Benedictine

& s. [Eng. Benedictine, a. & s.; Sw., Dan., and Ger. Benediktiner, s.; Fr. Bénédict in (m.), Bénédictine (f.); Ital. Bene dettini (s. pl.).] A. As adj .: Pertaining to St. Benedict of Nursia [B.], or to the Benedictine monks. "Black was her garb, her rigid rule Reformed on Benedictine school." B. As substantive: Scott: Marmion, il. 4. Church Hist . (pl. Benedictines ): The followers of St. Benedict, of Nursia in Italy. He was born in A.D. 480, and was educated in part at Rome. At the age of fourteen he left that city for Sublacum, now Subiaco, a place about forty miles distant, where he spent thirty-five years, at one time as a solitary recluse, at another as head of a monastic establishment. In 529 he removed to Monte Ca ino, fifty miles further south, where, converting some pagan worshippers of Apollo, he transformed their temple into a monastery and became its abbot. He composed rules for its IMG:content-1229.png:[blocks in formation] management, making every monk pledge himself to perfect chastity, absolute poverty, and implicit obedience in all respects to his superiors. He was to live in the monastery subject to his abbot. These vows were irrevocable, whereas up to that time the monks had been allowed to alter the regulations of their founder at their pleasure. The date of St. Benedict's death is generally placed in 543, though another account makes it 547. The rule he instituted was adopted at an early period by various other monastic communities; it was confirmed, about fifty-two years after the death of its founder, by Pope Gregory the Great, and was ultimately асcepted with more or le enthusiasm by nearly all the monkish communities of the West, though its pristine severity became modified with the lapse of time. As long as the Benedictines remained poor they were a ble ing to the countries in which they lived, and especially to Germany, spending as they did several hours a day in gardening, agriculture, and mechanical labour, and another portion of their time in reading, besides keeping school outside the walls of their convents. Science and literature are also indebted to them for having copied many of the cla ical authors and preserved such knowledge as existed in their age. But when at length their merits had drawn much wealth to their order ( individually they were not allowed to retain property), luxury and indolence sapped their virtues and diminished their influence for good. Afterwards becoming reformed, especially in France in the seventeenth century, the Benedictines again rendered service by the i ue of an excellent edition of the Fathers. The Benedictine habit seems to have been introduced after the age of St. Benedict. It consisted of a loose black coat or a gown reaching to their feet, and having large wide sleeves. Under it was a flannel habit white in colour and of the same size, whilst over all was a scapular. The head-dre was a hood or cowl pointed at the tip, and boots were worn upon the feet. From the predominantly black colour of their attire they were sometimes called Black Monks. They must not be confounded with the Black Friars, who were Do mini cans. (BLACK FRIARS.] There were Benedictine nuns as well as monks. When they originated is uncertain. There were first and last many branches of Benedictines, as the Cistercians, Celestines, Grand mon tens i ans, Præmon str a tens i ans, . The rule of St. Benedict was little known in England during the early Saxon period, and, though it received an impulse in the time of Edgar, yet it was not largely accepted till the period of William the Conqueror. At last, however, it rooted itself thoroughly, and at the di olution there were 113 abbeys, priories, and cells for monks, and 73 for nuns, with a total revenue of £65,877-nearly half the aggregate revenues of all the monastic orders.