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BENEDICTINES, or BLACK MONKS

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Originally appearing in Volume V03, Page 723 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BENEDICTINES, or See also:BLACK MONKS , monks living according to the See also:Rule of St See also:Benedict (q.v.) of Nursia. See also:Subiaco in the Abruzzi was the See also:cradle of the Benedictines, and in that neighbourhood St Benedict established twelve monasteries. After-wards giving up the direction of these, he migrated to See also:Monte Cassino and there established the monastery which became the centre whence his Rule and See also:institute spread. From Monte Cassino he founded a monastery at See also:Terracina. These fourteen are the only monasteries of which we have any knowledge as being- founded before St Benedict's See also:death; for the See also:mission of St Placidus to See also:Sicily must certainly be regarded as See also:mere See also:romance, nor does there seem to be any solid See also:reason for viewing more favourably the mission of St Maurus to See also:Gaul. There is some ground for believing that it was the third See also:abbot of Monte Cassino who began to spread a knowledge of the Rule beyond the circle of St Benedict's own See also:foundations. About 580–590 Monte Cassino was sacked by the See also:Lombards, and the community came to See also:Rome and was established in a monastery attached to the Lateran See also:Basilica, in the centre of the ecclesiastical See also:world. It is now commonly recognized by scholars that when See also:Gregory the See also:Great became a See also:monk and turned his See also:palace on the Caelian See also:Hill into a monastery, the monastic See also:life there carried out was fundamentally based on the See also:Benedictine Rule (see F. H. Dudden, Gregory the Great, i. io8). From this monastery went forth St See also:Augustine and his companions on their mission to See also:England in 596, carrying their monachism with them; thus England was the first See also:country out of See also:Italy in which Benedictine life was firmly planted. In the course of the 7th See also:century Benedictine life was gradually introduced in Gaul,and in the 8th it was carried into the Germanic lands from England.

It is doubtful whether in See also:

Spain there were Benedictine monasteries, properly so called, until a later See also:period. In many parts the Benedictine Rule met the much stricter Irish Rule of Columbanus, introduced by the Irish missionaries on the See also:continent, and after brief periods, first of conflict and then of See also:fusion, it gradually absorbed and sup-planted it; thus during the 8th century it became, out of See also:Ireland and other purely See also:Celtic lands, the only rule and See also:form of monasticlife throughout western See also:Europe,—so completely that See also:Charlemagne once asked if there ever had been any other monastic rule. What may be called the inner See also:side of Benedictine life and See also:history is treated in the See also:article MONASTICISDI; here it is possible to See also:deal only with the broad facts of the See also:external history. The See also:chief external See also:works achieved for western Europe by the Benedictines during the See also:early See also:middle ages may be summed up under the following heads. 1. The See also:Conversion of the See also:Teutonic Races.—The tendency of See also:modern See also:historical scholarship justifies the See also:maintenance of the tradition that St Augustine and his See also:forty companions were the first great Benedictine apostles and missioners. Through their efforts See also:Christianity was firmly planted in various parts of England; and after the conversion of the country it was See also:English Benedictines—Wilfrid, See also:Willibrord, Swithbert, Willehad—who evangelized See also:Friesland and See also:Holland; and another, Winfrid or See also:Boniface, who, with his See also:fellow-monks Willibald and others, evangelized the greater See also:part of central See also:Germany and founded and organized the See also:German See also:church. It was Anschar, a monk of See also:Corbie, who first preached to the Scandinavians, and other Benedictines were apostles to Poles, Prussians and other See also:Slavonic peoples. The conversion of the Teutonic races may properly be called the See also:work of the Benedictines. 2. The See also:Civilization of See also:north-western Europe.—As the result of their missionary enterprises the Benedictines penetrated into all these lands and established monasteries, so that by the loth or 11th century Benedictine houses existed in great See also:numbers throughout the whole of Latin Christendom except Ireland. These monasteries became centres of civilizing influences by the method of presenting See also:object-lessons in organized work, in See also:agriculture, in farming, in the arts and trades, and also in well-ordered life.

The unconscious method by which such great results were brought about has been well described by J. S. See also:

Brewer (See also:Preface to Works of Giraldus Cambrensis, Rolls See also:Series, iv.) and F. A. Gasquet. 3. See also:Education.—Boys were educated in Benedictine houses from the beginning, but at first they were destined to be monks. The monasteries, however, played a great part in the educational side of the Carolingian revival; and certainly from that date See also:schools for boys destined to live and work in the world were commonly attached to Benedictine monasteries. From that See also:day to this education has been among the recognized and See also:principal works of Benedictines. 4. Letters and Learning.—This side of Benedictine life is most typically represented by the See also:Venerable See also:Bede, the See also:gentle and learned See also:scholar of the early middle ages. In those times the monasteries were the only places of See also:security and See also:rest in western Europe, the only places where letters could in any measure be cultivated.

