BENEDICTINES. — Under the generic name of B. may be included all the numerous religious families which, over the course of the centuries, have taken as their norm and foundation of life the Rule that the Patriarch of Cassino composed in the first half of the sixth century. The following notes, however, deal only with the principal branch, currently constituted by the so-called "confederated" Benedictines.
OUTLINE:
I. The Constitution
II. Life over the Centuries
III. Civilizing Work
IV. Benedictine Nuns
V. Oblates.I. THE CONSTITUTION
In the case of the B., more perhaps than in any other analogous case in the Latin Church, the word "Order" must still be understood, in part, in its ancient sense. Originally, this term denoted the entirety of the monastic state. Later, it came to signify a particular manner of life and a uniform observance, to which was gradually added the idea of a unity of hierarchy and government. In this latter sense, it is found among the Cluniacs and other monastic institutions of the 11th century, but it became especially prevalent among the Cistercians, for whom the "ordo" is something very similar to the more modern centralized forms. It was indeed the numerous religious orders that arose in the 13th century, especially the Franciscans and Dominicans, which gave the word its current meaning, completing its etymological evolution, a sign of the new conception of religious life. Only under the influence of these new forms, and above all due to the necessity of distinguishing the followers of St. Benedict, was the word "Order" also applied to them. However, it was 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 local superiors. At present, the term, as it is commonly used, primarily designates 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 do not belong to this recent confederation. But in both cases, the concept of a Benedictine "Order" still lacks that of "an association of religious scattered across multiple 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, this was not the ideal of St. Benedict. He, who at the beginning had distributed his monks in a rudimentarily organized body, in the Rule—which represents his definitive thought—deliberately refrained from establishing any kind of bonds between the various monasteries (cf. chaps. LV, LXXXII). This primitive experiment thus formed, like that of eremitical life, a preliminary stage, later eliminated by the further developments of his thought.
Monte Cassino appears as a monastery complete and autonomous in itself. According to this model, every cenobium would be a family, limited and determined to the members who live together around a father. The monk is joined to it for life through profession, so that it will always be his place, and he will never cease to belong to it, even if he must leave it for a time. Hence, the term "family" for the B. does not have the same broad, but analogous and figurative, sense as in other Orders, e.g., "the family of St. Francis, of St. Dominic," but rather the more proper sense of the natural family, to which the Benedictine monastery is much closer in its internal organization. For the ordinary internal governance of the monastery, the domestic authority of the abbot was therefore 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 the ordinary diocesan life until exemption, a measure of indisputable and superior utility, separated it from II. It was only over the course of the centuries that groups formed among the monasteries. They had various origins, according to the diversity of motives that gave rise to them: the need to face a common danger, bonds of filiation and dependence, authoritarian impositions of external wills. Thus arose the Congregations. The word, already used in the Rule to denote what the medievals called *conventus* and we call community, i.e., the body of brethren, now came to denote juridical entities which, while preserving within variable limits the autonomy and original character of the monasteries, bound them in a kind of unity. These congregations assumed various forms, according to the diversity of origin, purpose, and above all the strength of the federative bonds, which sometimes reached a true centralization. Their diversity, notable in their internal organization, was sometimes expressed in the form of the habit, which, as is well known, St. Benedict neither determined in color nor in quality, leaving it to local possibilities and the demands of poverty. Each Congregation has at its head an abbot, to whom current canon law recognizes (cc. 488, n. 8; 501, § 3; 510; 655; 534, 4) some, but not all, of the prerogatives of the supreme moderators of a religious Order: each congregation depends directly on the Apostolic See (c. 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 day. It was Leo XIII who, in the climate of the new times, first nurtured the idea of a greater understanding among them in 1887, along with that of a reopening on a broader basis of the ancient theological college of the Cassinese Congregation, named after St. Anselm. And in 1893, a fraternal confederation was established, presided over by a Primate Abbot, while safeguarding the autonomy and rights of each congregation. Elected every twelve years by all the abbots of the confederation, the Primate, whose seat is in Rome at the new College of St. Anselm on the Aventine, may be considered as the bond uniting the various congregations, and represents them all before the Holy See in matters of common concern. From this it naturally follows that his prerogatives, determined by pontifical dispositions and the *Codex Iuris Canonici*, have a particular character, different from those of a General of an Order, who enjoys full and direct jurisdiction, which he communicates in part to the authorities under him.
