Benedictines

BENEDICTINES. - Under the generic name of B. may be included all the numerous religious families that in the course of the centuries have taken as the norm and foundation of their life the Rule that the patriarch of Cassino had composed in the first half of the 6th century. The notes that follow, however, deal only with the main trunk, constituted at present by the so-called confederated B.

I. THE CONSTITUTION

In the case of the Benedictines, perhaps more than in any other analogous case in the Latin Church, the word "Order" must still be understood in part according to its ancient meaning. Originally this expression indicated the totality of the monastic state. Later it came to mean a determined manner of life and a uniform observance, to which there gradually came to be added the idea of a unity of hierarchy and of government. In this latter sense it is found among the Cluniacs and the other monastic institutions of the 11th century, but it was especially successful among the Cistercians, for whom the "ordo" is something very similar to the most modern centralized forms. It was in fact the numerous Religious orders that arose in the 13th century, above all the Franciscans and Dominicans, that gave the word its present-day value, carrying its etymological evolution to completion, a sign of the new conception of the religious life. Only under the influence of these new forms, and above all through the need to distinguish the disciples of St. Benedict from them, was the word "Order" attributed to them as well. It was, however, always used by them with some hesitation and never implied the concept of a centralized corporation, with a unity of hierarchy and government, in which authority is communicated from the supreme power to the local superiors. At present, the expression, as it is in current use, designates first of all the whole body of the confederated monks, who have as their common representative in Rome an abbot with the title of primate; in a broader sense it often extends also to the other branches of Benedictine monasticism that are not part of this recent confederation. But in both cases there is still today excluded from the concept of the Benedictine Order that of "an association of religious scattered over several cities and kingdoms, governed by a central regime, with a view to a special activity that constitutes the purpose of the corporation itself" (I. Schuster, La spiritualità b., in Le scuole cattoliche di spiritualità, Milan 1944).

In reality such was not the ideal of St. Benedict. He, who at the beginning had distributed his followers in a rudimentarily organized body, in the Rule, which represents his definitive thought, deliberately renounced establishing bonds of any kind between the various monasteries (cf. chaps. LV, LXXXII). This early experiment had therefore formed, like that of the eremitical life, a preliminary stage, eliminated by the further developments of his thought.

Montecassino appears to us as a monastery complete and autonomous in itself. According to this type, each cenobium will be a family, limited and determined by the members who live united around a father. The monk has joined it for his whole life, through profession, so that there will always be his place, nor will he cease to belong to it, even if for some time he should have to be away from home. It follows that the term family for the Benedictines does not have the same broad, but analogous and transferred, sense that it has in other Orders, e.g. "family of St. Francis, of St. Dominic," but rather that more proper to the natural family, to which the Benedictine cenobium is much closer in its interior organization. For its ordinary internal functioning, therefore, the domestica potestas of the abbot was sufficient, while in cases of extraordinary necessity recourse was had to the jurisdiction of the bishop. The monastery, in fact, inserted into the general framework of the ecclesiastical organization of the time, formed part of ordinary diocesan life until exemption, a measure of indisputable and superior utility, came to separate it. It was only in the course of the centuries that groups formed among the monasteries. They had various origins, according to the diversity of the motives that were their causes: the need to face a common danger, bonds of filiation and dependence, authoritarian impositions of external wills. Thus the Congregations arose. The word, already used in the Rule to denote what the medieval writers called conventus and we call community, that is, the whole body of the brethren, came to denote now juridical entities that, while preserving within limits, variable according to the case, the autonomy and the original character of the monasteries, bound them into a kind of unity. Such congregations assumed various physiognomies, according to the diversity of origin, of purpose and above all according to the firmness of the federative bonds that sometimes reached a true centralization. Their diversity, notable in internal organization, was sometimes expressed in the form of the habit, which, as is well known, St. Benedict did not determine either as to color or as to quality, leaving it to local possibilities and the demands of poverty. Each Congregation has at its head an abbot, to whom present-day canon law recognizes (cann. 488, n. 8; 501, § 3; 510; 655; 1534, 4) some, not all, of the attributions of the supreme moderators of a religious Order: each congregation depends directly on the Apostolic See (can. 1557, 2) and has the right to have its own procurator at the Roman Curia. Complete within the limits of their respective organizations, they felt no need for mutual juridical bonds, until almost our own days. It was Leo XIII who urged them toward a greater understanding among themselves, who, in the climate of the new times, had cherished the idea since 1887, together with that of a reopening on broader foundations of the ancient theological college of the Cassinese Congregation, dedicated to St. Anselm. And in 1895 a fraternal confederation was reached, presided over by an abbot primate, though the autonomy and the rights of each congregation were preserved. Elected every twelve years by all the abbots of the confederation, the primate, who has his seat in Rome in the new college of St. Anselm on the Aventine, can be considered as the bond of union among the various congregations, and represents them all before the Holy See in common affairs. From this it naturally follows that his attributions, determined by pontifical dispositions and by the CIC, have a particular character, different from those of a general of an Order, who enjoys a full and direct jurisdiction, which he communicates in part to the subordinate authorities.

