Benedictines
BENEDICTINES. The Order of Saint Benedict (O.S.B.) is not a centralized religious order like the Franciscans, Dominicans, or Jesuits but rather a confederation of congregations of monks and nuns who follow the rule of Benedict of Nursia (c. 480–547). Each monastery is an autonomous community bound to other monasteries of the same congregation by loose juridic ties and associated with the rest of the confederation through common commitment to the rule. Benedict himself is known to have founded monasteries at Subiaco, Monte Cassino, and elsewhere in central Italy. Because of its wisdom and moderation his rule was also adopted in many of the other monasteries of Latin Christendom. Its widespread implementation was also fostered by the missionary zeal of the early Benedictine monks and by papal patronage.
Gregory the Great helped spread the influence of the rule in 596 when he sent Benedictine monks to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons. Augustine, their monastic leader, became the first archbishop of Canterbury, and their success also resulted in the development of schools and a flourishing scholarship, as seen especially in the work of the Venerable Bede (c. 673–735). Anglo-Saxon monks subsequently took up missionary work in Frisia and also in central Germany, where Boniface (673–754) firmly established monastic life according to the rule of Benedict. In the eighth and early ninth centuries, however, many monasteries fell into the hands of lay abbots, and consequently serious abuse and decadence crept into monastic life. Reform was initiated by Benedict of Aniane (c. 750–821), who insisted on a more literal observance of the rule; his approach to monasticism spread to other abbeys in Aquitaine. When Louis I, "the Pious," succeeded Charlemagne as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 814, Benedict was installed as superior of all monasteries in the empire. At Aachen in 817, the Frankish abbots agreed on a uniform discipline and encouraged a liturgy that was more elaborate and solemn than that provided for in the rule. As a result manual labor declined in importance. Such uniformity was not consonant with the spirit of the rule. Because more attention was given to external monastic structures than to the spirit of the rule, the Frankish attempt at reform was ultimately a failure. A new regularity of discipline was imposed in the Frankish houses during the first half of the ninth century and was accompanied by the development of scholarship, as indicated by the writings of Smaragdus, Paschasius Radbertus, Ratramnus, and Rabanus Maurus. However, the collapse of the empire in 843 resulted in a further decline in monastic life and discipline.
The tenth century saw a successful revival of Benedictinism, above all at Cluny, a monastery founded in 910 by William of Aquitaine and placed directly under papal patronage. Three distinguished and long-lived abbots, Majolus (abbot from 954 to 994), Odilo (994–1048), and Hugh (1049–1109), directed that house very effectively, establishing a high level of observance. They also established numerous other foundations so that in the twelfth century Cluny included a network of almost fifteen hundred monasteries, although many of them were very small houses. In reaction against the highly structured, economically wealthy, politically powerful, and liturgically elaborate form of monasticism that prevailed at Cluny and its larger daughter houses, other monastic families also developed during the eleventh century. These included the Camaldolese, the Vallumbrosans, the Carthusians, and the Cistercians, all of whom stressed a return to the basic elements of Benedict's rule, especially manual labor, corporate poverty, silence, prayer, and penitence.
Monasticism was corrupted by the feudal system in the late Middle Ages; the observance of poverty and simplicity of life became particularly difficult to maintain. Popes Innocent III (d. 1216), Honorius III (d. 1227), and Gregory IX (d. 1241) sought reform, above all by having recourse to the Cistercian institution of the general chapter. In 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council mandated triennial provincial chapters that were to elect visitators to oversee the implementation of legislated reform measures, but this program was generally carried out only in England. In 1336 Benedict XII organized all Benedictine monasteries into thirty-two provinces and also prescribed a triennial chapter and visitation. Unfortunately, there was no way to implement this legislation effectively.
The institution that is known today as a Benedictine congregation was inaugurated in the fifteenth century by Luigi Barbo. In 1408 he became the abbot of Santa Giustina at Padua, where he established regular discipline. This attracted so many candidates that he went on to found new monasteries and reform existing ones, all of which were joined into a congregation in 1419. All of the Italian and Sicilian monasteries also eventually joined this congregation, which became known as the Cassinese Congregation when the abbey at Monte Cassino joined the congregation in 1504.