It was in the monasteries that the writings of Latin antiquity, both classical and ecclesiastical, were transcribed and preserved. In a gigantic See also:

system embracing hundreds of monasteries and thousands of monks, and spread over all the countries of western Europe, without any organic See also:bond between the different houses, and exposed to all the vicissitudes of the See also:wars and conquests of those See also:wild times, to say that the monks often See also:fell See also:short of the ideal of their See also:state, and sometimes short of the See also:Christian, and even the moral See also:standard, is but to say that monks are men. Failures there have been many, and scandals not a few in Benedictine history; but it may be said with truth that there does not appear to have been ever a period of widespread or universal corruption, however much at times and in places See also:primitive love may have waxed See also:cold. And when such declensions occurred, they soon called forth efforts at reform and revival; indeed these constantly recurring reform-movements are one of the most striking features of Benedictine history, and the great See also:proof of the vitality of the institute through-out the ages. The first of these movements arose during the Carolingian revival (c. 800), and is associated with the name of Benedict of Aniane. Under the auspices of Charlemagne and See also:Louis the Pious he initiated a See also:scheme for federating into one great See also:order, with 722 himself as abbot See also:general, all the monasteries of See also:Charles's See also:empire, and for enforcing throughout a rigid uniformity in observance. For this purpose a See also:synod of abbots was assembled at See also:Aix-la-Chapelle in 817, and a series of 8o Capitula passed, regulating the life of the monasteries. The scheme as a whole was shortlived and did not survive its originator; but the Capitula were commonly recognized as supplying a useful and much-needed supplement to St Benedict's Rule on points not sufficiently provided for therein. Accordingly these Capitula exercised a wide See also:influence among Benedictines even outside the empire. And Benedict of Aniane's ideas of organization found embodiment a century later in the order of See also:Cluny (910), which for a See also:time overshadowed the great See also:body of mere Benedictines (see CLUNY). Here it will suffice to say that the most distinctive features of the Cluny system were (1) a notable increase and prolongation of the church services, which came to take up the greater part of the working day; (2) a strongly centralized See also:government, whereby the houses of the order in their hundreds were strictly subject to the abbot of Cluny.

Though forming a distinct and See also:

separate organism Cluny claimed to be, and was recognized as, a body of Benedictine houses; but from that time onwards arose a number of See also:independent bodies, or " orders," which took the Benedictine Rule as the basis of their life. The more important of these were: in the i 1th and 12th centuries, the orders of See also:Camaldulians, See also:Vallombrosians, See also:Fontevrault and the See also:Cistercians, and in the 13th and 14th the See also:Silvestrines, See also:Celestines and See also:Olivetans (see separate articles). The general tendency of these Benedictine offshoots was in the direction of greater austerity of life than was practised by the Black Monks or contemplated by St Benedict's Rule—some of them were semi-eremitical; the most important by far were the Cistercians, whose ground-See also:idea was to reproduce exactly the life of St Benedict's own monastery. These various orders were also organized and governed according to the system of centralized authority devised by St See also:Pachomius (see See also:MONASTICISM) and brought into See also:vogue by Cluny in the See also:West. What has here to be traced is the history of the great body of Benedictine monasteries that held aloof from these separatist movements. For the first four or five centuries of Benedictine history there was no organic bond between any of the monasteries; each See also:house formed an independent autonomous See also:family, managing its own affairs and subject to no external authority or See also:control except that of the See also:bishop of the See also:diocese. But the influence of Cluny, even on monasteries that did not enter into its organism, was enormous; many adopted Cluny customs and practices and moulded their life and spirit after the See also:model it set; and many such monasteries became in turn centres of revival and reform in many lands, so that during the loth and 11th centuries arose See also:free unions of monasteries based on a See also:common observance derived from a central See also:abbey. See also:Fleury and Hirsau are well-known examples. Basing themselves on St Gregory's counsel to St Augustine, See also:Dunstan, 1Ethelwold and See also:Oswald adopted from the observance of See also:foreign monasteries, and notably Fleury and See also:Ghent, what was suitable for the restoration of English monachism, and so produced the See also:Concordia Regularis, interesting as the first serious See also:attempt to bring about uniformity of observance among the monasteries of an entire nation. In the course of the 12th century sporadic and limited unions of Black Monk monasteries arose in different parts. But notwithstanding all these movements, the See also:majority of the great Black Monk abbeys continued to the end of the 12th century in their primeval See also:isolation. But in the See also:year 1215, at the See also:fourth Lateran See also:council, were made regulations destined profoundly to modify Benedictine polity and history.