II. LIFE OVER THE CENTURIES
The spontaneous variety of Benedictine life, its extension and deep penetration, which from the 6th to the 12th century bind it intimately to that of the Church, make it difficult to describe in a brief, organic synthesis.The Spread of the Rule
Of monasteries whose foundation can be traced with certainty to St Benedict, the Gregorian account mentions only Montecassino, Terracina and the pre-existing ones at Subiaco. The fame of St Benedict would lead us to suppose that his Rule was also spread elsewhere during his lifetime, but the lack of reliable sources and the falsifications introduced into the tradition oblige us to proceed with due caution. Thus the celebrated missions of Maurus in France and of Placidus in Sicily lack secure documentation, while on the other hand the existence of other Benedictine monasteries, especially in Rome and from the earliest times, does not seem improbable. Yet not many years had passed since the death of the Patriarch when the event he had foreseen in sorrow and tears came to pass. A band of Lombards led by Zotone burst into the Arx by night and easily overcame the defenceless cenobites. As St Benedict had foretold, all succeeded in escaping; for the most part they took refuge in Rome beneath the shadow of the Lateran, carrying with them some of the most cherished mementoes of their father, such as the autograph of the Rule, the loaf of bread, the measure of wine and so forth. The long desolation of the sacred site would later have made possible the translation of the bodies of St Benedict and St Scholastica to France. The controversy that followed between Italians and French falls within the general pattern of such medieval disputes and cannot yet be considered definitively settled. Yet the destruction of Montecassino was no isolated episode. The slaughter and ruin that spread widely over the regions trodden by the Lombards destroyed every trace of life there. Subiaco shared the common fate, and its refugees likewise made for Rome (c. 601), where it seemed that the surviving flame of Benedictine monasticism was henceforth concentrated.
Yet this was not to remain long in abeyance. Through the narrative of his sons, the memory of Benedict was revived in the Urbs, and the thoughtful spirit of Gregory gave it renewed life as he enshrined it in his Dialogues. At the same time the Rule began its triumphal progress: after a short time “before the Rule, which is in every way the holy Rule of the Roman Church, every other monastic legislation had to give way, and thus was prepared that practical unity of religious conception which laid the foundations of the new civilization” (I. Schuster). In this too Gregory’s role was pre-eminent, for he devoted much of his care to the diffusion of the Rule. He founded monasteries himself on the Caelian Hill and in Sicily; he established them in Corsica and perhaps also in Ravenna; above all, it was his initiative that opened new paths and wider horizons to monasticism, at the same time placing its fresh energies at the service of the Roman Church. It was he who sent Augustine with forty companions from his own monastery on the Caelian to England. The result of their mission was such as to secure not only the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons but also to imprint a monastic character upon that Church which for so many centuries remained so closely bound to Rome, and to bring about the extraordinary development of monastic life itself, which was later to exercise a decisive influence upon the institution as a whole.
In France the Rule must have spread very early. But apart from the mission attributed to St Maurus, the earliest secure testimonies date from the first half of the seventh century. And although at first its observance, especially favoured by the Merovingian dynasty and the episcopate, was often combined in individual monasteries with that of St Columbanus, by the end of the same century it had gained an unchallenged ascendancy, being preferred to some twenty other rules.
In Belgium it was introduced by its great apostle St Amandus himself.
The revival of monasticism in Italy was marked by the conversion of the Lombards. The former oppressors now became its foremost patrons to a degree never surpassed. The extraordinary rebirth appeared suddenly and universally, giving to a peninsula now devoid of political and juridical unity the character of Latin monasticism. Without doubt such generosity was especially due to the piety of princes and peoples; yet political motives were not absent: the monasteries, particularly through their strategic geographical distribution, diffused the influence of their founders and patrons and safeguarded the security of the new political institutions. Among the countless abbeys that spread in a dense network over Lombard Italy, we may recall only the most celebrated: Farfa, S. Vincenzo al Volturno, Novalesa, Nonantola and l’Armiata.