II. LIFE THROUGH THE CENTURIES

The spontaneous variety of Benedictine life, its extent and its penetration in depth, which from the 6th to the 12th century bound it intimately to that of the Church, make it difficult to describe in a rapid, organic synthesis.

1) The propagation of the Rule. — Of monasteries whose foundation can with certainty be traced back to St. Benedict, the Gregorian account recalls none other than Montecassino, Terracina and the pre-existing ones of Subiaco. The fame of St. Benedict would authorize us to regard as probable the diffusion of the Rule elsewhere as well, during his own lifetime, but the lack of reliable sources and the falsifications introduced into the tradition concerning it impose dutiful reservations and cautions. Thus the celebrated missions of Maurus in France and of Placidus in Sicily do not have reliable documentation, while on the other hand the existence of other Benedictine monasteries, especially in Rome and from the earliest times, does not seem improbable. Not many years, however, had passed since the death of the patriarch, and the event, foreseen by him in sorrow and in tears, came to pass. A band of Lombards, led by Zotto, burst by night upon the Arce and easily overcame those unarmed cenobites. As St. Benedict had foretold, they all managed to escape. For the most part they took refuge in Rome, in the shadow of the Lateran, carrying with them some of the dearest memories of their father, such as the autograph of the Rule, the weight of the bread, the measure of the wine, etc. The long desolation of the sacred place would have made possible the translation to France of the bodies of St. Benedict and St. Scholastica. The controversy that followed on this point between Italians and French falls within the general framework of similar disputed medieval attempts, nor can it be considered as yet authoritatively settled. But the destruction of Montecassino was not an isolated episode. The extermination and death that spread widely over the regions trampled by the Lombards destroyed there every vestige of life. Subiaco followed the common fate, and its refugees likewise repaired to Rome (ca. 601), where the surviving flame of Benedictine monasticism seemed to concentrate.

But this did not take long to revive. Through the account of his sons, the memory of Benedict was rekindled in the City, captivating the thoughtful soul of Gregory, who consecrated its memory in his Dialogues. At the same time, the Rule began its triumphal course: after a short time "before the Regula sancta par excellence of the Roman Church, every other monastic legislation had to give way, and thus there would come to be prepared that practical unity of religious conception which laid the foundations of the new civilization" (I. Schuster). Here too the work of Gregory was preponderant, for he devoted a great part of his cares to the diffusion of that Rule. He himself founded monasteries on the Caelian and in Sicily; he established them in Corsica and perhaps also at Ravenna; above all it was his initiative that opened new paths and broader horizons to monasticism, at the same time placing its fresh energies at the service of the Roman Church. It was he who sent to England, drawing them from his monastery on the Caelian, Augustine with forty companions. The result of their mission was such as to obtain not only the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, but to determine the characteristic monastic imprint of that Church, which for so many centuries remained so closely bound to Rome, and the extraordinary development of monastic life itself, which would later have a decisive influence on the whole institution.

In France the Rule must have spread very early. But, setting aside the mission attributed to St. Maurus, the reliable testimonies go back to the first half of the 7th century. And if often, at the beginning, its observance, singularly favored by the Merovingian dynasty and by the episcopate, went hand in hand in individual monasteries with that of St. Columbanus, already by the end of the same 7th century it had acquired an uncontested dominion, preferred to some twenty other rules.

In Belgium it was introduced by its own great apostle St. Amand.

The reflowering of monasticism in Italy was marked by the conversion of the Lombards. The ancient oppressors became its patrons and to a degree never again surpassed. The extraordinary rebirth there appears sudden and universal, giving to the peninsula, by now deprived of political and juridical unity, that of Latin monasticism. Without doubt so much generosity was especially due to the piety of princes and peoples; but political motives were not absent from it: the monasteries, especially through their opportune geographical distribution, spread the influence of founders and patrons and defended the security of the new political institutions. Among the innumerable abbeys that covered Lombard Italy with a dense network, let us barely recall the most celebrated: those of Farfa, of S. Vincenzo al Volturno, of Novalesa, of Nonantola, of Amiata.

Amid so much fervor the complete restoration of the place of origin of the Rule could not be lacking. Gregory II entrusted it to Petronax of Brescia, and the success was so complete that Pope Zachary, restoring to the ancient Arce the autograph codex of the legislator, recognized for it the dignity of monastic capital. And from that center, where currents of religious life coming from the most distant regions converged, the movement of irradiation vigorously resumed. In the shadow of the Cassinese cloister the powerful and the humble, the victors and the vanquished, lived as brothers. Paul the Deacon, Sturmio, founder of Fulda, Anselm of Nonantola, Adalhard of Corbie, Willibald of Eichstätt, settled there forever or dwelt there for a time. Meanwhile the monks Willibrord and Suitbert evangelized Frisia, Boniface Germany, just as later Ansgar Scandinavia. Sent and supported by the Popes, they were the peaceful conquerors of the new Rome. With the Rule as a commentary on the Gospel, they planted their monastic colonies in the heart of the countries to be converted, offering the peoples an image of that city of God which they intended to inaugurate among them, of Christian civilization. In this way the new peoples were won to Christ and the religious unity of Europe came to be formed. And when upon this there was grafted, as its natural completion, the new political unity, its most distinguished architect and representative, Charlemagne, rightly concerned himself with the diffusion and the perfect efficiency of the Benedictine Rule. The many capitularies issued on the matter prove this, as does the request made to Theodemar, abbot of Montecassino, for a faithful copy of the autograph codex, of the measure of bread and wine established by St. Benedict, of the hymnary and of the description of Cassinese customs. His zeal for monastic unity and observance went so far as to make him ask the assembly of the great whether it was possible to admit other forms of cenobitic life besides the Benedictine. Without doubt he was also moved by political aims, discerning in the monasteries so many civilizing colonies, to which it was important to give unity of direction. It was indeed reason of state that induced him to derogate from and compromise the soundness of his own decisions, in order to continue the Merovingian system of distributing monasteries as appanages to his faithful. But his work contributed notably to the esteem of the Benedictine Rule.

