Chapter Six
VI

THE NEW ERA OPENS
THE OPENING of the new century brought great and vitally
important changes both to the Congregation and to St
Michael's itself. The new ideas and outlook which had long
been simmering in the Congregation, and which had been
carefully fostered and encouraged by the Holy See, had
already before this begun to bear fruit; and in fact the
enthusiasm for a more monastic outlook and a more cloistral
way of life had been canalised and immensely strengthened
by the issuing of the Papal Bull Religiosus Ordo, of November
12, 1890, in which Pope Leo XIII himself wrought radical
changes in our Constitutions, sweeping away the two
missionary Provinces and their Provincials root and branch,
and placing all the missions under the control of the monaster-
ies. This historic Papal document, by which the monasteries at
last came into their own, although the Abbatial System was
not yet set up, was obviously of crucial importance, and it
inevitably affected Belmont, even though only indirectly.
Amongst the principles it enunciated was the declaration
that the end to which the Congregation directs its external
activities is 'the Christian instruction of the English people',
and that there is a threefold division of this apostolic work:
the pastoral ministry, education, and writing, to which last
a special encouragement is given, the Holy Father de-
claring :
'To this field of work (i.e. writing), in which the Benedictine
Order throughout all ages has laboured with such renown, the
English Congregation, with its studies stimulated and carried
to a higher level, will be able to devote itself with honour and
great usefulness; for writings of learned character and literary
merit do much good in England.'

97
q3 THE HISTORY OF BELMONT ABBEY
This Bull, then, with its drastic overhaul of the whole
method of Congregational government, and the great en-
hancing of the importance of the monasteries, had already
ten years before the end of the century clearly shown 'the
shape of things to come'. And this fact necessarily also fore-
shadowed great changes for St Michael's, because the new
status of the monasteries would inevitably react on their
attitude to the Common House, and would give impetus to
the desire of each house to have its own noviciate. And eight
years later the revolution was completed by a second Bull,
known as Diu Qyidem, issued by the same Pope on June 29,
1899, which rounded off the work of the earlier Bull and
finished the task of transforming the organisation of the
English Benedictines. Diu Qyidem also made two explicit
references to Belmont in which it ordered that the existence
of the single house of training be approved for another eight
years (a significant restriction), and that the recently
professed should therein study philosophy and then go to
their own monasteries to study theology, where they were
not to be set to teach in the schools unless necessity required,
and even then were never to teach for more than eight hours
in the week. But the real work of Diu Qyidem was the
establishment of the 'Abbatial System'. The three Priories of
Downside, Ampleforth and Douai were raised to the rank
of Abbeys, the President ceased to be President-General and
became (significantly) Abbot-President, with greatly re-
duced powers; and the composition of the General Chapter
was reduced from some thirty members to only eleven,
amongst which the Abbots, unlike the ruling Priors of the
old Constitutions, held the chief power. Here, indeed, were
great changes.
But we are concerned with Belmont. How would all this
upheaval affect it? With the passing of the old order, what
were the prospects for the Common House? They did not
appear by any means to be rosy. One obvious consequence
of the changes was a great loss of prestige for St Michael's.
Hitherto it had been in a unique position. As a Cathedral
Priory it had ranked above the other monasteries which
were but lowly and more or less obscure Priories, and its

THE NEW ERA OPENS 99
senior members comprised the Chapter of the Diocese and
bore the rank of Canons. Moreover, the privilege of Pon-
tificalia conferred on it in 1891 had yet further emphasised
its pre-eminence.1 In addition, the buildings at Belmont,
both monastery and Pro-Cathedral, were more spacious and
impressive than anything the other houses could at that
time show. But now the picture was different. The other
monasteries were now Abbeys, and they were ruled by
mitred Abbots, and those Abbots now acquired much closer
control over Belmont. They had absolute control over the
studies there, and the appointment of the professors was in
their hands, while they had also the right of visiting and
controlling their subjects at Belmont, all of which was new.
Furthermore, the desire to have their own house-noviciates,
and for their students to study in their own monasteries was
growing apace in those Abbeys, and had in fact received
direct encouragement from Leo XIII in his Decree con-
firming the new Constitutions. There were clearly going to
be fewer novices and Juniors at Belmont in the coming years,
and indeed there was the grim prospect that the day would
come when there were none. What then was to happen to St
Michael's? It was already the only non-independent house
in the Congregation, and its Cathedral Prior the only
Superior appointed by the General Chapter and entirely at
its mercy. The situation at that juncture has been thus
described:
'The position of Belmont was becoming exceptional, and excep-
tions are difficult to defend. When Belmont began it was only
one of many interests or institutions that were held in common
by the Congregation: the two Provinces, and all the missions, the
central government of President-General and Regimen, etc.;
and the Congregation was (then) a very definite and powerful
entity, not (as now) merely a loose aggregation of independent
Houses with often divergent policies. After the Monastic Revolu-
tion Belmont found itself stranded as the only institution in which
all the Abbeys had a common share, and diminishing interest.'2
Thus St Michael's had come to the parting of the ways.
1 And, as a consequence, Prior Raynal wore a pectoral cross, whereas the
Superiors of the other monasteries did not.

' Abbot Cummins: MS Notes.
100 THE HISTORY OF BELMONT ABBEY
Clearly, grave decisions had to be taken as to its future.
Though there were very many who wished the old system of
common noviciate and common house of studies to continue,
for it had very great advantages, both scholastic and social,
and though these supporters of the old regime were men of
great influence, yet the trend of events was all against them,
and so was the view of Rome. In fact, as already mentioned,
its continuance had only been authorised provisionally for a
further eight years. Looking back now on this state of affairs,
we can plainly see that obviously the only practical solution
was that at long last the house should be allowed to take
novices for itself, and so start the nucleus of a new conventus.
Apart from that, there was no feasible future for the place,
though there were not lacking various more or less fantastic
proposals. At the same time, this aspect of the matter should
not be over-stressed. It is difficult to know how far the threat
to the future of the Common House was realised at the time,
and in any case it was not merely because of that threat that
the policy of taking novices for Belmont itself was started.
That possibility was inherent in the situation from the very
beginning of the monastery. It will be remembered that
even in 1857, before the house was built, it was being asked
whether the proposed monastery was to accept novices for
itself and that both Fr Gockshoot and Bishop Brown thought
that it should.
But the first proposal of the sort in modern time? appears
to be that made, appropriately enough, by Dom Adephonsus
Cummins, the man who was ultimately entrusted with the
task of forming the indigenous community at Belmont. For
in 1890 he published a pamphlet called An Eirenicon in
which, amongst other things, he proposed that St Michael's
should be allowed to take novices for itself, and should
become an independent house. One year later at the Down-
side Conventual Chapter the proposition was put forward
that 'It is our opinion that Belmont should be erected into a
new Mother House, and be allowed to take some share in
the Missions and Missionary Funds'; but this motion was
lost by four votes. The matter was also considered by the
'Papal Commission' which met that same year to implement

THE NEW ERA OPENS 101
the instructions of the Bull Religiosus Ordo, but the members
of this body (eight of the senior members of the Congregation,
led by President Austin O'Neill) came to no decision on that
point, chiefly because there was not a sufficiency of either
men or funds to make the scheme feasible. But when they
were dividing the missions amongst the monasteries, which
was the chief task of that Commission, it was sought to
divide those in the diocese of Newport and Menevia equally
between the three Houses, so that they could be fairly
transferred to Belmont if that House ever took missions. It
was largely due to the indecisiveness of Prior Raynal at this
Commission, because of the legal difficulties which he saw,
or thought he saw, in the peculiar relation of Belmont to the
Newport Chapter, that the matter was shelved on this
occasion. Actually Prior Raynal's attitude on the whole
question of Belmont's future (as also on the Constitutional
reforms of the Congregation that were then going through)
was hesitant, and he gave no clear lead. This was partly
because he was now too old to face such completely altered
conditions, and partly because of the niceties of Canon Law
in which he invariably got himself entangled when decisions
of a constitutional nature had to be taken.

After that the idea was allowed to drop for some years,
and it is next heard of at the General Chapter of 1899 which
again considered it, and though approving in theory, it shied
away from the practical difficulties, and ordered the matter
to be deferred to the next Chapter. And so we come to the
General Chapter of 1901, when at last a definite step was
taken. That this was so, was again due primarily to the
initiative and determination of Dom Ildephonsus Cummins,
who, as already stated, had in 1890 been the first to bring
the matter to the fore, and to whom, more than to any other
single person, the eventual existence of the St Michael's
Community, is due. It was, then, he who, as Ampleforth
Delegate, raised the question at this Chapter of 1901. Let
him describe in his own words, writing in the third person,
what happened:
'The project was now raised again at this Chapter by the Ample-
forth delegate, and was received without much enthusiasm,
102 THE HISTORY OF BELMONT ABBEY
though endorsed by some of the leaders. Prior Raynal raised all
his old difficulties, but wished they could be solved. He argued on
both sides, which at least ensured a thorough investigation, but
could not reach any conclusion, till at last Fr Cummins, to bring
the matter to a head, asked him if he would propose the founda-
tion of a Belmont/amfta, and promised to second the proposal.
Prior Raynal agreed and hurriedly drew up a formula which is
far from being clear or precise, and it was seconded. A few slight
verbal alterations were made in the proposition; it was put to the
meeting calculis secretis, and was carried with two dissentient votes
(understood to be those of Abbot Snow1 and ex-Prior Oswald
O'Neill).2 The somewhat vague wording of the proposal led later
to difficulties and controversy that at one time threatened the
very existence of the infant community.'
This proved to be a decisive step in the history of Belmont,
for the enactment thus passed was the only authority given
for the gathering together of a new3 conventus at St Michael's.
The actual wording of it was: 'R. R. D. Raynal proposed
that the Newport Chapter be freed from all restrictions
which have hitherto stood in the way of its taking choir
novices for the said Cathedral Monastery'. The restrictions
in question were the prohibitions put on the accepting of
choir novices for Belmont by the Chapter of 1858, and
possibly also by its predecessor of 1854. All that the Chapter
of 1901 did was to remove this bar. It decreed nothing on
the thorny questions of property-ownership and of finance,
save that it added the clause 'Salvis tamenjuribus Congregationis
quoad bona monasterii et studiorum directionem'. It will be seen at
once that there are certain peculiarities about the wording
of this enactment. It may well be asked why the 'Newport
Chapter' should be mentioned as receiving the novices, and
the words 'Cathedral Monastery' also gave rise to controversy.
1 The redoubtable leader of those who had for so long opposed the con-
stitutional reform of the E.B.C. He was the last man to hold the post of
2 Su^So^ofDouai, 1883-1900, and brother of Bishop O'Neill who had been
President-General, 1888-1896.
" The word 'new' is used ('without prejudice', as the lawyers say) for the sake
of clarity to distinguish the Michaelian Community from those of the
Common House in the following pages; though, in reality, it was not new.
For the Belmont Community existed from 1859, as was frequently insisted
on in various documents throughout the period (cf. 103-104, infra), and
notably by the Bachofen Report of 1913 (see p. 104), and by the Bastien