Amidst so much fervour the complete restoration of the birthplace of the Rule could not be lacking. Gregory II entrusted this task to Petronax of Brescia, and the success was so complete that Pope Zachary, on restoring to the ancient Arx the autograph codex of the legislator, acknowledged it once more as the monastic capital. From that centre, where currents of religious life from the most distant regions converged, the movement of irradiation gathered fresh vigour. Within the shadow of the Cassinese cloister powerful and humble, victors and vanquished, gathered in haste. Paul the Deacon, Sturm, founder of Fulda, Anselm of Nonantola, Adalard of Corbie, Willibald of Eichstätt, all came to dwell there permanently or for a time. Meanwhile monks such as Willibrord and Suitbert were evangelizing Frisia, Boniface Germany, and later Ansgar Scandinavia. Sent and sustained by the Popes, they were the peaceful conquerors of the new Rome. With the Rule as their commentary on the Gospel, they planted their monastic colonies in the heart of the lands to be converted, offering to the peoples an image of that City of God which they intended to inaugurate among them, of Christian civilization. Thus were the new peoples won to Christ and the religious unity of Europe began to take shape. And when upon this was grafted, as a natural completion, the new political unity, its most distinguished architect and representative, Charlemagne, rightly concerned himself with the spread and perfect efficiency of the Benedictine Rule. This is proved by the many capitularies issued on the subject and by his request to Teodemarus, abbot of Montecassino, for a faithful copy of the autograph codex, the measure of bread and wine established by St Benedict, the antiphonary and the description of Cassinese usages. His zeal for monastic unity and observance went so far as to ask the assembly of the great whether it might be possible to admit any other forms of life conceived apart from the Benedictine. Without doubt political aims also moved him, seeing in the monasteries so many civilizing colonies whose direction it was important to unify. Indeed it was political reason that led him to derogate from and compromise the excellence of his own decisions by continuing the Merovingian system of distributing monasteries as appanages to his faithful. Yet his work contributed notably to the prestige 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 pursuit of monastic unity the purpose of his life. This unity, however, was not juridical but one of observance. Their efforts were crowned by the celebrated capitulary issued in 817 at Aachen, which codified communal norms for the entire empire. Its observance was supervised by visitors, and at Inde a model monastery was established, to which monks were to be sent from every country to receive the proper training according to the established norms. The project, though destined to fail, was not without results. When the disintegrating forces of feudalism gained the upper hand over Carolingian unity, the monasteries likewise fell into ruin. Becoming the property of lords, who installed their families and courts there, they were adapted into private homes, while the monks, forced into a precarious existence, abandoned their observance. Other abbeys were destroyed, sometimes permanently, by invasions. In this way, the decline was so severe that in certain regions monastic life was nearly extinguished.
Even in Italy, where Benedict of Aniane’s reform had arrived only to a limited extent, conditions were not favorable. Its abbeys, which had often reached a very high degree of prosperity during the Lombard and Carolingian periods, were partly destroyed by the Saracens. Thus Montecassino, where Abbot St. Bertarius and many monks were slaughtered (883), San Vincenzo al Volturno, where 500 monks were killed (881), Farfa, and Subiaco. Other houses suffered the consequences of political turmoil and the abnormal conditions of the Apostolic See. Yet a complete ruin did not occur as elsewhere, and the fervor of observance was not entirely extinguished.
A new and powerful current of life came to the old monastic tradition from Cluny, a remote corner of Burgundy, whose monastery, founded in 910, marked a new turning point in monastic history. An heir to Aniane in matters of observance, the new abbey in some way transplanted feudal juridical organization into monasticism. To defend the monasteries from external intrusions, it gathered them around a center under the authority of a single head, the Cluniac abbot, who was subject, even in spiritual matters, only to the Roman Pontiff. The definitive formation of this Ordo Cluniacensis came gradually, and much was contributed by the exceptional value of its abbots, especially the four most celebrated: Odo, Maiolus, Odilo, and Hugh.
The influence of Cluny, though in some respects marking a notable deviation from the primitive Benedictine ideal, was immense and extended, “almost from a second Rome,” to the entire Church. Although the reform of the Church in the 11th century cannot be considered its exclusive work, it was Cluny that prepared the times for it with its ideals and supplied it with many workers. Civil society likewise felt the beneficial effects of its examples of piety and purity, deriving lasting benefits in the evangelization and cultivation of the countryside, in the developments of political and social life, and in the preparation of the Crusades. The Cluniac movement was indeed one of the signs and, at the same time, one of the factors of the movement that was being prepared and carried out in European civilization. In a certain relation to Cluny, though independent, were other movements of the same age, which, however, did not centralize the affiliated monasteries into a single unit but limited themselves to a common observance. Thus in Germany Hirsau (1071), in Flanders Brogne (919), in Lorraine Gorze (933), in France La Chaise-Dieu (1046) and Sauve-Majour (1098), Saint-Vanne of Verdun (1004), and Beaume (1090). In southern Italy, the Ordo Cavensis enjoyed great diffusion at this time. Entirely governed by the *magnus abbas* of the Holy Trinity, it bore strong similarities to Cluny. And in these new formations, the distinction between choir monks and lay brothers, dedicated to the material occupations of the house, became ever more pronounced.
