BENEDICTINES or BLACK MONKS, monks living ac cording to the Rule of St. Benedict (q.v.) of Nursia. Subiaco in Latium was the cradle of the Benedictines, and in that same neighbourhood St. Benedict established 12 monasteries. After wards giving up the direction of these, he migrated to Monte Cas sino and there established the monastery which became the centre whence his rule and institute spread. From Monte Cassino he founded a monastery at Terracina. These 14 are the only monas teries of which we have any knowledge as being founded before St. Benedict's death.
About 580-590 Monte Cassino was sacked by the Lombards, and the community came to Rome and was established in a monastery attached to the Lateran Basilica, in the centre of the ecclesiastical world. It is now commonly recognized by scholars that when Gregory the Great became a monk and turned his palace on the Caelian hill into a monastery, the monastic life there carried out was fundamentally based on the Benedictine Rule (see F. H. Dudden, Gregory the Great, i. 108). From this monastery went forth St. Augustine and his companions on their mission to England in 596, carrying their monachism with them; thus Eng land was the first country out of Italy in which Benedictine life was firmly planted. In the course of the 7th century Benedictine life was gradually introduced in Gaul. In the 8th it was carried into the Germanic lands from England ; and during the 8th cen tury it became, outside Ireland and other purely Celtic lands, the only rule and form of monastic life throughout western Europe— so completely that Charlemagne once asked if there ever had been any other monastic rule.
What may be called the inner side of Benedictine life and his tory is treated in the article MONASTICISM. Here it is possible to deal only with the broad facts of the external history. The chief external works achieved for western Europe by the Benedictines during the early middle ages may be summed up under the follow ing heads.
I. The Conversion of the Teutonic Races.—The tendency of modern historical scholarship justifies the maintenance of the tradition that St. Augustine and his 4o companions were the first great Benedictine apostles and missioners. Through their efforts Christianity was firmly planted in various parts of England; and after the conversion of the country it was English Benedictines who evangelized Holland and the greater part of central Germany, and 'founded and organized the German Church. Others carried Christianity as far as Scandinavia and Poland. The conversion of the Teutonic races may properly be called the work of the Benedictines.
2. The Civilization of North-western Europe.—As the re sult 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 numbers throughout the whole of Latin Christendom except Ireland. These monasteries became centres of civilizing influences by the method of presenting object lessons in organized work, in 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. Brewer (Preface to Works of Giraldus Cambrensis, Rolls Series, iv.) and F. A. Gasquet (English Monastic Life) .
3. 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 schools for boys destined to live and work in the world were fre quently attached to Benedictine monasteries. From that day to this, education has been among the recognized and principal works of Benedictines.
4. Letters and Learning.—This side of Benedictine life is most typically represented by the Venerable Bede (q.v.), the gentle and learned scholar of the early middle ages. In those times the monasteries were the only places of security and rest in west ern 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 system embracing hundreds of monasteries and thousands of monks, and spread over all the countries of western Europe, without any organic bond between the different houses, and exposed to all the vicissitudes of the wars and conquests of those wild times, to say that the monks often fell short of the ideal of their state, and sometimes short of the Christian, and even the moral standard, is but to say that monks are men. Fail ures 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 primitive love may have waxed 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 proof of the vitality of the institute throughout the ages.
The first of these movements arose during the Carolingian re vival (c. 800), and is associated with the name of Benedict of Aniane. Under the auspices of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious he initiated a scheme for federating into one great order, with himself as abbot general, all the monasteries of Charles's empire, and for enforcing throughout a rigid uniformity in observance. For this purpose a synod of abbots was assembled at Aix-la Chapelle in 817, and a series of 8o Capitula passed, regulating the life of the monasteries. The scheme as a whole was short lived 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 pro vided for therein. Accordingly these Capitula exercised a wide influence among Benedictines even outside the empire. And Bene dict of Aniane's ideas of organization found embodiment a cen tury later in the order of Cluny (910), which for a time over shadowed the great 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 government, whereby the houses of the order in their hundreds were strictly subject to the abbot of Cluny.