Report of 1916 (see p. 161), drawn up by Roman Canon Lawyers.

THE NEW ERA OPENS 103
But out of the welter of argument and pamphlets and letters
that gathered round this brief sentence during the next
fifteen years there does emerge now that the Newport
Chapter was dragged in because it was the only corporation
at Belmont, and it was thought that only a corporate body
could profess novices; and, as regards the phrase 'Cathedral
Monastery', this referred, not, as some sought to maintain,
to Bishop Brown's originally proposed Cathedral Monastery
at Newport, but to the existing material building at Belmont.
It may seem absurd to us now that anyone could suppose
that the non-existent monastery at Newport was referred to
by the text, but that was one of the contentions put forward
by Dom Bernard Murphy and Dom Romuald Riley in 1912
in their famous 'Narration: Belmont', which they drew up
as the result of the investigation into the whole Belmont
problem which they made at the order of General Chapter,
and which was a most formidable attack on the new Belmont
Community from the legal and financial points of view. And
those two Fathers were exceedingly clever and experienced
men. That their views did not eventually prevail was due, in
the main, to the labours and leadership of Abbot Cuthbert
Butler.1 Actually, in the early days of the House, Belmont
was often referred to as the 'Cathedral Monastery', and not
only in ordinary conversation, but also in legal documents.
In the Roman Decree of May, 1860, the Common Noviciate
is declared to be set up in 'the Cathedral Monastery of St
Michael's in the diocese of Newport', and that certainly
meant Belmont.
An interesting comment on the identity of the 'Cathedral
Monastery' referred to in the Enactment of 1901 was made
by the anonymous author of The 'Narration Belmont' and the
General Chapters, published in 1912:

'From the Rescript of Propaganda, 20 May, 1860, setting up the
Common Noviciate, etc., it is clear that the English Benedictine
Congregation with the consent of Bishop Brown asked the Holy
See to establish a "unicum commune tyrocinium" in the Cathedral
Monastery ofSt Michael's in the Newport Diocese; and in reply
the Sacred Congregation ordered that the said Tyrocinium should
1 Abbot of Downside, 1906-1922, and Abbot-President from 1914 to 1921.
104 THE HISTORY OF BELMONT ABBEY
be established in the Cathedral Monastery of St Michael's. Thus
the Bishop of the Diocese, the English Benedictine Congregation,
and the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda recognised the
existence of the Cathedral Monastery, and in it, as then existing,
at St Michael's, the Sacred Congregation set up the "unicum
commune Tyrocinium".'
From this the author argues that the monastery (and there-
fore the Community) existed in 1859, before the setting up
of the Common Noviciate, and that therefore those who were,
from 1901 onwards, to be aggregated to Belmont were joining
a monastery which dated, not from 1901, but from 1859.
And it happens that this view is reinforced by the fact that
the Relatio et Dubia which Abbot Cuthbert Butler (as Abbot-
President) sent to Rome in 1916, when discussing this
Enactment of 1901 allowing Belmont to take novices, states:
'The form of this decree was due to the fact that the General
Chapter considered that the Cathedral Monastery had from its
inception the natural right to profess subjects, and the only
reason it had not done so was the bar imposed by previous
Chapters. This bar the Chapter of 1901 removed, and so the
Cathedral Monastery was placed in the exercise of its inherent
power of professing subjects for itself. Thus the mind of the
Chapter was that it did not establish a new monastery, nor create
a new monastic Family, but merely allowed the canonically
existing Cathedral Monastery to exercise a normal function.'
Moreover, when the canonical position of the Belmont
Community was attacked in 1912, and the matter in
consequence was submitted to a Roman Canonist (Dom
Augustine Bachofen, Professor of Canon Law at S. Anselmo's)
for his opinion, that jurist reported that the action of the
Chapters of 1901 and 1905, defining the personnel of the
Belmont conventus, was regular and canonical, and that the
community so formed is the Community of the Monastery
of Belmont, adding that as such it had a right to send a
delegate to General Chapter, which had been denied it.1 To
this may also be added the Bastien Report of 1916 which
gave a similar verdict in even more emphatic language.2
And of course this 'Cathedral Monastery' is not to be
confused with the Newport Chapter, which came into being

