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 BENEDICTINE

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BENEDICTINE

ha\nng been gradually introduced into most of the chief monasteries of Gaul during the seventh centurj^ Lerins, for instance, one of the oldest, which had been foimded by St. Honoratus in 375, probably received its first knowledge of the Benedictine Rule from the \'isit of St. Augustine and his companions in 596. Dismayed by the accounts they had heard of the ferocity of the English, the missionaries had sent their leader back to Rome to implore the pope to allow them to abandon the object of their journey. During liis absence they remained at Lerins. Not long after their dejiarture. Aygulph, Abbot of Fleurj', was called in to restore the discipline and he probably introduced the full Benedictine observance; for when St. Benedict Biscop ^^sited Lerins later on in the seventh centurj' he received the Benedictine habit and tonsure from the hands of Abbot Aygulph. Lerins continued through several centuries to supply from its monks bishops for the chief churches of Southern Gaul, and to them perhaps may be traced the general diffusion of St. Benedict's Rule throughout that count rj\ There, as also in Switzerland, it had to contend vdth and supplement the much stricter Irish or Celtic Rule introduced by St. Colimibantis and oth- ers. In some mon- asteries the two rules were amalgamated, or practised side by side. Gregory of Tours says that at, Ainay, in the sixth centurj', the monks "followed the rules of Basil, Cassian, Cipsarius, and other fathers, taking and using whatever seem- ed proper to the con- ditions of time and place", and doubtless the same liberty was taken with the Benedictine Rule when it reached them. In other monasteries it entirely displaced the earUer codes, and had by the entl of the eighth cen- turj- so completely superseded them throughout France that Charlemagne could gravely doubt whether monks of any kind had been possible before St. Benedict's time. The authority of Charlemagne and of his son, Louis the Pious, did much, as we shall presently see, towards propagating the principles of the Father of western monachism.

St. .A.ugustine and his monks established the first English Benedictine monastery at Canterburj' soon after their arrival in 597. Other foimdations quickly followed as the Benedictine missionaries carried the light of the Gospel with them throughout the length and breadth of the land. It was said that St. Bene- dict seemed to have taken possession of the coimtry as his own, and the historj' of his order in England is the historj- of the English Church. Nowhere did the order link itself so intimately with people and in- stitutions, secular as well as religious, as in England. Through the influence of saintly men, