Benedictine Rule

Benedictine Rule, regulation for monastic conduct as prescribed by the 6th-century monk St. Benedict of Nursia. The Rule is followed by the Order of St. Benedict, a Roman Catholic religious community of confederated congregations of monks, lay brothers, and nuns.

Overview

St. Benedict wrote his rule with his own abbey of Monte Cassino in mind. On the constitutional level, Benedict’s supreme achievement was to provide a succinct and complete directory for the government and the spiritual and material well-being of a monastery. The abbot, elected for life by his monks, maintains supreme power and in all normal circumstances is accountable to no one. He should seek counsel of the seniors or of the whole body but is not bound by their advice. He is bound only by the law of God and the Rule, but he is continually advised that he must answer for his monks, as well as for himself, at the judgment seat of God. He appoints his own officials—prior, cellarer (steward), novice master, guest master, and the rest—and controls all the activities of individuals and the organizations of the common life. Ownership, even of the smallest thing, is forbidden. The ordering of the offices for the canonical hours (daily services) is laid down with precision. Novices, guests, the sick, readers, cooks, servers, and porters all receive attention, and punishments for faults are set out in detail.

Remarkable as is this careful and comprehensive arrangement, the spiritual and human counsel given generously throughout the Rule is uniquely noteworthy among all the monastic and religious rules of the Middle Ages. Benedict’s advice to the abbot and to the cellarer and his instructions on humility, silence, and obedience have become part of the spiritual treasury of the church, from which not only monastic bodies but also legislators of various institutions have drawn inspiration.

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St. Benedict also displayed a spirit of moderation. His monks are allowed clothes suited to the climate, sufficient food (with no specified fasting apart from the times observed by the Roman church), and sufficient sleep (seven and a half to eight hours). The working day is divided into three roughly equal portions: five to six hours of liturgical and other prayer; five hours of manual work, whether domestic work, craft work, garden work, or fieldwork; and four hours of reading the Scriptures and spiritual writings. This balance of prayer, work, and study is another of Benedict’s legacies.

All work was directed to making the monastery self-sufficient and self-contained; intellectual, literary, and artistic pursuits were not envisaged, but the presence of boys to be educated and the current needs of the monastery for service books, Bibles, and the writings of the Church Fathers implied much time spent in teaching and in copying manuscripts. Eventually, Benedict’s plan for an ideal abbey was circulated to religious orders throughout Europe, and abbeys were generally built in accord with it in subsequent centuries.

History and practice in Western monasticism

The Rule, which spread slowly in Italy and Gaul, provided a complete directory for both the government and the spiritual and material well-being of a monastery by carefully integrating prayer, manual labour, and study into a well-rounded daily routine. By the 7th century the rule had been applied to women, as nuns, whose patron was deemed St. Scholastica, sister of St. Benedict.

By the time of Charlemagne at the beginning of the 9th century, the Benedictine Rule had supplanted most other observances in northern and western Europe. During the five centuries following the death of Benedict, the monasteries multiplied both in size and in wealth. They were the chief repositories of learning and literature in western Europe and were also the principal educators. One of the most celebrated of Benedictine monasteries was the Burgundian Abbey of Cluny, founded as a reform house by William of Aquitaine in 910. The Cluniac reform was often imitated by other monasteries, and a succession of able abbots gradually built up throughout western Europe a great network of monasteries that followed the strict Cluniac customs and were under the direct jurisdiction of Cluny.

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The great age of Benedictine predominance ended about the middle of the 12th century, and the history of the main line of Benedictine monasticism for the next three centuries was to be one of decline and decadence.

The 15th century saw the rise of a new Benedictine institution, the congregation. In 1424 the congregation of Santa Giustina of Padua instituted reforms that breathed new life into Benedictine monasticism. Superiors were elected for three years. Monks no longer took vows to a particular house but to the congregation. Further, ruling authority was concentrated in the annual general chapter or legislative meeting. This radical reform spread within a century to all the Benedictines of Italy and became known as the Cassinese Congregation. There were similar reforms throughout Europe. These reforms were confronted by the turmoil of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. Within a few years (1525–60) the monasteries and nunneries disappeared almost entirely from northern Europe and suffered greatly in France and central Europe. Benedictinism revived in France and Germany during the 17th century, however, and several congregations were founded, notably that of the male Maurists in France and the female Perpetual Adoration in Paris (1653) and Our Lady of Calvary (1617). Although the 18th century witnessed a new decline, from the middle of the 19th century Benedictine monasteries and nunneries again began to flourish. Foundations, including Solesmes, with its emphasis on the celebration of the liturgy, arose throughout Europe; monks and nuns returned to England; congregations were established in North and South America; and monasteries scattered all over the world. In the face of this revival, Pope Leo XIII desired to bring about some sort of unity among the traditionally independent Benedictines. In 1893 he created the office of abbot primate as head of the federation of autonomous congregations. This office, though unwelcome because of the Benedictine desire for autonomy, gradually developed in influence.

Until 1938 the Rule had been considered as a personal achievement of St. Benedict, though it had always been recognized that he freely used the writings of the Desert Fathers, of St. Augustine of Hippo, and above all of St. John Cassian. In that year, however, an opinion suggesting that an anonymous document, the “Rule of the Master” (Regula magistri)—previously assumed to have plagiarized part of the Rule—was in fact one of the sources used by St. Benedict provoked a lively debate. Though absolute certainty has not yet been reached, a majority of competent scholars favour the earlier composition of the “Rule of the Master.” If this is accepted, about one-third of Benedict’s Rule (if the formal liturgical chapters are excluded) is derived from the Master. This portion contains the prologue and the chapters on humility, obedience, and the abbot, which are among the most familiar and admired sections of the Rule.

Yet, even if this be so, the Rule that imposed itself all over Europe by virtue of its excellence alone was not the long, rambling, and often idiosyncratic “Rule of the Master.” It was the Rule of St. Benedict, derived from various and disparate sources, that provided for the monastic way of life a directory, at once practical and spiritual, that continued in force after 1,500 years.

In 1964, in view of the work of monks following the Benedictine Rule in the evangelization and civilization of so many European countries in the Middle Ages, Pope Paul VI proclaimed Benedict the patron saint of all Europe.