th century those are preferably called oblates, "donati," "recepti," etc. (the nomenclature varies according to the Orders) who, while offering themselves and their possessions to a monastery and promising obedience to the abbot, preserved a certain freedom of action (cf. the concept of oblate in canon 57 of the Lateran Council of 1215: Mansi, XXII, 1046; and that of "donati" of Humbert of Romans: Creytens, art. cit. in bibl., p. 12). To these oblates can be linked today's "regular" oblates, priests or laymen, received in some monasteries after a simple promise to live according to the rule. For today's Benedictine "secular" oblates, who however have nothing in common with the ancient oblates: v. BENEDETTINI, V. Oblati.

Besides in the monastic orders, adult oblates are found, belonging to the two great categories mentioned above, in hospitals, in charitable hospices, in Chapters, in parish churches, in the Mendicant Orders; and just as male monasteries had their oblates, so female ones possessed theirs.

A. Pietro Frutaz