2) The first unitary formations. — It fell to his son to complete his efforts. Louis the Pious found in Benedict of Aniane a collaborator who made the quest for monastic unity the aim of his life. A unity, however, not juridical but of observance. Their efforts were crowned by the famous capitulary issued in 817 at Aachen, which codified the common norms for the whole empire. Visitors watched over its observance, and at Inde a model monastery was established, to which monks were to be sent from every country to receive there the requisite formation, according to the norms laid down. The project, though destined to failure, was not barren of results. When the disintegrating forces of feudalism gained the upper hand over Carolingian unity, the monasteries likewise fell into ruin. Having become the property of lords, who installed their families and courts there, they were adapted as private houses, while the monks, forced into a precarious existence, abandoned observance. Other abbeys were destroyed, sometimes definitively, by invasions. In this way the decay was so grave that in certain regions the monastic life proved almost extinguished.

In Italy too, where the reform of Benedict of Aniane had arrived only to a limited extent, conditions were not happy. Its abbeys, which had often reached a very high degree of prosperity in the Lombard and Carolingian periods, were in part laid low by the Saracens. Thus Montecassino, where the abbot St. Bertarius was slaughtered together with many monks (883), St. Vincent on the Volturno, which had 500 monks killed (881), Farfa, Subiaco. Other houses felt the consequences of political turmoil and of the anomalous conditions of the Apostolic See. But complete ruin was not reached as elsewhere, and the fervor of observance was not entirely extinguished.

A new powerful influx of life came to the old trunk from Cluny, a remote corner of Burgundy, whose monastery, founded in 910, marked a new turning point in monastic history. Heir to Aniane in observance, the new abbey in some way carried the feudal juridical organization over into monasticism. In order to defend the monasteries from outside intrusions, it gathered them around a center, under the authority of a single head, the Cluniac abbot, subject, even in spiritual matters, to the Roman Pontiff alone. The definitive formation of this Ordo cluniacensis was reached gradually, and the exceptional worth of its abbots contributed much to it, especially that of the four most famous: Odo, Maiolus, Odilo and Hugh.

The influence of Cluny, which in some points indeed marks a notable deviation from the primitive Benedictine ideal, was immense, and extended, "almost as from a second Rome," to the whole Church. Although the reform of the Church in the 11th century cannot in fact be considered its exclusive work, nonetheless it was Cluny that prepared the times for it, with its ideals, and furnished it with many laborers. Civil society too felt the beneficial effects of its examples of piety and purity, and derived lasting benefit from it in the evangelization and cultivation of the countryside, in the developments of political and social life, in the preparation of the Crusades. The Cluniac movement was in fact one of the signs and, at the same time, one of the factors of the movement that was being prepared and was at work in European civilization. In a certain relation to Cluny, though independent, were other movements of the same age, which however did not centralize the monasteries adhering to them into a unity, but limited themselves to an identity of observance. Thus in Germany Hirsau (1071), in Flanders Brogne (919), in Lorraine Gorze (933), in France La Chaise-Dieu (1046) and Sauve-Majour (1098), St-Vanne of Verdun (1004), St. Bénigne of Dijon (990). In southern Italy the Ordo cavensis had great diffusion at this time. Governed entirely by the magnus abbas of the Most Holy Trinity, it had strong analogies with Cluny. And in these new formations the division between choir monks and conversi, devoted to the material occupations of the house, is affirmed ever more distinctly.

But Cluny, in the greatness of its work, soon came to acquire also an aspect of territorial and political power, which transformed and in part obscured its primitive and exclusive religious aspect. It thus in turn aroused a movement of reaction. In the desire for a stricter asceticism, with renunciation of every secular interest, a detachment from tradition was reached in certain definite points. Thus arose Camaldoli (1012), Vallombrosa (1037), Grand-Mont, Fontevrault (1100), Montevergine (1120), and the contemporary Pulsano, all with particular characteristics and significant in the development of the monastic constitution, which at Cîteaux (1098) reached its most advanced form. It was this that, detaching itself more decisively from tradition, assumed the proper aspect of a clearly distinct corporation, giving origin to the religious Order, in the modern sense, so as to prelude the new forms of the 13th century. Another of the most notable Cistercian innovations was that of the General Chapter as an entity, with true and supreme jurisdiction; an institution that was later universally adopted. Not only in the constitutional part, but also in that of external observances and in the characteristic attitude concerning poverty, the Mendicants had evident precursors in the monastic Congregations of the preceding century, for example in Pulsano.

