ABSTRACT
The first commonwealth ever to be controlled by Christian monks was that of Mount Athos and it has outlasted the, historically, far more significant instances that were to rise in Western Europe. The monk is so scandalized that he refers to the friars simply as "quidam," and he goes on with a sad lamentation over the state of his country beginning: "O Anglia, olim gloriosa." In the East it is certainly true that whatever popular control of the policy of monasticism the monks may have won has been of very little significance to the outside world. The lord abbot became a great grandee in the world that his spiritual ancestors had given up as wholly vile. The abbot seemed also to prefer an active life to one of contemplation, and rather commended good officials than good monks.