It was decreed that the Benedictine houses of each ecclesiastical See also:

province should hence-forth be federated for the purposes of mutual help and the maintenance of discipline, and that for these ends the abbots should every third year meet in a provincial See also:chapter (or synod), in order to pass See also:laws binding on all and to appoint visitors who, in addition to the bishops, should canonically visit the monasteries and See also:report on their See also:condition in spirituals and temporals to the ensuing chapter. The English monks took the See also:lead in carrying out this legislation, and in 1218 the first chapter of the province of See also:Canterbury was held at See also:Oxford, and up to the See also:dissolution under See also:Henry VIII. the triennial chapters took See also:place with wonderful regularity. Fitful attempts were made elsewhere to carry out the decrees, and in 1336 Benedict XII. by the See also:bull Benedictina tried to give further development to the system and to secure its general observance. The organization of the Benedictine houses into provinces or chapters under this legislation interfered in the least possible degree with the Benedictine tradition of mutual See also:independence of the houses; the provinces were loose federations of autonomous houses, the legislative See also:power of the chapter and the canonical visitations being the only forms of external interference. The English Benedictines never advanced farther along the path of centralization; up to their destruction this polity remained in operation among them, and proved itself by its results to be well adapted to the conditions of the Benedictine Rule and life. In other lands things did not on the whole go so well, and many causes at work during the later middle ages tended to bring about relaxation in the Benedictine houses; above all the vicious system of commendatory abbots, rife everywhere except in England. And so in the period of the reforming See also:councils of See also:Constance and See also:Basel the state of the religious orders was seriously taken in See also:hand, and in response to the public demand for reforming the Church " in See also:head and members," reform movements were set on See also:foot, as among others, so among the Benedictines of various parts of Europe. These movements issued in the congregational system which is the See also:present polity among Benedictines. In the German lands, where the most typical See also:congregation was the Bursfeld See also:Union (1446), which finally embraced over coo monasteries throughout Germany, the system was kept on the lines of the Lateran See also:decree and the bull Benedictina, and received only some further developments in the direction of greater organization; but in Italy the congregation of S. Justina at See also:Padua (1421), afterwards called the Cassinese, departed altogether from the old lines, setting up a highly centralized government, after the model of the See also:Italian republics, whereby the See also:autonomy of the monasteries was destroyed, and they were subjected to the authority of a central governing See also:board. With various modifications or restrictions this latter system was imported into all the Latin lands, into Spain and See also:Portugal, and thence into See also:Brazil, and into See also:Lorraine and See also:France, where the celebrated congregation of St Maur (see MAralsTS) was formed early in the 17th century. During this century the Benedictine houses in many parts of See also:Catholic Europe See also:united themselves into congregations, usually characterized by an austerity that was due to the Tridentine reform See also:movement.

In England the Benedictines had, from every point of view, flourished exceedingly. At the time of the Dissolution there were nearly 300 Black Benedictine houses, great and small, men and See also:

women, including most of the chief religious houses of the See also:land (for lists see tables and maps in Gasquet's English Monastic Life, and Catholic See also:Dictionary, See also:art. " Benedictines "). It is now hardly necessary to say that the See also:grave charges brought against the monks are no longer credited by serious historians (Gasquet, Henry VIII. and the Monasteries; J. See also:Gairdner, Prefaces to the relevant volumes of Calendars of State Papers of Henry VIII.). In See also:Mary's reign some of the surviving monks were brought together, and See also:Westminster Abbey was restored. Of the monks professed there during this momentary revival, one, See also:Sigebert Buckley, lived on into the reign of See also:James I.; and being the only survivor of the Benedictines of England, he in 1607 invested with the English See also:habit and affiliated to Westminster Abbey and to the English congregation two English priests, already Benedictines in the Italian congregation. By this See also:act the old English Benedictine See also:line was perpetuated; and in 1619 a number of English monks professed in Spain were aggregated by pontifical act to these representatives of the old English Benedictines, and thus was constituted the present English Benedictine congregation. Three or four monasteries of the revived English Benedictines were established on the continent at the beginning of the 17th century, and remained there till driven back to England by the See also:French Revolution. The See also:Reformation and the religious wars spread havoc among the Benedictines in many parts of See also:northern Europe; and as a consequence, in part of the rule of See also:Joseph II. of See also:Austria, in part of the French Revolution, nearly every Benedictine monastery in Europe was suppressed—it is said that in the early years of the s9th century scarcely See also:thirty in all survived. But the latter See also:half of the century witnessed a series of remark-able revivals, and first in See also:Bavaria, under the influence of Louis I. The French congregation (which does not enjoy continuity with the See also:Maurists) was inaugurated by Dom Gueranger in 1833, and the German congregation of Beuron in 1863.