1 The Bachofen Report, issued on March 12, 1913.
' For further details of the Bastien Report, see p. 161, infra.

THE NEW ERA OPENS 105
a year later. Thus the order of seniority at Belmont would
seem to be: i. The Monastery; 2. The Common Noviciate
and House of Studies; 3. The Diocesan Chapter.
By this decree, then, of the Chapter of 1901 the die was
cast. For nearly fifty years Belmont had been merely a
Common House of training, belonging to the Congregation
as a whole, but now it was to have its own Community (the
Community that has now been existing for nearly sixty
years), and this was to grow side by side with the novices and
juniors from the other Houses, thus adding a third entity to
St Michael's, which now sheltered the Cathedral Chapter,
the Common House, and the Belmontese or Michaelian
Conventus. But of course this raised a whole host of problems,
some of them practical and some theoretical, and foremost
amongst them were very pertinent questions as to the
proprietary rights in Belmont. To whom were the buildings
and land now to belong? Not only was this a matter of
contention, but it was also uncertain who had hitherto
owned them! For some maintained that the place was the
property of the Congregation as a whole, while others
argued that the Congregation, as such, could not own
property, and that Belmont had belonged to the three other
monasteries, representatives of which had been named as
trustees in the original deeds. Add to this the apathy, if not
hostility of many to the idea of creating a 'new' community,
and the fact that very many thought the scheme unwise and
impractical, and it will easily be seen that a thorny path lay
ahead for St Michael's, and especially for its Superior.
As for the Superior, it was obvious that Prior Raynal
could hardly, at his age, be expected to undertake what in
the circumstances was bound to be a herculean task. For
well-nigh forty years he had been at Belmont, and for the
last twenty-eight of those years he had been Superior. He
was now seventy-one, and it was known that in any case he
wished to retire: a fact which facilitated the inauguration of
the new era. Accordingly at the General Chapter of February
5, 1901, he was not re-elected Cathedral Prior of St Michael's
(after an unbroken run of seven elections at previous
Chapters), and he laid down the charge he had borne so

106 THE HISTORY OF BELMONT ABBEY
well. The titular Abbacy of St Alban's was conferred upon
him, and he was appointed Procurator of the Congregation
to the Roman Curia. He therefore went to live at the great
international Benedictine College of S. Anseimo in Rome,
opened the previous year on the Aventine Hill. His last act
of construction in St Michael's was to collect ^100 to fill the
west window of the north side of the nave with stained glass
in honour of some of the English martyrs. Later the remaining
window in the same aisle was similarly completed to the
honour of the Reading Benedictine martyrs in his memory.
He lived in Rome for only three years, dying there on June
8, 1904, and he was buried in a vault marked with a great
medal of St Benedict in the cemetery of San Lorenzo. In
1906, Prior Fowler began the building of the sacristy at
Belmont as a memorial to him, and it was blessed and
opened by Bishop Hedley on May 20, 1907, a memorial
brass being set up at the same time in the church. His
memory will ever live in the monastery where he had laboured
so long, and which he did so much to beautify.
On the resignation of Prior Raynal the General Chapter
chose as his successor Dom Ildephonsus Cummins ofAmple-
forth, the man who had been the first in recent years to urge
that St Michael's should take novices for itself, and who had
brought about the enactment to that effect by the General
Chapter of 1901. He faced now a difficult task, and he knew
it. He had been clothed at the early age of sixteen for the
Priory of St Lawrence, and was professed the following year
(September 29, 1866) at Belmont by Prior Vaughan. There
followed eleven years at Belmont, first as student, and then
as professor. He showed himself to be a brilliant classical
scholar, and during these years had, together with Dom
Elphege Cody, to do most of the teaching in the house. To
give him status in his work he was nominated a Canon of the
Cathedral Chapter while still a deacon in 1873 at the early
age of twenty-four. A curious feature of his life, and one
which he was fond of mentioning, was that he had played a
part in the foundation of no fewer than four communities.
For besides being the initiator of the new community at
Belmont, he had been Dom Jerome Vaughan's chief assistant