Yet Cluny, in the grandeur of its work, soon acquired an aspect of territorial and political power that transformed and partly obscured its original and exclusive religious character. Thus it in turn provoked a reactionary movement. In the desire for a stricter asceticism, with the renunciation of all worldly interests, a departure from tradition in certain specific points was achieved. Thus arose Camaldoli (1012), Vallombrosa (1037), Grandmont, Pontigny (1100), Montevergine (1114), and the contemporary Pulsano, all with distinctive and significant characteristics in the development of monastic constitution, which at Cîteaux (1098) reached its most advanced form. It was this latter that, breaking more decisively from tradition, assumed the character proper to a distinct corporation, giving rise to the religious order in the modern sense, thus foreshadowing the new forms of the 13th century. Another of the most notable Cistercian innovations was the General Chapter as an entity with true and supreme jurisdiction; an institution that was later universally adopted. Not only in its constitutional aspect but also in its external observances and characteristic attitude toward poverty, the Mendicants found in the monastic congregations of the preceding century—such as Pulsano—distinct precursors.
3) The Congregationalist systems and the crisis of the modern age. A severe crisis for the Benedictines was marked by the new times that were taking shape through the decline of the two great medieval universalisms. As with every great crisis, its causes were varied and complex, but monasticism, still too tied to the forms of the past—much of which it had itself created—paralyzed in its autonomous constitution by the continuous state of wars and the abuses of lords, did not always possess sufficient strength to adapt. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215), to alleviate their condition, established for every ecclesiastical province triennial General Chapters and apostolic visitors. This legislation, reinforced also by Honorius III and Gregory IX, was completed by Benedict XII with the bull *Summi Magistri* (1336), which divided all Benedictine monasteries into 36 provinces. But political turmoil and then the Great Western Schism prevented its implementation in most countries. Added to this, particularly in Latin countries, was the disastrous system of commendation, which was to lead to the ruin of very many monasteries.
More effective than any legislation, because more in keeping with the nature and history of the monastic Order, was the remedy found in spontaneous reaction. This gave rise to new movements which, while developing some traditional forms, sought to adapt the monastic Order to recent ecclesiastical legislation and the demands of new times. In this climate and with these aims there arose the Sylvestrines (1231), the Celestines (1264), and the Olivetans (1313). The principal exponents of the new reforming movement, which took hold in various regions and even among already existing monasteries, were later the Congregations of Santa Giustina of Padua (1419), later called (1504) Cassinese, and that of Bursfeld in Germany (1420). The first, by bringing to completion among the Black Monks the federative evolution, gradually extended to all Italian monasteries that it could save from commendation. This movement, which falls within the general framework of the reform of the Church in the 15th century and was one of its principal manifestations, had notable influence, especially in Latin countries; and imitating it there arose the Congregations of Valladolid in Spain, of SS. Vito and Ildulfo in Lorraine, from which then derived that of Saint-Maur in France, and of Chezal-Benoît, also in France. The Union of Bursfeld, in accordance with local conditions, maintained more faithfully the traditional autonomy. It, like indeed all German monasticism, suffered gravely from the Protestant religious revolution. Even in England 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 (session 25). Numerous and vital unions, which remained vigorous until the reforming measures of the Enlightenment and, much more, the revolutionary destructions dealt severe blows to the old trunk at the end of the 18th century. Few monasteries were spared by the storm. In Italy the abbeys, especially in Lombardy, had already been reduced in number and lived amid various difficulties caused by the timorous jurisdictionalism and the reforms of the princes, when the Napoleonic tempest overwhelmed them all in common suppression. Only those of Sicily were saved, having remained outside French dominion. Montecassino, Cava, and Montevergine were allowed to subsist as Establishments, with a reduced number of monks, dressed as secular priests, to guard the cultural patrimony.