Though forming a distinct, separate organism, Cluny claimed to be, and was recognized as, a body of Benedictine houses; but from that time onwards arose a number of independent bodies, or "orders," which took the Benedictine Rule as the basis of their life. By far the most important of these were the Cistercians, whose ground-idea was to reproduce exactly the life of St. Bene dict's own monastery. 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 house formed an independent autonomous family, managing its own affairs and subject to no external authority or control except that of the bishop of the 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 model it set ; and many such monasteries became in turn centres of revival and reform in many lands, so that during the loth and iith centuries arose free unions of mon asteries based on a common observance derived from a central abbey. But notwithstanding all these movements, the majority of the great Black Monk abbeys continued to the end of the 12th century in their primeval isolation. In the year at the fourth Lateran council regulations destined profoundly to modify Bene dictine polity and history were made. It was decreed that the Benedictine houses of each ecclesiastical province should hence forth be federated for the purposes of mutual help and the main tenance of discipline, and that for these ends the abbots should every third year meet in a provincial chapter (or synod), in order to pass laws binding on all, and to appoint visitors who, in addi tion to the bishops, should canonically visit the monasteries and report on their condition in spirituals and temporals to the ensu ing chapter. The English monks took the lead in carrying out this legislation; in 1218 the first chapter of the province of Can terbury was held at Oxford, and up to the dissolution under Henry VIII. the triennial chapters took place with wonderful regularity. 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. And so in the period of the reforming councils of Constance and Basel the state of the religious orders was seriously taken in hand, and in re sponse to the public demand for reforming the Church "in head and members," reform movements were set on foot, as among others, so among the Benedictines of various parts of Europe. These movements issued in the congregational system which is the present polity among Benedictines. In the German lands, the system was kept on the lines of the Lateran decree, and received only some further developments in the direction of greater or ganization; but in Italy the congregation of S. Justina at Padua (14 21) afterwards called the Cassinese, departed altogether from the old lines, setting up a highly centralized government, after the model of the Italian republics, whereby the autonomy of the monasteries was destroyed, and they were subjected to the au thority of a central governing board. With various modifications or restrictions this latter system was imported into all the Latin lands, into Spain and Portugal, and thence into Brazil, and into Lorraine and France, where the celebrated congregation of St. Maur (see MAVRISTS) was formed early in the i7th century.
In England the Benedictines had, from every point of view, flourished exceedingly. At the time of the Dissolution there were nearly 30o Black Benedictine houses, great and small, men and women, including most of the chief religious houses of the land (for lists see tables and maps in Gasquet's English Monastic Life, and Catholic Encyclopaedia, art. "Benedictines"). It is now hardly necessary to say that the grave charges brought against the monks are no longer credited by serious historians (Gasquet, Henry VIII., and the Monasteries; J. Gairdner, Pref aces to the relevant volumes of Calendars of State Papers of Henry VIII.). In Mary's reign some of the surviving monks were brought together, and Westminster abbey was restored. Of the monks who professed there during this momentary revival, one, Sigebert Buckley, lived on into the reign of James I. ; and being the only survivor of the Benedictines of England, he in vested with the English habit, and affiliated to Westminster abbey and to the English congregation, two English priests, already Benedictines in the Italian congregation (1607). By this act the old English Benedictine 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 Eng lish Benedictine congregation. Three or four monasteries of the revived English Benedictines were established on the Continent at the beginning of the i 7th century, and remained there till driven back to England by the French Revolution.
The i 9th century witnessed a series of remarkable revivals, beginning in Bavaria. The French congregation was inaugurated in 1833, and the German congregation 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, Hungary and Switzerland there are some great abbeys, most of which have had a continued ex istence since the middle ages. The English congregation includes five large abbeys (Downside, Ampleforth, Woolhampton, Fort Augustus and Hereford) and four nunneries; and there are com munities both of monks and nuns belonging to foreign congre gations.
In Rome an international Benedictine college for theological studies was established by Leo XIII., who conferred on its abbot the title of "Abbot Primate," with precedence among Black Monk abbots. He is only Primus inter pares, and exercises no kind of superiority over the other abbots or congregations. Thus the Benedictine polity may be described as a number of autono mous 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 ex ternal work of the Benedictines at the present day is secondary education ; there are secondary schools or gymnasia attached to most of the abbeys, and many of the nunneries have girls' schools. In certain countries (among them England) where there is a dearth of secular priests, Benedictines undertake parochial work.
In conclusion a word must be said on the Benedictine nuns. From the beginning the number of women living the Benedic tine life has not fallen far short of that of the men. St. Gregory describes St. Benedict's sister Scholastica as a nun (sanctimon ialis), 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 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 convent walls to perform any special work. It has to be said that in the course of the middle ages, especially the later middle ages, grave dis orders arose in many convents; and this doubtless led, in the reform movements initiated by the councils of Constance and Basel, and later of Trent, to the introduction of strict enclosure in Benedictine convents, which now is the almost universal practice.
See E. C. Butler, Benedictine Monachism (1924) ; F. Cabrol, art. "Monasticism (Christian)" in Hasting's Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. ii., pp. 792-796, with many references to authorities; G. C. Alston, arts. "Benedict" and "Benedictine" in Catholic Ency clopaedia, vol. ii.; Mabillon's Annales is the great authority up to i 2th century ; the full account, with good bibliography, in Max Heimbucher's, Orden and Kongregationen, 1907, vol. i. ; Newman's two essays on the Benedictines ; Cardinal Gasquet, Sketch of Monastic Constitutional History (reprinted in Monastic Life in the Middle Ages, 1922).