3) The congregationalist systems and the crisis of the modern age. — A grave crisis for the Benedictines was marked by the new times that were being prepared through the decline of the two great medieval universalisms. As with every great crisis, its causes were varied and complex, but monasticism, still too bound to the forms of the past, which had largely been its own work, paralyzed in its autonomous constitution by the continuous state of wars and by the abuses of the lords, did not always have sufficient strength to react. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215), in order to raise its condition, established for each ecclesiastical province triennial General Chapters and apostolic visitors. This legislation, also urged by Honorius III and Gregory IX, was completed by Benedict XII with the bull Summi Magistri (1336), which distributed all Benedictine monasteries into 36 provinces. But political turmoil and then the great Western Schism prevented its implementation in most countries. There was added, especially in the Latin countries, the disastrous system of commendation, which was to lead very many monasteries to ruin. More effective than any legislation, because more in keeping with the character and history of the monastic Order, the remedy came in a spontaneous reaction. It gave rise to new movements which, while developing certain traditional forms, sought to bring the monastic Order into line with recent ecclesiastical legislation and with the needs of the new times. It was in this climate and with these aims that the Silvestrines (1231), the Celestines (1264), and the Olivetans (1313) arose. The greatest exponents of the new reform movement, which made its way in various regions and also among already existing monasteries, were later the Congregations of St. Justina of Padua (1419), later called (1504) Cassinese, and that of Bursfeld in Germany (1420). The former, bringing to completion among the black monks the federative evolution, gradually extended to all the Italian monasteries that it could save from commendation. This movement, which belongs within the general framework of the reform of the Church in the 15th century and was one of its principal manifestations, had a notable influence, especially in the Latin countries; and in imitation of it arose the Congregations of Valladolid in Spain, of Sts. Vitus and Hydulf in Lorraine, from which there later derived that of St. Maur in France, and of Chezal-Benoît, also in France. The union of Bursfeld, in accordance with local conditions, more faithfully maintained the traditional autonomy. It, like indeed the whole of Germanic monasticism, had to suffer gravely because of the Protestant religious revolution. In England too the monks were persecuted and then expelled, not without having first written noble pages.

The congregationalist system, as the one most suited to the conditions and needs of the times, was made obligatory for all monasteries by the Council of Trent (sess. XXV). Numerous and vital unions, which remained vigorous until the reforming measures of the Enlightenment and, much more, the revolutionary destructions brought grave blows to the old trunk at the end of the 18th century. Few were the monasteries spared by the storm. In Italy the abbeys, especially in Lombardy, had already been reduced in number and lived amid various difficulties caused by timid jurisdictionalism and by the reforms of princes, when the Napoleonic tempest came upon them to sweep them all away in the common suppression. Only those of Sicily were saved, having remained outside French dominion. Montecassino, Cava, and Montevergine were allowed to continue as Establishments, with a reduced number of monks, dressed as secular priests, for the custody of the cultural patrimony.

4) The present age. — But the 19th century saw a new, splendid reflowering. In this era of reconstruction a preeminent place belongs to Dom Prosper Guéranger. From Solesmes, the ancient and deserted priory of the Maurists, where in 1833 he reestablished the sons of St. Benedict, the monks spread in swarms throughout France. No less fortunate were the efforts of the brothers Maurus and Placid Wolter, who from the monastery of St. Paul in Rome, in which they professed, brought the Benedictine code back to the land of St. Boniface (1863). And the monks also returned to England, which their fathers had conquered for Christ; they crossed the oceans, resuming their ancient mission of faith and civilization among the peoples.

In Italy too the recovery had begun, when once again the axe of suppression fell upon the ancient oak (1866 and 1873) and the adverse legislation proved particularly disastrous for the Benedictines, who, because of their familiarly autonomous constitution, can hardly live in small and precarious nuclei. Life was therefore restricted to a few abbeys, which, although suppressed as religious communities, were able to continue to exist because they were the seat of ordinariates (abbeys nullum) or monuments of special historical importance. To these, in the course of time, several others were added, and though drained of men and means, these surviving abbeys kept the flame alive, thanks to the industry and sacrifices of their inhabitants. Thus the works that a centuries-old tradition had entrusted to them were preserved and adapted to new needs, such as dioceses, seminaries, archives and libraries, hospitality, printing presses; and not only that, but others were added to them, among which were colleges, new parishes, meteorological observatories. The greatest effort, however, was everywhere directed to the restoration of cloistral observance, which recent events had in part shaken. This study indeed assumed a more decided rhythm in certain monasteries, which in the end came to detach themselves from the rest of the Congregation, still exclusively Italian, when numerous foreign monasteries joined them to form the Cassinese Congregation of the Primitive Observance, also called of Subiaco, from the name of its most important monastery. Another undoubted sign of perennial vitality were the distinguished and numerous prelates whom the Church drew precisely in this era from the Benedictine cloisters. As in them Pius VII had found — he who during the Napoleonic storm had been their helmsman — and with him cardinals, for example Michelangelo Luchi and Remigio Crescini, so in these times of new political directions it drew from them the cardinals: Celesia of Palermo (d. 1904), Dusmet of Catania (d. 1894), Sanfelice of Naples (d. 1897), besides the archbishops Bonazzi of Benevento, Lancia di Brolo of Monreale, and the bishops Gerbino of Trapani, Vaccari of Tropea, De Riso of Catanzaro, Gaetani of Sansevero, etc. Among them Dusmet above all has left so great a fame of industrious holiness that the canonical processes to obtain his recognition are well under way. With him, the humble monk of St. Paul in Rome, Placido Riccardi (d. 1915), is advanced on the path that leads to the hoped-for honors of the altars. Thus they are added to those thousands of sons of Benedict who, among the innumerable hosts of their confreres, sanctified in every era by the heroic exercise of virtue, have obtained the official cult of the Church.