Two vigorous congregations have arisen in the United States. These are all new creations since 1830. In Italy, Spain, Portugal and Brazil only a few monasteries survive the various revolutions, and in a crippled state; but signs are not wanting of renewed life: St Benedict's own monasteries of Subiaco and Monte Cassino are relatively flourishing. In Austria, See also:

Hungary and See also:Switzerland there are some thirty great abbeys, most of which have had a continued existence since the middle ages. The English congregation is composed of three large abbeys (Down-side, Ampleforth and Woolhampton), a See also:cathedral priory (Here-See also:ford) and a nunnery (Stanbrook Abbey, See also:Worcester): there are besides in England three or four abbeys belonging to foreign congregations, and several nunneries subject to the bishops. Each congregation has its See also:president, who is merely a president, with limited See also:powers, and not a general See also:superior like the Provincials of other orders; so that the primitive Benedictine principle of each monastery being self-contained and autonomous is preserved. Similarly each congregation is independent and self-governing, there being no superior-general or central authority, as in other orders. See also:Leo XIII. established an inter-See also:national Benedictine See also:College in Rome for theological studies, and conferred on its abbot the See also:title of " Abbot See also:Primate," with See also:precedence among Black Monk abbots. He is only See also:Primus inter pares, and exercises no See also:kind of superiority over the other abbots or congregations. Thus the Benedictine polity may be described as a number of autonomous federations of autonomous monasteries. The individual monks, too, belong not to the order or the congregation, but each to the monastery in which he became a monk. The chief external work of the Benedictines at the present day is secondary education; there are 114 secondary schools or gymnasia attached to the abbeys, wherein the monks See also:teach over i2,000 boys; and many of the nunneries have girls' schools.

In certain countries (among them England) where there is a dearth of See also:

secular priests, Benedictines undertake parochial work. The See also:statistics of the order (19o5) show that of Black Benedictines there are over 4000 See also:choir-monks and nearly 2000 See also:lay brothers—figures that have more than doubled since 1880. If the Cistercians and lesser offshoots of the order be added, the sum See also:total of choir-monks and lay See also:brothers exceeds si,000. In conclusion a word must be said on the Benedictine nuns. From the beginning the number of women living the Benedictine life has not fallen far short of that of the men. St Gregory describes St Benedict's See also:sister Scholastica as a See also:nun (sanctimonialis), and she is looked upon as the foundress of Benedictine nuns. As the institute spread to other lands nunneries arose on all sides, and nowhere were the Benedictine nuns more numerous or more remarkable than in England, from Saxon times to the Reformation. A strong type of womanhood is revealed in the See also:correspondence of St Boniface with various Saxon Benedictine nuns, some in England and some who accompanied him to the continent and there established great convents. In the early times the Benedictine nuns were not strictly enclosed, and could, when occasion called for it, freely go out of their See also:convent walls to perform any See also:special work: on the other hand, they did not resemble the modern active congregations of women, whose See also:ordinary work lies outside the convent. It has to be said that in the course of the middle ages, especially the later middle ages, grave disorders arose in many convents; and this doubtless led, in the reform movements initiated by the councils of Constance and Basel, and later of See also:Trent, to theintroduction of strict enclosure in Benedictine convents, which now is the almost universal practice. At the present day there are of Black Benedictine nuns 262 convents with 7000 nuns, the large majority being directly subject to the diocesan bishops; if the Cistercians and others be included, there are 387 convents with nearly 11,000 nuns. In England there are a dozen Benedictine nunneries.

AuTHoRITIEs—The chief general authority for Benedictine history up to the middle of the 12th century is See also:

Mabillon's Annales, in 6 vols. See also:folio; for the later period no such general work exists, but the various countries, congregations or even abbeys have to be taken separately. See also:Montalembert's Monks of the West gives the early history very fully; the later history, to the beginning of the 18th century, may be found in See also:Helyot, Hist. See also:des ordres religieux, v. and vi. (1792). A useful See also:sketch, with references to the best literature, is in Max Heimbucher, Orden and Kongregationen (1896), i. §§ 17-28; see also the article " Benedictinerorden " in Wetzer u. Welter, Kirchenlexicon (2nd ed.), and " Benedikt von Nursia and der Benediktinerorden," in See also:Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie (3rd ed.). For England see See also:Ethelred See also:Taunton, English Black Monks (1897); and for the modern history (19th century) the series entitled " Succisa Virescit " in the Downside See also:Review, 188o onwards, by J. G. Dolan. On the inner spirit and working of the institute see F. A. Gasquet, Sketch of Monastic Constitutional History (being the preface to the 2nd ed., 1895, of the trans. of Montalembert) and English Monastic Life (19o4); and See also:Newman's two essays on the Benedictines, among the Historical Sketches.

On Benedictine nuns much will be found in the above-mentioned authorities, and also in Lino Eckenstein, Woman in Monasticism (1896). On Benedictines and the Arts see F. H. Kraus, Geschichte der christlichen Kunst (See also:

Freiburg-i-B., 1896-1897). (E. C.

End of Article: BENEDICTINES, or BLACK MONKS

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