4) The present age. But the 19th century saw a new splendid reform. 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 re-established the sons of St Benedict, the monks spread in swarms throughout France. No less fortunate were the efforts of the brothers Mauro and Placido Wolter, who from the monastery of San Paolo in Rome, where they professed, brought the Benedictine rule back to the land of St Boniface (1863). And the monks returned also 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 revival had begun, when once again the axe of suppression fell upon the ancient oak (1866 and 1873), and the adverse legislation proved particularly ruinous for the Benedictines, who, because of their constitution which is familiarly autonomous, can scarcely live in small and precarious nuclei. Life was therefore confined to a few abbeys, which, though suppressed as religious communities, were able to continue to exist because they were seats of abbacies nullius or monuments of special historical importance. To these, in due course, several others were added, and despite the scarcity of men and means, these surviving abbeys kept the flame alive thanks to the industry and sacrifices of their inhabitants. Thus were preserved and adapted to new needs the works that centuries-old tradition had entrusted to them, such as dioceses, seminaries, archives and libraries, hospitality, printing houses, and not only these but also colleges, new parishes, meteorological observatories. The greatest effort, however, was everywhere directed toward the restoration of claustral observance, which recent events had partly shaken. This endeavor assumed an even more decisive rhythm in some monasteries, which then ended by separating from the rest of the Congregation, still exclusively Italian, when foreign monasteries joined them in forming the Cassinese Congregation of the Primitive Observance, also called of Subiaco, from the name of its most important monastery. Another, unquestionable sign of perennial vitality was the notable and numerous prelates whom the Church drew from Benedictine cloisters in this period. As in them it had found Pius VII, who during the Napoleonic storm had been their helmsman, and with him cardinals such as Michelangelo Luchi and Remigio Crescini, so in these times of new political directions it drew 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 especially has left so wide a reputation for active holiness that the canonical processes for his recognition are well advanced. With him is advanced on the path that leads to the hoped-for honors of the altar the humble monk of San Paolo in Rome, Placido Riccardi (d. 1915). Thus they join those thousands of sons of Benedict who, among the countless ranks of their brethren, sanctified in every age by the heroic exercise of virtue, have obtained the Church’s official cult.
This revival movement, already begun at the start of the century, received fresh and decisive impetus from the solemn celebrations of 1880. In that year, in accordance with tradition, the 14th centenary of the birth of St Benedict was commemorated, and almost all the Benedictine abbots gathered for the first time in history at Montecassino around Cardinal G. B. Pitra, a former monk of Solesmes, who as papal legate solemnly consecrated in church the remains of the original monastery of St Benedict. From that time the upward movement never ceased. Its beneficial effects were felt throughout the Church. From sound ecclesiastical scholarship in its various forms to the restoration of sacred chant, from the renewed intensity of Christian life connected with liturgical piety to the restoration of purity and decorum in religious art, from the missions and care of territories attached to abbeys *nullius* to the education of youth—in every field the modern contribution of the Benedictines is still notable. The Holy See entrusted to them the work of revising the Vulgate, for which purpose it erected the Abbey of St Jerome in Rome.
The number of Benedictines has also quadrupled since 1880. From 2,765 in that year it had risen to 10,356 in 1935, of whom about 500 were in Italy. Although the latest statistics, published by the conference, show a temporary decrease for well-known reasons, the number is again increasing. 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 noted, there are other sons of St Benedict who do not belong to the Confederation and who are not included in the common use of the term “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 *nullius*, 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’s in Venice, St Peter’s in Modena, St Peter’s in Perugia, St Mary’s in Praglia, with a dependency at Dalla and Siccione (Istria), St Mary’s on the Mountain near Cesena, St John the Evangelist’s in Parma, with dependencies at Torrechiara (Parma) and Bismantova (Reggio Emilia), St James’s in Pontida, St Martin’s of the Steps near Palermo, St Mary’s in Farfa, St Peter’s in Assisi, St Mary’s in Finalpia, St Mary’s in Noci (Bari), and Our Lady of Miracles in the province of Chieti, as well as other priories. In Rome there are also the International College of St Anselm, the Abbey of St Jerome for the correction of the Vulgate and other work at the disposal of the Holy See, the house of St Ambrose and the Greek College, entrusted to the Belgian Congregation under the jurisdiction of the Abbot Primate.