This whole movement of replenishment, which had already begun at the start of the century, received a fresh and decisive impulse from the solemn celebrations of 1880. As that year marked, according to tradition, the fourteenth centenary of the birth of St. Benedict, almost all the Benedictine abbots gathered, for the first time in history, at Montecassino around Cardinal G. B. Pitra, formerly a monk of Solesmes, who, as pontifical legate, solemnly consecrated in the church the remains of St. Benedict's original monastery. From that time the movement of ascent never halted again. Its beneficial effects were felt by the whole Church. From solid ecclesiastical learning in its various manifestations to the restoration of sacred chant, from the renewed intensity of Christian life connected with liturgical piety to the restoration of the purity and decorum of religious art, from the missions and the care of the territories attached to the nullus abbeys to the education of youth, in every field the modern contribution of the Benedictines is still remarkable. To them the Holy See has wished to entrust the work of revising the Vulgate, erecting for that purpose the abbey of St. Jerome in Rome.

The number of 1880 has also quadrupled. From 2,765, which was the number of Benedictines in that year, it had risen to 10,356 in 1935, and of these about 500 were in Italy. If since that last statistic, published under the care of the confederation, a temporary decrease has occurred for well-known reasons, the number is again on the increase. The monasteries, with few exceptions, all belong to the fifteen Congregations: 1) Cassinese; 2) English; 3) Hungarian; 4) Swiss; 5) Bavarian; 6) Brazilian; 7) French or Solesmes; 8) American-Cassinese; 9) Beuronese; 10) American-Swiss; 11) Cassinese of the Primitive Observance; 12) Austrian; 13) of Sankt Ottilien; 14) Belgian; 15) Bohemian. But, as has been mentioned, there are other sons of St. Benedict who do not form part of the confederation and of whom no account is given here, since they are not commonly included in the generic expression Order of St. Benedict (altogether about 5,360 monks, with 160 houses).

Numerous are the parishes and schools entrusted to the monks. Fourteen abbeys are nullus, some of them in the missions of Africa and Australia; in Italy we have: Montecassino, with 62 dependent parishes, Subiaco with 25, Cava with 17, Montevergine with 7, St. Paul's in Rome with 3, St. Justina's in Padua, St. Nicholas's and St. Andrew's in Genoa, with a dependency at Pegli (St. Martin's), St. George Major in Venice, St. Peter's in Modena, St. Peter's in Perugia, St. Mary's of Praglia, with dependencies at Dalia and Sicciolo (Istria), St. Mary's of the Mount near Cesena, St. John the Evangelist's in Parma, with dependencies at Torrechiara (Parma) and at Bismantova (Reggio Emilia), St. James's of Pontida, St. Martin's of the Stairs near Palermo, St. Mary's of Farfa, St. Peter's of Assisi, St. Mary's of Finalpia; St. Mary's of Noci (Bari), and the Madonna dei Miracoli in the province of Chieti, still priories. Furthermore in Rome there are the international college of St. Anselm, the abbey of St. Jerome for the correction of the Vulgate and other works at the disposal of the Holy See, the house of St. Ambrose and the Greek college, entrusted to the Belgian Congregation, under the dependence of the abbot primate.

III. THE CIVILIZING WORK

That "the monastic order is a great fact in the history of the civilization of Europe" (F. A. Gasquet) emerges as undeniable even in the rapid picture we have been outlining. The assertion of Harnack is therefore not exaggerated, especially with regard to the young peoples appearing at the frontiers of the Roman world to form the fabric of the new Europe: "The beginnings of our entire civilization were nothing but a chapter excerpted from the history of monasticism" (A. Harnack, Il Monachesimo, Piacenza 1909, ch. 1). And in those monastic colonies, which were to carry the name and the word of the new Rome into regions where the eagles of the Caesars had not penetrated, one of the fundamental laws was that of work. The Rule had enhanced its value and spread esteem for it. "Thus St. Benedict impressed upon his institution that eminently social aspect which all historians take pleasure in recognizing in it" (F. Schmitz). This laborious activity of theirs placed the monks at the head of the agricultural, commercial and industrial movement of the early Middle Ages, while the revenues of such conscientious, continuous work were then employed in large part for eminently social ends, for works of charity and of public utility.