The Protestant Reformation destroyed about eight hundred of the approximately three thousand monasteries extant in Europe at the time. As a result of the Council of Trent (1545–1563), the congregational system was imposed on those monasteries that survived, and exemption from episcopal control was extended to all houses. By the eighteenth century Benedictine monasticism was generally in a healthy state, but it soon declined again as a result of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and widespread secularism. However, recovery and expansion followed during the nineteenth century. In 1833 Prosper Guéranger restored Benedictine life at Solesmes in France, prosperous houses developed in Germany at Metten in 1830 and at Beuron in 1863, and Boniface Wimmer, a monk of Metten, brought Benedictine monasticism to the United States in 1846. In 1888 Pope Leo XIII revived the Benedictine College of Sant'Anselmo in Rome, which had been founded by Innocent XI in 1687 as an international college for young Benedictine monks. The office of abbot primate was created in 1893. Elected by the Benedictine abbots of the world, the primate serves as head of the College of Sant'Anselmo and acts as an official representative of Benedictines to the Holy See; although he has no jurisdiction over individual abbeys throughout the world, he is a symbol of moral unity among Benedictines. On March 21, 1952, Pius XII approved the codification of the Lex Proprio, a particular code of law that governs the confederation of congregations. It is reviewed regularly at the congress of abbots held in Rome every four years.
The history of Benedictine women has not been well chronicled because of the scarcity of manuscript evidence. It seems that the Benedictine rule was first adopted in English convents in the seventh century, at the time the nuns Hilda and Etheldreda both ruled over double monasteries. When Boniface went as a missionary to Germany he was assisted by a distinguished group of nuns, including Lioba, Walburga, and Thekla. In the thirteenth century significant mystical writings were produced in Germany by Gertrude the Great; Mechthild of Hackeborn, and Mechthild of Magdeburg; it is not known, however, whether they were Benedictines or Cistercians. Post-Reformation nuns included Gertrude More (1606–1633); she achieved a high degree of holiness under the direction of Dom Augustine Baker while a member of the English community exiled at Cambrai in France. That community returned to Britain and finally settled at Stanbrook, near Worcester, in 1983. It is probably the most distinguished abbey of Benedictine nuns. Those nuns who came to the United States from Germany and Switzerland in the nineteenth century were forced to give up their solemn vows as nuns because of their apostolates outside the monastic enclosure; the majority of the women in the communities they founded are now Benedictine Sisters of pontifical jurisdiction.
In addition to the traditional life of work and prayer carried on within the enclosure of the monastery, Benedictine men and women engage in various ministries, including education, scholarship, health care, retreats, and parochial and missionary work. According to 2004 statistics, approximately eight thousand monks belong to twenty-one congregations. There are approximately 16,000 nuns and sisters, many of whom work in diverse apostolates and live outside the monastery.
Bendict of Nursia; Cistercians.
Bibliography
A good introductory account of the Benedictines is to be found in Edward Cuthbert Butler's Benedictine Monachism, 2d ed. (1924; reprint, New York, 1961). St. Benedict's Disciples, edited by D. H. Farmer (Leominster, U.K., 1980), is a broad collection of essays on the past and present achievements of Benedict's followers, and through them of Benedict himself. Saint Benedict: Father of Western Civilization, prepared under the direction of Pieter Balsetier (New York, 1981), is a comprehensive and generously illustrated volume exploring many aspects of the Benedictine contribution to Christian humanism through art and architecture, as well as through scholarship. Statistical information can be found in Catalogus monasteriorum O.S.B., 16th ed. (Rome, 1985), and J. P. Müller's Atlas O.S.B.: Index monasteriorum (Rome, 1975).
New Sources
Kardong, Terrence. The Benedictines. Wilmington, Del., 1988.
Posset, F. "Palate of the Heart." In Augustine: Biblical Exegete, edited by Frederick van Felteren and Joseph C. Schnaubelt, pp. 252–278. New York, 2001.
Wright, J. R. "An Olivetan Benedictine Breviary of the Fifteenth Century." In A Distinct Voice, edited by Jacqueline Brown and William P. Stoneman, pp. 143–154. Notre Dame, Ind., 1997.
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