THE NEW ERA OPENS 107
in founding the monastery at Fort Augustus in 1878, had
persuaded the Empress Eugenie to invite the French monks
to make the foundation at Farnborough, and had been one
of the three first monks who started the small Ospizio, the
English Benedictine house in Rome, which paved the way
for the foundation of the great College of S. Anselmo. He
had a very strong historical sense, and a great pride in the
past glories of the Benedictine Order in England, so that he
delighted in the fact that Belmont had revived the old
English title of Cathedral Priory, and that the monastery
church was the Cathedral of the Diocese. It is therefore
somewhat of an irony that it fell to him to initiate the new
Belmont conventus which was bound sooner or later to
bring about the termination of the Common House and the
Monastic Chapter of which he was so proud. In later years
he deplored both of these developments, and it seems that
he always really preferred the old Provincial System to the
modern rule of independent Abbots. Incidentally, it may be
mentioned in passing that it was largely due to him that the
name 'Belmont' came into current use. The name had
originally belonged exclusively to Belmont House, the home
of the Wegg-Prosser family, and for very many years the
monastery was known simply as St Michael's Priory,
Clehonger, or merely as the Pro-Cathedral. But Prior
Cummins, who always insisted on the fact that the Cathedral
Priory was the successor of the great Cathedral Priories of
pre-reformation times (Winchester, Durham, Ely and the
rest), and as such was unique in the world at the present
time, adopted for the house when he became Prior the title
of 'Belmont Minster'1; and as this was used in correspondence
and on all other occasions in his time, the name of Belmont
became transferred to the monastery and indeed to the
whole district.
So St Michael's had at last a new Superior, and a man of
a type very different to his predecessors. He himself remarked
in later years that the new Prior was received at Belmont
with friendly tolerance by the staff and community, to
1 He thought that this would stress the fact that the church was the Pro-
Cathedral of the Diocese. This title was, however, abolished by his successor.

I08 THE HISTORY OF BELMONT ABBEY
whom he had been represented as a disciplinarian sent to
reform an easy-going and somewhat relaxed monastery!
He added dryly: 'There was little ground for anxiety'. It
seems generally to have been considered that Prior Cummins
was not an outstanding success as Superior, and that would
be the natural inference drawn from the fact that at the
conclusion of his four-year term of office he was not re-
elected by the General Chapter of 1905; but it is probable
that this was due not to administrative failings, but rather
to more personal elements. He was not popular with his
staff, and their restiveness communicated itself to some of the
Juniors. Of course he was handicapped by having to succeed
to such a man as Prior Raynal, and moreover he did not
choose his own staff, for these were appointed from outside.
But on this point he himself said that though he had been
criticised for not insisting on wholesale changes in the staff
who were attached to the old Superior and his ways, he
himself 'preferred the risks of trying to work with the
existing professors', and the only change made was the
substitution of Dom Joseph Colgan, the Procurator, to be
Sub-Prior in place of Dom Romuald Woods, the former
continuing at the same time to be Procurator. The Prior's
task of stiffening the studies and the discipline was helped
by the Abbots of the other monasteries who now had far
more authority at Belmont than before, and who met
regularly there to supervise the studies of their subjects.
Prior Cummins's own summing-up is that 'Belmont con-
tinued to be a most regular and observant community; its
staff of Canons contented and united, with none of their
privileges curtailed'. It should be added, however, that other
sources of information give a somewhat different picture of
the attitude of the staff. For it is suggested that his rule was
not acceptable to them. It is also said that he did not go
about his task in a conciliatory way. While, on the one hand,
he was always receptive of new ideas, an unusual character-
istic after middle age, and he retained his enthusiasms until
his death at the age of eighty-eight; and moreover with the
young and ignorant he was helpful and kindly, and was
often to be seen taking part in the manual labour of the

THE NEW ERA OPENS 
novices in the garden; yet, on the other hand he was apt to
be impatient with those who were afraid of development
and he had an unfortunate habit of irony which was not
"ILTn^f complained in later years that no one was ,
enthusiastic about the new Belmont community except him-
self that its difficulties were magnified, and that as a novelty
,t was suspected He felt that critics, who knew nothing of
the early difficulties of the other houses,, did not make due
allowance, but expected Belmont to be 'up to the standard
of the other well-founded and wealthy communities while
matters were made worse by the fact that its early candidates
were not up to the level of other postulants, and their
shortcomings and failures were emphasised by unsympathetic
observers. It  was naturally a disappointment that the earliest
Novices clothed were never professed, but this unhappy start
for the new community was soon rectified.
I has already been shown that from the start there were
considerable doubts as to the exact status and legal position
of the new community. Typical of these difficulties were the
questions raised as to 'the very nature and history of the
Belmont Foundation', the 'beneficent interests of the other
houses', whether the setting up of the new conventus did not
involve alienation of the rights of the other monasteries in the
property at Belmont, and whether it did not mean infringe
Lnts of the implied purposes for which money had been
sunk in the place. In view of all this, when the Abbot-
President and the Assistant Abbots met at Belmont a year
later (June 3, ^) the minutes of the meeting record that
'A prolonged discussion ensued on the canonical and financial
status of Tte Belmont Conventus which issued in the passing of
the following decree and resolutions:
110 THE HISTORY OF BELMONT ABBEY

1. Doubts having been raised as to the exact meaning of the
Act of Chapter, February, 1901, permitting the Monastery ofSt
Michael's, Belmont, to take novices for itself, salvis juribus
congregationis, we declare that the Belmont novices are to be
aggregated to the existing monastery of St Michael's at Belmont,
which is serving provisionally as the cathedral monastery of
Newport. The status of this community of Belmont will not be
affected by any change which may affect the Chapter of Newport.