Indeed, it is the work of the monks to reclaim the lands that the great Roman crisis had left uncultivated and that had then been devastated by the barbarians and by revolts. The norms of agriculture established by the first monks remained to guide the work of the fields almost unchanged until the arrival of more scientific modern systems. Around their farms, centers of production and exchange, the hamlets, villages and towns came to be formed. Thus in Italy broad zones were reclaimed, in various periods of its history, through the work of the great monasteries of Bobbio, of Novalesa, of Nonantola, of Pomposa, of Polirone and of many others which, though less known in our times, all made their contribution. In the south, the greatest centers of this activity were S. Vincenzo al Volturno and Montecassino. Around the Cassinese curità major, which survived down to our own days at Cassino on the same site and under the name of corte, all the dependencies, which later became flourishing towns, divided among themselves the task of reclamation which in the 10th century the abbot Aligernius would have facilitated with his famous placiti livellarii. The dependencies detached in more distant regions acted as colonies that repeated the systems and the practices of the mother house. Later Cava too was to make its beneficial influence felt over broad zones, especially of Cilento and Apulia.

The revenues, moreover, went in large part to the advantage of the populations. Once the indispensable expenses for the maintenance of the community and those for the embellishment of the buildings had been deducted, the remainder was employed in works of charity. Among these, hospitals and hospices for pilgrims held a special place. Not only did the abbey have a well-established hospital, but the dependent houses and towns were also provided with one, just as the social function of hospitality was practiced, in the absence of inns, both by the monasteries themselves and by purpose-built buildings constructed at the main points of passage or near the most important sanctuaries. And to give work to the inhabitants of a vast zone, an abbot of Montecassino, for example, would invite them to build roads, another would arrange public works.

But there is another field in which the zealous activity of the monks has left indelible marks: the intellectual and artistic one. Certainly St. Benedict does not expressly mention, alongside the lectio divina, a special ordering of studies, as his contemporary Cassiodorus does; but these are undoubtedly included by the necessity of the cloistered life and by the very study of Scripture and of the Fathers. One could not do without codices and therefore without the art of the scribes. In those true book workshops represented by the scriptoria, the monks labored incessantly, reproducing works with rare skill. The office of copyist required a serious and careful preparation, as well as genuine toil joined with a spirit of sacrifice. Indeed, if "tres digiti scribunt, totum corpus laborat," declared the Cassinese scribe, who also confessed "sicut qui navigat desiderat portum, ita scriptor novissimum versum." But to this toil of the Cassinese scriptorium, where above all that splendid script was cultivated, often designated also by its name, we owe the preservation of so many masterpieces, among them Cicero's Pro Cluentio; Frontinus' De aquae ductibus; Apuleius' Metamorphoses; some parts of Tacitus' Historiae; the Peregrinatio ad loca sancta. Bobbio too, in Italy, had a notably industrious scriptorium, from the 7th century onward. So did Farfa, so did other monasteries. This production was destined to feed especially the celebrated monastic libraries and was completed by the accessory arts of the book, above all those of illumination and binding.

Libraries and the art of the book were the necessary prerequisites for the development of schools, another of the most important functions then discharged by the monasteries. Together with the episcopal schools, they shared the task of providing for the instruction and formation of studious youth. Indeed, for the most part they were open also to external pupils, and those rigorously closed to such elements, who sometimes by their liveliness threatened to compromise the severe monastic tranquility, had an influence no less great, though indirect. Thus Montecassino, where the tradition of the cursus was renewed.

But the greatest contribution to intellectual development is represented by the chain of distinguished men formed in such schools or who lived in the cloisters. To limit ourselves to the most celebrated personalities or those most closely concerning Italy, let us recall, besides Gregory the Great, whose figure dominates unchallenged in the history of the Church, the Venerable Bede (d. 733), another of the "founders of the Middle Ages" and father of the history of England; Alcuin of York (d. 804), Charlemagne's right-hand man in the intellectual organization of the empire; Anselm of Aosta (d. 1109), the gentle and strong precursor of the new intellectual orientations of Christendom; Rabanus Maurus (d. 856), the pedagogue of Germany; Walafrid Strabo (d. 849), the author of the "ordinary gloss"; Notker the Stammerer (d. 912), glory of St. Gall; Autpert (d. ca. 781), the abbot of S. Vincenzo al Volturno, of such manifold erudition that he was for his times "a true phenomenon"; Paul the Deacon (d. 799), the historian of the Lombards; Bertarius, the martyr abbot of Montecassino (d. 883); Sylvester II (d. 1003), regarded almost as a magician for his extraordinary scientific knowledge; Cardinal Alberic of Montecassino (d. 1088), theologian and man of letters; the other Alberic, also of Montecassino, author of the celebrated Vision; Peter Damian (d. 1072), the strong and learned champion of the liberty of the Church; Alfanus (d. 1085), the "Virgil of Montecassino", who, as archbishop of Salerno, would receive in his arms the dying Gregory VII, that other son of St. Benedict who, like so many of his predecessors and successors on the chair of St. Peter, had tempered his unconquered spirit in the cloisters; his immediate successor Victor III (d. 1087), formerly Abbot Desiderius of Montecassino who, himself a writer of Dialogues, made his abbey a center of literary and artistic culture, "the fairest Christendom", and, like two other Cassinese raised to the pontifical throne, Stephen IX (or X, d. 1058) and Gelasius II (d. 1119), the restorer of the cursus, was to struggle and suffer not a little there for the liberty of the Church. Still belonging to his era at Montecassino, besides his friend Alfanus and the Alberics already mentioned, are Constantine the African (d. 1087), who through his translations from Greek and Arabic exercised a notable influence on the thought of the 11th century, and in particular on medicine, a science that had already had valiant cultivators at Montecassino, among them the aforementioned Bertarius and Alfanus; Leo Marsicanus, later cardinal bishop of Ostia (d. 1115), the unsurpassed medieval historian of Italy; Amatus, the historian of the Normans; Bruno (d. 1123), the abbot and bishop of Segni who in the field of exegesis surpasses every other in Italy from the 7th to the 12th century. At Farfa, Abbot Hugh (d. 1039) and Gregory of Catino, at S. Vincenzo al Volturno the monk John, are added to so many other of their confreres in transmitting the historical heritage of the medieval centuries. From the end of the Middle Ages we mention only the abbot of Montecassino Bernard Ayglerius (d. 1282), Erasmus (d. ca. 1240), Matthew of Paris (d. 1259), the archbishop of Palermo Niccolò Tedeschi (d. 1443).