III. THE CIVILISING WORK
That “the monastic Order is a great fact in the history of the civilisation of Europe” (F. A. Gasquet) is undeniable even from the brief outline we have sketched. Nor is the statement of Harnack exaggerated, especially with regard to the young peoples on the frontiers of the Roman world who helped to form the new Europe: “The beginnings of all our civilisation were nothing more than a chapter taken from the history of monasticism” (A. Harnack, *Il Monachesimo*, Piacenza 1909, ch. 1). In those monastic colonies, which were to carry the name and 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 given it value and spread its esteem. “Thus St Benedict impressed upon his institution that eminently social aspect which all historians are pleased to recognise in it” (F. Schmitz). This industrious activity placed the monks at the head of the agricultural, commercial and industrial movement of the early Middle Ages, while the revenues from such conscientious, continuous work were largely employed for eminently social ends, for works of charity and public utility.It was indeed the work of the monks to reclaim lands left uncultivated by the great Roman crisis and then devastated by barbarians and floods. The agricultural methods introduced by the first monks remained almost unchanged to direct field work until the advent of more scientific modern systems. Around their farms, centres of production and exchange, villages and towns grew up. Thus in Italy wide areas were reclaimed at various periods in its history through the work of great monasteries such as Bobbio, Novalesa, Nonantola, Pomposa, Polirone and many others, less well known today but all of which contributed their share. In the south the chief centres of this activity were St Vincent on the Volturno and Montecassino. Around the *curtis major* of Cassino, which survives to this day at Cassino on the same site and under the name of *corte*, all the dependencies, which later became flourishing villages, shared in the task of reclamation, which in the tenth century Abbot Aligerno facilitated with his famous leveling agreements. The outlying dependencies in more distant regions acted as colonies reproducing the systems and directions of the mother house. Later Cava too was to exert its beneficent influence over wide areas, especially in the Cilento and Apulia.
The revenues were largely employed for the benefit of the people. After deducting the indispensable expenses for the support of the community and those for the embellishment of buildings, the rest was used for charitable works. Among these a special place was held by hospitals and hostels for pilgrims. Not only did the abbey have a well-organised hospital, but the houses and dependent villages were likewise provided with them, and the social function of hospitality was practised, in the absence of inns, both by the monasteries themselves and by special buildings erected at main points of passage or near important shrines. To give work to the inhabitants of a wide area, for example, an abbot of Montecassino would invite them to build roads, another would arrange public works.
But there is another field in which the untiring activity of the monks has left indelible marks: the intellectual and artistic. It is true that St Benedict does not expressly mention, alongside the *lectio divina*, a special organisation of studies, as his contemporary Cassiodorus does; but these are certainly included in the needs of claustral life and in the study of Scripture and the Fathers. It was impossible to do without codices and therefore without the art of the scribes. In those true scriptoria, which were like workshops, the monks worked unceasingly, reproducing works with rare skill. The office of scribe required serious and careful preparation, as well as real toil combined with a spirit of sacrifice. Indeed, as the Cassinese scribe declared, “three fingers write, but the whole body labours,” and he also confessed, “as one who sails longs for the harbour, so the scribe longs for the last line.”
To this labor of the Cassinese scriptorium, where that splendid script—often named after it—was especially cultivated, we owe the preservation of so many masterpieces, including Cicero’s *Pro Cluentio*; Frontinus’ *De aquaeductis*; Apuleius’ *Metamorphoses*; certain parts of Tacitus’ *Historiae*; and the *Peregrinatio ad loca sancta*. In Italy, Bobbio also had a notably active scriptorium from the 7th century onward, as did Farfa and other monasteries. This production was chiefly intended to supply the famous monastic libraries and was complemented by the auxiliary arts of bookmaking, particularly illumination and binding.
Libraries and the art of bookmaking were the necessary prerequisites for the development of schools, another of the most important functions then fulfilled by monasteries. Alongside episcopal schools, they shared the task of providing instruction and formation for scholarly youth. Indeed, most were open even to external pupils, while those strictly closed to such elements—whose liveliness sometimes threatened to disrupt the strict monastic tranquility—nevertheless exerted no small, albeit indirect, influence. Thus Montecassino preserved the tradition of the *cursus*.
