MAURISTS, a congregation of French Benedictines called after St. Maurus (d. 565), a disciple of St. Benedict and the legendary introducer of the Benedictine rule and life into Gaul. At the end of the 16th century the Benedictine monasteries of France had fallen into a state of disorganization and relaxation ; and a reform was initiated by the abbey of St. Vanne near Verdun, which spread to other houses in Lorraine, and in 1604 the re formed congregation of St. Vanne was established. A number of French houses joined the new congregation; but as Lorraine was still independent of the French crown, it was considered desirable to form on the same lines a separate congregation for France. Thus in 1621 was established the famous French congregation of St. Maur. Most of the Benedictine monasteries of France, except those belonging to Cluny, gradually joined the new congregation, which eventually embraced nearly two hundred houses. The chief house was Saint-Germain-des-Pres, Paris, the residence of the superior-general and centre of the literary activity of the congre gation. The primary idea of the movement was not the under taking of literary and historical work, but the return to a strict monastic regime and the faithful carrying out of Benedictine life; and throughout the most glorious period of Maurist history the literary work was not allowed to interfere with the due per formance of the choral office and the other duties of the monastic life. Towards the end of the 18th century a tendency crept in, in some quarters, to relax the monastic observances in favour of study; but the constitutions of 177o show that a strict monastic regime was maintained until the end. The course of Maurist history and work was checkered by the ecclesiastical controversies that distracted the French Church during the 17th and i8th centuries. Some of the members identified themselves with the Jansenist cause; but the bulk, including nearly all the greatest names, pursued a middle path, opposing the lax moral theology condemned in 1679 by Pope Innocent XI., and adhering to those strong views on grace and predestination associated with the Augustinian and Thomist schools of Catholic theology; and like all the theological faculties and schools on French soil, they were bound to teach the four Gallican articles. It seems that towards the end of the i8th century a rationalistic and free-thinking spirit invaded some of the houses. The congregation was suppressed and the monks scattered at the revolution, the last superior general with forty of his monks dying on the scaffold in Paris. The present French congregation of Benedictines initiated by Dom Gueranger in 1833 is a new creation and has no continuity with the congregation of St. Maur.
The great claim of the Maurists to the gratitude and admira tion of posterity is their historical and critical school, which stands quite alone in history, and produced an extraordinary number of colossal works of erudition which still are of permanent value. The foundations of this school were laid by Dom Tarisse, the first superior-general, who in 1632 issued instructions to the superiors of the monasteries to train the young monks in the habits of research and of organized work.
The full Maurist bibliography contains the names of some 220 writers and more than 70o works. The lesser works in large measure cover the same fields as those in the list, but the number of works of pdrely religious character, of piety, devotion and edification, is very striking. Perhaps the most wonderful phenom enon of Maurist work is that what was produced was only a portion of what was contemplated and prepared for. The French Revolution cut short many gigantic undertakings, the collected materials for which fill hundreds of manuscript volumes in the Bibliotheque nationale of Paris and other libraries of France. When one contemplates the vastness of the works in progress during any decade of the century 1680-178o ; and still more, when not only the quantity but the quality of the work, and the abiding value of most of it is realized, it will be recognized that the out put was prodigious and unique in the history of letters, as coming from a single society. The qualities that have made Maurist work proverbial for sound learning are its fine critical tact and its thoroughness.
The chief source of information on the Maurists and their work is Dom Tassin's Histoire litteraire de la congregation de Saint-Maur (1770) ; it has been reduced to a bare bibliography and completed by de Lama, Bibliotheque des icrivains de la congr. de S.-M. (1882). The two works of de Broglie, Mabillon (2 vols., 1888) and Montfaucon (2 vols., 1891), give a charming picture of the inner life of the great Maurists of the earlier generation in the midst of their work and their friends. Sketches of the lives of a few of the chief Maurists will be found in McCarthy's Principal Writers of the Congr. of S. M. (1868). Useful information about their literary undertakings will be found in De Lisle's Cabinet des mss. de la Bibl. Nat. Fonds St. Germain-des Pres. General information will be found in the Catholic Encyclo paedia; Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen (1907) i. § 36; Wetzer und Welte, Kirchenlexicon (ed. 2) and Herzog-Hauck's Real encyklopiidie (ed. 3), the latter an interesting appreciation by the Prot estant historian Otto Zockler of the spirit and the merits of the work of the Maurists. (E. C. B.)