We must also recall in the centuries closer to our own, among the most distinguished cultivators of the various disciplines, the chosen array of the Maurists headed by Jean Mabillon (d. 1707); the other scholars who grouped themselves around the University of Salzburg, founded in 1622; and again, in particular Bernhard Pez (d. 1735), Augustin Calmet (d. 1757), Magnoald Ziegelbauer (d. 1750); Cardinals Celestino Sfondrati (d. 1696), José de Aguirre (d. 1699), G. B. Pitta (d. 1888) and Aidan Gasquet (d. 1929), Bishop Laurent Janssens (d. 1924); the monks and abbots Ursmer Berlière (d. 1932), G. B. Chapman (d. 1933), Cuthbert Butler (d. 1934), André Wilmart (d. 1942). But above all we cannot omit the remembrance of at least some among the distinguished men whom the Cassinese Congregation produced in the monasteries of Italy: such as Cardinals Gregorio Cortese (d. 1548), Angelo M. Quirini (d. 1755), Fortunato Tamburini (d. 1761), Michelangelo Luchi (d. 1802); the archbishops and bishops Isidoro Clari (d. 1551), Onorato Fascitelli (d. 1564), Angelo della Noce (d. 1691), Pier Luigi Galletti (d. 1790), Benedetto Bonazzi (d. 1915); the abbots and monks Bernardo Castiglione, Benedetto Canofilo (d. ca. 1550), Teofilo (d. 1544) and G. B. Folengo (d. 1559), Vincenzo Borghini (d. 1580), Angelo De Faggis (d. 1593), Benedetto dell'Uva (d. ca. end of 16th century), Benedetto Castelli (d. 1644), Angelo Grillo (d. 1629), Costantino Caetani (d. 1650), Cornelio Margarini (d. 1681), Benedetto Bacchini (d. 1721), Mariano Armellini (d. 1737), Erasmo Gattola (d. 1784), Andrea Bina who in 1751 invented the seismograph, the brothers Placido (d. 1785) and G. B. Federici (d. 1800), Gaetano Bernardi (d. 1805), Bernardo and Luigi de Rossi, Agostino Rabatta and Serafino Serrati who at the end of the 18th century were among the precursors of aeronautics, Luigi Tosti (d. 1897), Oderisio Piscicelli-Taeggi (d. 1917), Ambrogio Amelli (d. 1934). Let us add among the writers of ascetical works, Ludovico Barbo (d. 1443), García Cisneros (d. 1510), Johannes Trithemius (d. 1516), Louis de Blois (d. 1666), Pietro Vecchia (d. 1694), Maurus Wolter (d. 1890), John Cuthbert Hedley (d. 1915), Columba Marmion (d. 1923), Paul Delatte (d. 1937), Anscar Vonier (d. 1938). Among the cultivators of liturgy and sacred chant, continuators of the work of Gregory the Great and of Guido d'Arezzo (d. 1950), Prosper Guéranger (d. 1875), Suitbert Bäumer (d. 1894), Joseph Pothier (d. 1923), Paul Cagin (d. 1924), André Mocquereau (d. 1930), Paolo Ferretti (d. 1938). Finally among the apostles, heirs of the spirit of those who converted so many nations, brought about the gradual abolition of slavery, established the reign of God, sought the ransom of prisoners, William Bernard Ullathorne (d. 1889) who with Pius IX collaborated in re-establishing the Catholic hierarchy in England, Boniface Wimmer (d. 1887), founder of the first abbeys in America, John Bede Polding (d. 1877) who established the hierarchy in Australia, already made fruitful by the apostolic labors of Msgr. Rudesindo Salvado (d. 1900), founder of the flourishing mission and abbey of New Norcia.