But the greatest contribution to intellectual development came from the succession of eminent men trained in these schools or living within the cloisters. Among the most celebrated figures closely connected with Italy, we recall—besides Gregory the Great, whose figure towers unchallenged in Church history—Bede the Venerable (d. 733), another of the “founders of the Middle Ages” and father of English history; Alcuin of York (d. 804), Charlemagne’s right hand in the intellectual organization of the empire; Anselm of Aosta (d. 1101), the bold and powerful precursor of new intellectual currents in Christendom; Rabanus Maurus (d. 856), the master of Germany; Walafrid Strabo (d. 849), author of the *Glossa ordinaria*; Notker Balbulus (d. 912), glory of St. Gall; Autpert (d. ca. 781), abbot of San Vincenzo al Volturno, a man of multifaceted erudition who was, for his time, “a veritable phenomenon”; Paul the Deacon (d. 799), historian of the Lombards; Bertarius, the martyred 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; another Alberic of Montecassino, author of the celebrated *Visio*; Peter Damian (d. 1072), the strong and learned champion of Church freedom; Alfano (d. 1085), the “Virgil of Montecassino,” who, as archbishop of Salerno, received the dying Gregory VII into his arms—this other son of St. Benedict who, like many of his predecessors and successors on the Chair of St. Peter, had feared the monastic life; 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 most beautiful in Christendom”—and, like two other Cassinese popes, Stephen IX (or X, d. 1058) and Gelasius II (d. 1119), the reformer of the *cursus*, had to struggle and suffer greatly for the freedom of the Church. Also from Montecassino in this period, besides his friend Alfano and the Alberics already mentioned, were Constantine the African (d. 1087), whose translations from Greek and Arabic exerted a notable influence on 11th-century thought, particularly in medicine—a science already well cultivated at Montecassino, among whose leading exponents were the aforementioned Bertarius and Alfano; Leo of Ostia (d. 1115), later cardinal-bishop of Ostia, the unsurpassed medieval historian of Italy; Amatus, historian of the Normans; Bruno (d. 1123), abbot and bishop of Segni, who surpassed all others in Italy in exegetical studies from the 7th to the 12th century. At Farfa, Abbot Hugh (d. 1039) and Gregory of Catino, and at San Vincenzo al Volturno, the monk John, join so many other brethren in transmitting the historical legacy of the medieval centuries. From the late Middle Ages, we may mention Abbot Bernardo Ayglerio of Montecassino (d. 1282), Erasmus (d. ca. 1240), Matthew Paris (d. 1259), and Nicholas of Palermo (d. 1443), archbishop of Palermo.
In more recent centuries, among the most distinguished scholars in various fields, we must recall the distinguished company of the Maurists, led by Jean Mabillon (d. 1707); the other learned men gathered around the University of Salzburg, founded in 1622; and in particular Bernhard Pez (d. 1735), Augustin Calmet (d. 1757), Magnus Ziegelbauer (d. 1750); Cardinals Celestine Sfondrati (d. 1606), Giuseppe d’Aguirre (d. 1699), G. B. Pitta (d. 1888), and Aidan Gasquet (d. 1929); Bishop Lorenzo Janssens (d. 1924); the monks and abbots Ursmer Berlière (d. 1932), G. B. Chapman (d. 1933), Cuthbert Butler (d. 1934), and André Wilmart (d. 1942). But above all, we cannot omit to recall at least some of the eminent men produced by the monasteries of Italy in the Cassinese Congregation: such as Cardinals Gregorio Cortese (d. 1548), Angelo Maria Quirini (d. 1755), Fortunato Tamburini (d. 1761), and 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), and Benedetto Bonazzi (d. 1915); the abbots and monks Bernardo Castiglione, Benedetto Canonici (d. ca. 1550), Teofilo (d. 1544), and Girolamo Folengo (d. 1559), Vincenzo Borghini (d. 1580), Angelo De Faggis (d. 1593), Benedetto dell’Uva (d. ca. late 16th c.), 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. 1895); Bernardo and Luigi de’ Rossi; Agostino Rubatta 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). Among writers of ascetical works, we may add Ludovico Barbo (d. 1443), García Jiménez de Cisneros (d. 1510), Giovanni Triemino (d. 1516), Louis de Blois (d. 1566), Pietro Vecchia (d. 1694), Mauro Wolter (d. 1890), John Cuthbert Hedley (d. 1915), Columba Marmion (d. 1923), Paul Delatte (d. 1937), and Anselm Vonier (d. 1938). Among scholars of liturgy and sacred music, continuators of the work of Gregory the Great and Guido d’Arezzo (d. 1050), we recall Prosper Guéranger (d. 1875), Suitbert Bäumer (d. 1894), Joseph Pothier (d. 1923), Paul Cagin (d. 1924), Andrea Mocquereau (d. 1930), and Paul Ferretti (d. 1938). Finally, among apostles, heirs of the spirit of those who converted so many nations, worked for the gradual abolition of slavery, instituted the Truce of God, sought the redemption of captives, we recall William Bernard Ullathorne (d. 1889), who collaborated with Pius IX in restoring 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 enriched by the apostolic labors of Bishop Rosendo Salvado (d. 1900), founder of the frontier mission and abbey of New Norcia.
