Benedictine monastery

“ 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 teach over 12,000 boys; and many of the nunneries have girls’ schools. ”

“ Near the north end of the Avenida on the same side as the Castello is the São Bento hill, at the extremity of the rua Primeiro de Março, the enclosure of the Benedictine Monastery above being entered by a large gateway at the bottom of a flight of stone steps. Founded in 1591, the existing church was built between 1633 and 1642; the present monastery was begun in 1652. During the French invasion in 1711, the 329buildings were seriously damaged, and the Order contributed liberally for the French to leave the town. Nearly half the building was in 1732 destroyed by fire. ”

“ The Benedictine rule, the result of profound physiological and philosophical studies, a work of moral science, of wisdom, and of piety, divided the monks’ time between prayer and manual labour, to be succeeded by the cultivation or exercise of the intellect whenever the glory of God, the interests of the monastery, and the education of the people might require it. St. Benedict soon had under his control an army of monks who spread throughout the whole Christian world the rules of their illustrious chief. ”

“ Canute was the actual founder of the monastery proper, for in the 11th century he brought over Benedictine monks from Hulm, granting them a charter and many benefactions. The monastery yearly became more prosperous, and, with the exception of Glastonbury, exceeded in magnificence and privileges all other ecclesiastical establishments in the country. In the height of its glory it must have been a most beautiful and dignified structure. Leland writes:—
“A monastery more noble, whether one considers the endowments, largeness, or unparalleled magnificence, the sun never saw. ”

“ The Benedictine monasteries in England were colonised, or, where they were older than the conquest, received new blood from the monasteries of Normandy and France. We have seen that the rule of St Benedict was made for a special monastery: the order was a collection of independent houses which found the rule suitable to their needs. Thus each of the larger English Benedictine monasteries was a separate community, under the jurisdiction of the diocesan bishop, from whose visitations some powerful abbeys, such as St Albans, Evesham and Westminster, eventually obtained exemption. ”

“ In the ninth and tenth centuries—the worst period of the Dark Ages—corruption and laxity pervaded society in general, and the Benedictine monasteries especially. At the end of this deplorable epoch many efforts were made in the direction of reform. Gregory the Great himself was a member of the Benedictine brotherhood; so also was Augustine, who founded the great monastery of Christ Church. ”

“ The Community of Benedictine Monks is only second,—a fact which surprises greatly strangers and visitors. Both in the monastery and the convent the buildings are huge and magnificent, the courts spacious, the woods and streams well distributed and well kept.
"Every morning you may see a hundred and fifty to two hundred ploughs issue from both establishments; these spread over the plain and till an immense expanse of land. Carts drawn by bullocks, big mules, or superb horses are ceaselessly exporting the products of the fields, the meadows, or the orchards. ”

“ The first great saint to enter the lists against monastic corruption was Benedict of Aniane (750-821 A.D.) , a member of a distinguished family in southern France. The Benedictine rule in his opinion was formed for novices and invalids. He attributed the prevailing laxity among the monks to the mild discipline. As abbot of a monastery he undertook to reform its affairs by adopting a system based on Basil of Asia Minor and Pachomius of Egypt. ”

“ It is evidently planned in compliance with the Benedictine rule, which enjoined that, if possible, the monastery should contain within itself every necessary of life, as well as the buildings more intimately connected with the religious and social life of its inmates. It should comprise a mill, a bakehouse, stables and cow-houses, together with accommodation for carrying on all necessary mechanical arts within the walls, so as to obviate the necessity of the monks going outside its limits. ”

“ Lastly, he introduced the idea of stability, whereby monk and community were bound to each other for life, the normal thing for the Benedictine being to live and die in the monastery of his profession: thus the power hitherto enjoyed by monks, of wandering from monastery to monastery, was cut away, and the Benedictine community was made into a family whose members were bound to one another by bonds that could not be severed at will. ”

“ Monks were first introduced into Western Europe in the year 529. There had long been brotherhoods, hermits, and solitaries in the East, where they existed before the Christian age. St. Benedict founded at Monte Casino in Campania a monastery for twelve brethren in that year. The Benedictines are the most ancient Order: they have also been always the most learned. The Priory of the Holy Trinity in London was Benedictine. ”

“ We have no existing examples of the earlier monasteries of the Benedictine order. They have all yielded to the ravages of time and the violence of man. But we have fortunately preserved to us an elaborate plan of the great Swiss monastery of St Gall, erected about A.D. 820, which puts us in possession of the whole arrangements of a monastery of the first class towards the early part of the 9th century. ”

“ There was sometimes a fountain at the corner of the cloister, or on its south side near the entrance to the refectory, at which the monks washed before meals.
[Pg 73] The church was always the principal building of a monastery. Many of them remain entire, though despoiled of their shrines, and tombs, and altars, and costly furniture, and many more remain in ruins, and they fill us with astonishment at their magnitude and splendour. Our existing cathedrals were, in fact, abbey churches; nine or ten of them were the churches of Benedictine monasteries, the remainder of secular Augustines. ”

“ As regards the nuns, most of the houses were affiliated to one or other of the above-named Orders.
I. Monks i. Benedictines
St. Benedict, justly called the Patriarch of Western Monachism, established his rule of life in Italy; first at Subiaco and subsequently at Monte Cassino about A.D. 529. The design of his code was, like every other rule of regular life, to enable men to reach the higher Christian ideals by the helps afforded them in a well-regulated monastery. According to the saint’s original conception, the houses were to be separate families independent of each other. ”