2. Resolution. The Community of St Michael's is endowed
with

(a) All existing lands and buildings at Belmont,

(b) All funds specially acquired by Belmont, together with

libraries, furniture, etc.
Salvis juribus Congregationis nostrae, necnon et Diocesis et Capituli
Neoportensis.

3. Resolution. The abbots consider that the members of St
Michael's, Belmont, in the event of the failure of their own
Community have a right to support from the rest of the congre-
gation.

4. Resolution. Until next Chapter the pension of Belmont
subjects is fixed at ^30 per annum, exclusive of clothing, medi-
cine, etc., these subjects being exempt from any contribution to
general expenses unless such expenses shall have been incurred
by the growth of the Belmont community.'
These declarations and resolutions were signed by Abbot
Gasquet as Abbot-President, and No. i was also signed by
the two Assistant Abbots (Abbot Smith of Ampleforth, and
Abbot Larkin of Douai). Moreover each of the Abbots
undertook to help the formation of a community at Belmont
by educating a candidate for it in their school.

And so Prior Cummins set about the congenial task of
raising a new community of monks, and the new era for
Belmont had definitely opened. As things turned out there
is a peculiar complication in deciding who was actually the
first Belmontese monk. The first postulant was Gregory
Buisseret, who was accepted on June 24, 1901, but owing to
his youthfulness (he was only fourteen) he had to remain at
school for another two years. The first to be clothed for
Belmont were Benedict Crickmer and Maurus Moorat, the
ceremony taking place on December 20, 1901, but neither
of these finally persevered. But the first who eventually
became a permanent member of the Community was
Placid Smith, who was clothed on September 3, 1902. Yet

THE NEW ERA OPENS ! 11
even that does not end the complications, for on September
20 of that year a priest from Fort Augustus (Dom Dunstan
Sibley) was aggregated to the new community, and as a
priest he took precedence over the others. He had been
professed in 1885 for Douai, but transferred m 1891 to Fort
Augustus. Eventually Gregory Buisseret was clothed m 1903,
along with Wilfrid de Normanville who had first tried his
vocation at Ampleforth before being accepted for Belmont.
In those early years of the new Community there were many
applications from would-be postulants, for a monastery in
which one was free from the distractions of school-teaching
made an appeal to many, and this was the only such house
in the English Congregation. It is said that such applications
averaged nine or ten each year. Needless to say a few of them,
as is the case with every monastery, were odd characters,
and these did not survive long. One such who came in 1903
with good credentials was quite unable to settle down, and
after a few days he ran away in the approved style of melo-
drama, leaving his habit hanging on the Belmont Oak.
During Prior Cummins' period of rule one very welcome
material improvement in the choir was carried out. The
choir stalls had not all been put in at once, for at first there
were but two real stalls, those for the Bishop and the
Cathedral Prior, which were put in, one on each side of the
choir in 1860. The remainder of the back rows were installed
bv Bishop Brown soon after 1865, but in front of them there
was nothing but a row of planks supported by iron tripods,
as may be seen in some of the old photographs of the church.
This arrangement made it necessary for those in the front
ranks to kneel with upright caution, for the tripods were none
too steady. But in 1904 the new oak fronts were given by Sir
William Butler. This, however, raised a new difficulty for
the existing stalls were only of pitch-pine which had been
stained and varnished a deep mahogany colour, and so had
now to be cleaned in order to match the new fronts. This
task was allotted to the novices of the year, who spent the
months of June and July with buckets of hot soda water and
scrubbing brushes. Finally a liberal dose of vinegar was
applied before wax polish was rubbed in. A further improve-
112 THE HISTORY OF BELMONT ABBEY
ment brought about in Prior Cummins' time was the inser-
tion, in June 1904, of skylights in the dormer windows over
the choir: an addition that made a surprising difference in
the lighting of an obscure corner. It may be mentioned also
that one of the Prior's early acts was to secure the passing of
a declaration by the House Council in January 1902 that the
new community considered Mr Wegg-Prosser to be its
Founder, and that to him and to his family were to be
accorded all the rights and privileges consonant with that
title.
During these years, apart from the Prior, there were two
dominant figures at Belmont. For very many years Fr
Romuald Woods and Fr Joseph Colgan had held key
positions in the monastery, and they were highly respected.
The personality of each of these men, though they were of
contrasting types, had great influence over the young monks
throughout a long period, and many an English monk, when
in later life his thoughts turned to Belmont, automatically
called to mind those two, who seemed to embody the very
spirit of the place. For twenty-eight years Fr Romuald
Woods had been Sub-Prior to Prior Raynal (a position
equivalent to that ofClaustral Prior today), and for twenty-
eight years also, though slightly later, Fr Joseph Colgan
('Dom J.' to generations of monks) had been Procurator.
They were in fact the depositaries of many traditions, and
Belmont was essentially a house of traditions which were
carefully preserved. It was also of its very nature a place of
sharply graduated and jealously preserved and enforced
grades of privilege all the way down the hierarchy from
Prior to postulant. By the time that Prior Cummins took
office Fr Romuald was an old man and he therefore relin-
quished the post of Sub-Prior in 1901, but he continued to
live at Belmont and to do much active work until his sudden
death in a Cardiff street in 1907. Fr Joseph continued to be
a mainstay of the place until the departure of Prior Fowler
in 1914.
With the end of Prior Raynal's long period of rule, and
the inauguration of the new Conventus under Prior Cum-
mins, the heyday of Belmont as a Common House was over.

