CONGREGATION OF BENEDICTINE VIRGINS. - Founded at Montevergine (v.) by St. William of Vercelli (v.), between 1114 and 1126.
At the death of the founder (25 June 1142) the monasteries of the Congregation of Montevergine were scattered throughout the entire Kingdom of the Normans. These were famous: S. Maria a Tuenda, near Salerno; S. Lorenzo at Salerno; S. Giovanni at Marcopio (Cubante, Benevento); S. Salvatore at Goleto, later called S. Guglielmo al Goleto, founded by St. William of Vercelli; and furthermore S. Giovanni at Avellino (1125), S. Maria del Perno at Atella (1125), S. Gennaro at Terranova (1133), S. Maria del Plesco, later S.ma Annunziata, at Casamarciano (1134), S. Maria di Montevergine at Aversa (1134), S. Giovanni del Palco at Nocera de' Pagani (1134), S. Giovanni d'Acquara at Castelbaronia (1136). The Congregation also possessed vast territories with a temporal jurisdiction, which later became one of the most powerful in the region. The work of St. William flourished in the first two centuries in the Kingdom of the Normans, where men of holy life governed its monasteries, such as the blessed Albert at Montevergine, St. John, first abbot of S. Giovanni degli Eremiti at Palermo, the blessed John I, fourth abbot of Montevergine, the blessed Pascasius, abbot of S. Onofrio di Massa in Lucania, St. Donatus, tenth abbot of Montevergine. The abbot John, in the year 1181, obtained from Alexander III the recognition of the new Institute, already militant under the Rule of St. Benedict. This is the golden period of the Mother house and of the other monasteries of the Congregation, which lasted until the middle of the 14th century. There followed a period of religious decadence, which made the Verginiani live through days of bitterness and bewilderment until the year 1588, in which Sixtus V, freeing Montevergine from the ill-fated commendam that the abbot D. Palamede dell'Anno had procured for it, restored to the Congregation its original splendor: new monasteries arose, and devotion to the Madonna in the Sanctuary of Montevergine intensified. During the suppressions of the 19th century, it found the path of salvation in union with the Cassinese Benedictine Congregation of the primitive observance, which made it possible to save Montevergine from the common ruin (1879).