IV. BENEDICTINE

The Rule of St. Benedict, written only for men, was very soon adopted also by virgins desirous of tending toward Christian perfection. When this began it is not possible to say with certainty. The Benedictine nuns, who have taken as their particular patroness St. Scholastica, the sister of the patriarch, a model of a life consecrated to God from infancy, have led a life of retirement and concealment that makes it difficult to trace their historical existence. In Italy, from the time of the Lombards onward, besides certain monasteries that tradition, which cannot be verified, would have as contemporary with the holy legislator, others appear, distinguished and powerful. Among them we shall limit ourselves to recalling that of the Senator or of St. Aurelian at Pavia (714), that of St. Saviour and St. Julia at Brescia (753), which already in 762 enjoyed exemption, that of St. Victor at Meda (8th century), that of St. Mary in Valle at Cividale (8th century). Often, after having built them, queens and princesses shut themselves away there to live its life. Although not excessively numerous, given their hidden manner of life, there was nevertheless no lack of nuns who won renown even outside the cloister. Thus St. Lioba (d. ca. 779) and the other collaborators of St. Boniface, St. Elizabeth of Schönau (d. 1165), the poetess Hroswitha (d. end of the 10th century), St. Hildegard (d. 1179), the great mystic and counselor of popes and emperors, the virgins of Helfta, Matilda of Magdeburg (d. 1282), Matilda of Hackeborn (d. 1298) and Gertrude (d. 1302), distinguished heralds of devotion to the Sacred Heart; Giovanna Bonomo (d. 1670), the great Italian mystic, Angelica Baitelli (17th century), the learned and energetic abbess of St. Julia of Brescia, Marguerite d'Arbouze (d. 1626), Giovanna Dellelôe (d. 1660), Cecilia Baij (d. 1766), distinguished mystics. Still in more recent times the Italian monasteries have had a splendid flowering of souls heroically holy, some of whom are on the path to the glory of the altars, such as Angela M. Latini (d. 1804), Luisa Prosperi (d. 1847), Adeodata Pisani (d. 1885), M. Fortunata Viti (d. 1922).

The Benedictine nuns too have suffered much in recent centuries, especially in Italy, where they were scattered in small towns, preserving more than the monks did a large part of the ancient houses. For them too the decline has been notable. At present, to the ancient nuns of solemn vows and strict enclosure have been added other sisters, with simple vows and limited enclosure, in monasteries dependent directly on the Holy See or on the prelates of the Order; but the majority is under the jurisdiction of the ordinaries. Others are united in Congregations. Statistics, incomplete for this part, give for the Benedictine nuns the number of about 16,000, with over 300 houses. To these are to be added those who belong to the other branches of the great monastic tree: Camaldolese, Cistercians, Trappists, Vallombrosans, Sylvestrines, Olivetans and a single monastery of Celestines.

V. OBLATES

From the earliest times, while the holy patriarch was still alive, there were those who, though living in the world, desired to follow the spiritual teachings of St. Benedict and to maintain bonds of faithful brotherhood with his monks. The ties that, according to the characteristics of the Benedictine constitution, united them to individual monasteries varied over the course of the centuries and in different places. Acquiring ever greater precision, they gave rise to the present-day oblates. The majority of them live in the world - secular oblates - following the same statutes approved in 1904. Juridically they are assimilated to the tertiaries of the other religious Orders (CIC, can. 702 ff.). Other oblates live in monasteries or in their own particular communities. Among these, famous and still flourishing is that of Tor dei Specchi in Rome, founded in 1433 by St. Frances of Rome (d. 1440), under the dependence of the Olivetan Congregation.

II. - Besides the fundamental works, among which indispensable: I. Mabillon, Annales O.S.B., Lucca 1739-45, and Acta SS. O. S. B., Paris 1668-1701, cf. U. Berlière, L'ordine monastico dalle origini al sec. XII, Italian version, Bari 1928; S. Hilpisch, Geschichte des benediktinischen Mönchtums, Freiburg in Br. 1920; E. Cottinesu, Répertoire topobibliographique des abbayes et prièvres, Mâcon 1936; Ph. Schmitz, Histoire de l'ordre de St Benoît, 4 vols., Maredsous 1942-48 (two further volumes forthcoming). - For Italy in particular, the collection of various studies edited by P. Lugano, L'Italia b., Rome 1929; S. Vismara, Storia b., bibliographic bulletin in Aevum, 5(1931); besides the Rivista storica b., Rome 1906-26.
III. - C. de Montalembert, The Monks of the West, Italian trans., Florence 1864-71; F. A. Gasquet, St. Benedict and Civilization, Rome 1929; F. Schmitz, op. cit. - For the history of the Cassinese Congregation in Italy, the work of M. Armellini, Bibliotheca Benedictino-Cassiniensis, 4 vols., Assisi and Foligno 1731-35, remains fundamental, although incomplete for the last centuries.

IV. - Ph. Schmitz, Les bénédictines, in DHG, VII, coll. 1206-1234.

V. - Manuale dell'oblato b., Badia di Cava 1933; Il libro dell'oblato b., Rome 1934; P. Chauvin, St Benoît nous parle, Paris 1934; G. A. Simon, La règle de St Benoît commentée pour les oblats..., ibid. 1935; J. R. Riepenhoff, Frage des Ursprungs der Verbindlichkeit des Oblateninstituts, Münster in W. 1939.

Tommaso Leccisotti