THE NEW ERA OPENS 113
A new era was opening out, and the future of the house was
to be very different to its past: with a different organisation,
a different spirit, different aims, and, in the nature of things
(as having hitherto been a noviciate), a different type of
discipline. In retrospect, it is now clear enough that the
action of the General Chapter in 1901 in giving consent to
the formation of a Belmont Community sealed the fate of
the Common Noviciate and the House of Studies, though no
one appears to have realised the fact at the time. For, once
an indigenous community was started, that community was
(apart from the possibility of complete collapse) bound
steadily to expand, until, sooner or later, the time would
come when there would no longer be room in the same
building for both the Common Noviciate, etc., and the
Belmont Conventus. Furthermore, that Conventus would be
certain some day to desire, and eventually to attain, its
independence on a par with the other Houses, and for that
reason would be unwilling to harbour any longer the
Common House within its walls; just as today it is difficult
to imagine one of the other monasteries being willing to
house a Congregational noviciate or House of Studies, even
though many people now believe that at any rate a House
of Studies is, to say the least, much to be desired, if not a
necessity, in the Congregation. And thus it would seem to
follow that those who deplored the passing of the old
Common House (as did nearly all those who passed through
it), and yet welcomed, and strove for, the setting up of the
new Community (e.g. Prior Cummins himself), were in fact
short-sighted. Whether the benefits accruing from the
foundation of a new Community in the Congregation out-
weigh the disadvantages and handicaps incurred by the
Congregation through the loss of a Common House of
Studies is another matter, and one upon which opinions will
doubtless differ.
But so long as Prior Cummins was in charge none of this
appeared on the surface, and the numbers of novices and
juniors from the various monasteries was kept up to the
normal figure, while simultaneously the infant Belmont
Community was carefully nursed and gradually grew. The
H4. THE HISTORY OF BELMONT ABBEY
Prior had a difficult task and a delicate one, but unhappily
he had alienated many who might otherwise have been of
valuable assistance to him. As the end of his quadriennium
of office approached it seemed unlikely that he would be
re-elected, and the task of finding a suitable man for such a
post, and for guiding Belmont through this difficult period
of transition, was sure to be hard. The choice lay, of course,
with the General Chapter, and it met at Ampleforth on
June 5, 1905. It was thought well that a further official
statement regarding the new conventus should be made by
this Chapter, presumably as a confirmation of the declara-
tion made by the Chapter of 1901; and eventually an enact-
ment was produced, the wording of which was singularly
clumsy.1 This declared that 'saving the rights of our Con-
gregation, the novices of this conventus (i.e. Belmont) are to
be aggregated to the conventus of St Michael at Belmont,
which is provisionally the Cathedral Church of the diocese
of Newport. The status of this conventus will not be affected
by any changes to which the Newport Chapter may be
subjected.'2 Those words are, of course, taken from the
resolution passed by the Abbots in 1902.3 The Chapter of

1905 then went on to add that in the view of the Chapter
the Belmont Conventus comprised three elements: the
Superior, the resident professors, and their own (Belmont)
professed members and novices. Obviously this declaration
laid itself wide open to criticism, and not merely on gram-
matical grounds. It was in fact a fruitful source of controversy
in later years. However, it did show that the Chapter still
desired the new Conventus to prosper, and it would be
fruitless now to dwell on the protracted controversies which
the wording produced. The intention, at any rate, was clear.
At this Chapter the Cathedral Prior of Belmont, un-

* It is curious that from the very start in 1859 it seems to have been impossible
for anyone to frame a declaration or resolution about Belmont in unam-
biguous or precise language. , . . .,

2 'Quoad statum conventus de Belmont dedaratum est a capitulo ut, salvis junbus
congregafionis nostrae, novitii hujus conventus aggregandi sunt conventui S. Michaelts
de Belmont, qui provisorie pro ecclesia cathedrali Neoportensis diocesis habetw. Status
hujus conventus de Belmont non mutabitur quibuscunque mutationibus capitulo
Neoportensi accidentibus.'

* See above, p. 110.