“ Monastic history, like secular, centers in the biographies of such great men as Anthony, Basil, Jerome, Benedict, Francis, Dominic and Loyola. To understand the [pg 85] character of the powerful forces set in motion by the coming of the monks to Rome, it is necessary to know the leading spirits whose preeminent abilities and lofty personalities made Western monasticism what it was.
The time is about 418 A.D.; the place, a monastery in Bethlehem, near the cave of the Nativity. In a lonely cell, within these monastic walls, we shall find the man we seek. ”

“ Benedict possessed the power of performing miracles. Not only could he control the actions of man in a way that showed his supernatural ability, but he also set the elements at defiance. In the year 529, Benedict, with a few devotees selected from the many pious men around him, went to Monte Casino, where idolatry prevailed, and broke the images in Apollo's temple; they then founded a monastery there, and instituted the order after the saint's name. ”

“ Whenever the Benedictines resolved on building a monastery, they chose the most barren, deserted spot they could find, often a piece of land long regarded as useless, and therefore frequently given without a price, then they set to work, cleared a space for their buildings, laid their foundations deep in the earth, and by gradual but unceasing toil, often with their own hands, alternating their labor with their prayers, they reared up those stately abbeys which still defy the ravages of age. ”

“ The miraculous intervention of which Gregory hands down the story (Dial. ii. 9, 10) is not necessary to explain how the missionary spirit of Benedict and his monks overthrew the image and altar of Apollo, and reared shrines of St. John Evang. and St. Martin, the founder of monasticism in France, within the very walls of the Sun-god's temple—it was customary to reconsecrate, not to destroy, pagan edifices (Greg. M. Ep. xi. 76) —where now stands one of the most sumptuous of Italian churches. Here Benedict commenced the monastery destined to a world-wide reputation. ”

“ Let him always keep the place which he received on entering the monastery, except in his duties at the altar or in case the choice of the community and the will of the Abbot should promote him for the worthiness of his life. Yet he must understand that he is to observe the rules laid down by deans and Priors.
Should he presume to act otherwise, let him be judged not as a priest but as a rebel. And if he does not reform after repeated admonitions, let even the Bishop be brought in as a witness. ”

“ The eye, confined on all sides by rocks, can survey freely only the azure of heaven. It is the last of those sacred places visited and venerated in the celebrated and unique monastery of the Iagro Speco, which forms a series of sanctuaries, built one over the other, backed by the mountain which Benedict has immortalized. Such was the hard and savage cradle of the monastic order in the West. It was from this tomb, where the delicate son of the last patricians of Rome buried himself alive, that the definite form of monastic life—that is to say, the perfection of Christian life—was born. ”

“ Benedict is as important as any constitution that was ever drawn up for a state. It is for the most part natural and wholesome. It provides that, since every one is not fitted for the ascetic life, the candidate for admission to the monastery shall pass through a period of probation, called the novitiate, before he is permitted to take the solemn and irrevocable vow. The brethren shall elect their head, the [Pg 58] abbot, whom they must obey unconditionally in all that is not sinful. Along with prayer and meditation, the monks are to work at manual occupations and cultivate the soil. ”

“ The Monte Cassino monastery of Benedict rivaled in artistic beauty the temple that it replaced.
Man is a building animal, and the same Creative Energy that impelled the Greeks and later the Romans to plan, devise, toil and build, now played through the good monk Benedict. ”

“ St Benoît (Lat. Floriacum) possesses a huge basilica, the only survival of a famous monastery founded in the 7th century to which the relics of St Benedict were brought from Monte Cassino. Of great importance during the middle ages, owing partly to its school, the establishment began to decline in the 16th century. ”

“ On the summit of an abrupt height, over a double row of arcades, appears the monastery; at its base a torrent plows the soil, winding off in the distance between banks of boulders; beyond is the old town prolonging itself on the ridge of the mountain. We ascend slowly under the burning sun, and suddenly, at the end of [Pg 79] a court surrounded by slender columns, enter within the obscurity of the cathedral. It is unequalled; before having seen it one has no idea of the art and the genius of the Middle Ages. ”

“ When Benedict, Abbot of Aniane, in Languedoc, born in 750, left the Court in early life, disgusted with its ways and bent on monastic labours, thought of founding a new monastery, he found [Pg 213] the system then in vogue far too lax. He taught his monks to accustom themselves to earn a living by their own industry, and then do the utmost good with their earnings. ”

“ The immense refectory, of the same cruciform shape as that of St Laura, will accommodate 500 guests at its 24 marble tables.
The annexed plan of a Coptic monastery, from Lenoir shows us a church of three aisles, with cellular apses, and two ranges of cells on either side of an oblong gallery.
Monasticism in the West owes its extension and development to Benedict of Nursia (born A.D. 480) . ”

“ The monks were never to go beyond the monastery without leave, and, in order that there might be little occasion for their going out, it was to contain within its walls the garden, the well, the mill, the bakehouse, and other such necessary things. The abbot was to set every monk his work; if it were found that any one was inclined to pride himself on his skill in any art or trade, he was not to be allowed to practise it, but was obliged to take up some other employment.
Benedict died in 543, and by that time his order had made its way into France, Spain, and Sicily. ”

“ From the beginning the Benedictines recognized that a monastic career should be open to women as well as to men, and Benedict's sister, Scholastica, established convents for them, as her brother did the Benedictine monasteries, thus providing a vocation for women who did not feel called upon to marry. ”

“ Here he founded, it is said, twelve monasteries, each of twelve monks with a "father" at the head of them (Dial. ii. 3) . Of these only two remain, "Il Sagro Speco" and "Sta. Scholastica"; the rest being in ruins, or merely oratories (Mab. Ann. ii. 1) . That of "Sta. Scholastica," so named after Benedict's sister, enjoys special privileges, and takes precedence among the Benedictine foundations even of Monte Cassino, as of older date (Alb. Butler, Lives of the Saints) . Several of the miracles ascribed to Benedict are connected with Subiaco. ”