IV. BENEDICTINE
The Rule of St Benedict, written only for men, was soon adopted also by virgins desirous of striving for Christian perfection. When this began cannot be stated with certainty. The Benedictine nuns, who have taken as their special patron St Scholastica, the sister of the Patriarch, a model of a life consecrated to God from childhood, led a life of retirement and concealment which makes it difficult to trace their historical existence. In Italy, from the time of the Lombards, besides certain monasteries whose tradition, unverifiable, would have them coeval with the Holy Legislator, others appear, distinguished and powerful. Among these we limit ourselves to recalling that of the Senator or of St Aurelian at Pavia (714), of St Salvatore and St Giulia at Brescia (753), which already in 762 enjoyed exemption, of St Victor at Meda (8th century), and of St Mary in Valle at Cividale (8th century). Often, after having built them, queens and princesses would retire to live the life within them. Though not excessively numerous, given their hidden manner of life, there were nevertheless nuns who achieved renown even outside the cloister. Thus St Lioba (d. c. 779) and the other collaborators of St Boniface, St Elizabeth of Schönau (d. 1165), the poetess Hroswitha (d. end of 10th century), St Hildegard (d. 1179), the great mystic and counsellor of popes and emperors, the virgins of Helfta, Mechtilde of Magdeburg (d. 1282), Mechtilde 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 erudite and energetic abbess of St Giulia in Brescia, Margaret of Arbouze (d. 1626), Jeanne des Anges (d. 1660), Cecilia Baij (d. 1766), distinguished mystics. Even in more recent times Italian monasteries have had a splendid flourishing of souls sanctified by the Cross, 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 have also suffered greatly in recent centuries, especially in Italy where they were scattered in small towns, maintaining more of the ancient houses than the monks. For them too the revival has been notable. At present, alongside the ancient nuns of solemn vows and strict enclosure, there have been added other sisters, with simple vows and limited enclosure, in monasteries directly dependent on the Holy See or on the prelates of the Order; but the majority are under the jurisdiction of the local ordinaries. Others are united in Congregations. Statistics, incomplete in this regard, give for the Benedictine nuns the number of about 16,000, with over 300 houses. To these must 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 which, according to the character of Benedictine constitution, united them to individual monasteries varied over the centuries and in different places. Becoming ever more precise, they have given rise to the oblates of today. The majority of them live in the world — secular oblates — following the same statutes approved in 1904. Juridically they are assimilated to tertiaries of other religious Orders (CIC, can. 702 ff.). Other oblates live in monasteries or in particular communities of their own. Among these, the celebrated and still flourishing one is that of Tor de’ Specchi in Rome, founded in 1433 by St Francesca Romana (d. 1440), under the dependency of the Olivetan Congregation.II. — Besides the fundamental works, among which indispensable are: 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 trans., Bari 1928; S. Hilpisch, *Geschichte des benediktinischen Mönchtums*, Freiburg in Br. 1929; E. Cottineau, *Répertoire topo-bibliographique des abbayes et prieurés*, 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.*, bibliographical bulletin in *Aevum*, 5 (1931); besides the *Rivista storica b.*, Rome 1906-1936.
III. — C. de Montalembert, *Les moines d'Occident*, Italian trans., Florence 1864-71; F. A. Gasquet, *S. Benedetto e la civilizzazione*, Rome 1929; F. Schmitz, *op. cit.* — For the history of the Cassinese Congregation in Italy, the work of M. Armellini, *Bibliotheca Benedettino-Casinensis*, 4 vols., Assisi and Foligno 1731-35, remains fundamental, though incomplete for the last centuries.
IV. — Ph. Schmitz, *Les bénédictines*, in DHG, VII, cols. 1260-1937.
V. — *Manuale dell'oblatto b.*, Badia di Cava 1933; *Il libro dell'oblatto 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. 1936.