THE NEW ERA OPENS I 15
fortunately for himself, found himself in conflict with his
fellow-capitulars from the start. The trouble began over a
matter of precedence, for in the early sessions of the Chapter
Prior Cummins (as Cathedral Prior) was ranked with the
other Superiors, and so took precedence over a titular Abbot
who was attending as house delegate for his monastery. This
had in fact been the custom as regards Prior Raynal at former
Chapters. But on this occasion exception was taken to this
arrangement, and the upshot was that Prior Cummins had
to give way to the titular Abbot.1 He was already in a
somewhat ruffled frame of mind because at the beginning of
the Chapter there had been an additional rebuff for Belmont.
Writing his recollections of the Chapter nearly thirty years
later he thus described the incident:
'By advice of the President, the Belmont Conventus, now over
twelve in number, counting the resident Canons, had chosen a
Delegate, requesting Chapter to admit him as such. (In the new
Constitutions a Conventual Priory of twelve monks has full
Captiular rights, e.g. a Delegate.) After discussion, his claim was
rejected, but the claimant. Canon Woods, was allowed an honorary
seat, which after a few meetings he did not care to occupy.'2
Naturally Prior Cummins sought to uphold the Belmont
claim, and a little later had again to assert Belmont rights
(this time successfully) when Abbot Ford sought to upset a
donation to Belmont given many years previously by a
Gregorian. But the chief trouble was caused by a much more
important matter of principle. The President had recently
made a Visitation of one of the other monasteries at which
serious matters, mostly regarding temporalities, had had to
be investigated and correction given. But when the Acta of
this Visitation were read at the Chapter they were found to
contain no reference whatever to these matters, and Prior
Cummins felt that the Chapter would be abdicating its
functions altogether if it were to confirm such Ada, without
any consideration of, or judgment on, what had occurred,
and merely act as a rubber stamp for the President. He
1 It should, however, be stated that the 'titular Abbot' had, in fact, been the
ruling Abbot of his monastery until his then recent resignation, whereupon
he had been given a titular abbacy-a fact which Prior Cummins seems
to have overlooked.

8 MS. Recollections.
116 THE HISTORY OF BELMONT ABBEY
called, therefore, for an Enquiry to be made into the affair.
But he was heard in chilly silence and received no support.
His account of the result of his intervention may be given:
'At first the Capitulars seemed only disconcerted, and wanting/
leadership. The proposal was plausible at least. But the Abbots
remained silent, and the President1 evidently resented the implied
censure [on himself], while the monks [of the monastery con-
cerned] were angry at any suggestion of investigation, instead of
welcoming one had they nothing to conceal. The President
virtually admitting that there had been faults to correct protested
that he had dealt with them in private regulations, the obvious
answer being that the Constitutions know nothing of two sets of
Acta, and that secret regulations, made only a fortnight before
could have no binding force, and no purpose, if they were not
confirmed in Chapter.

It was openly admitted that the Acta were hardly more than
formalities, and that nothing should be put in them that could not
prudently be read out in the Refectory before strangers! It was
regarded, and is now so regarded, as almost libellous to insert
anything in the Acta Visitationis that is uncomplimentary to
anyone.'
He sums up the whole episode as being 'A victory for
monastic autocracy tempered only by the fear of God: a
severe defeat for more democratic ideas lingering on from
the ancien regime'. The fact was that Prior Cummins never
succeeded in completely reconciling himself to the 'new'

Constitutions of 1899-1900 which had swept away the old
Provincial System. Under that system the General Chapters
had had very real powers, as had also the President-General,
and there was in fact centralised government; but under the
new dispensation the monasteries were autonomous and had
nothing to fear from General Chapter which was but a pale
shadow of its old self. But Prior Cummins still looked for
some measure of control from Chapter, and to him what he
calls 'the apathy of the Capitulars, and their indifference to
the welfare and credit of the Congregation' were incredible.
In later life he constantly deplored the weakness of modern
General Chapters, and the fact that no criticism could ever
officially be uttered of the administration of any of the
monasteries.
It was in these circumstances, then, and in this state of

1 Abbot Gasquet.

THE NEW ERA OPENS X 17
tension that the Chapter of 1905 passed on to the business
of electing a Prior for Belmont for the coming quadriennium,
and in view of the various incidents just recorded it is not
surprising that Prior Cummins was not re-elected. Through-
out the Chapter he had, with the highest motives, and indeed
with considerable justification, been a thorn in the side of his
fellow-capitulars, and he himself admitted that (in his own
words, speaking in the third person) 'The Cathedral Prior's
inconvenient action did not add to his popularity (at the
Chapter). He was', he said, 'the last man prudently to raise
this burning question, being the only Superior present
whose position depended wholly on the Chapter's good-will.'
And apart from all this, he himself admits that 'the Newport
Canons were not at all keen about the retiring Prior'.

Very much depended on this election, for the young
Community at Belmont required patient and wise handling
if it were to survive its teething troubles. For the vacant
Priorship the Chapter selected a monk of Downside, Dom
Clement Fowler, and, as tnthgs turned out, he remained at
Belmont for the next ten years.
The election was a great disappointment to Prior Cummins,
who had looked forward to continuing to nurse the new
community which he had brought into existence, and his
writings make it clear that he keenly felt the implied
criticism, and the more so since, unlike his predecessors, he
was not made a titular Abbot (even though that rank was
frequently given to monks who had never been ruling
Superiors). It was not till twelve years later, after many
protests by him, that he was appointed Abbot of St Mary's,
York. Let us in charity permit him to have the last word:
Some time after the Chapter', he writes, 'Abbot Smith [of
Ampleforth] reproached me, saying that "had I played my cards
better, I might have been Cathedral Prior to the end of my
life". I could only reply that religious principles and discussions
were something more than a game of cards; but even so, I would
rather play for principle than for position.'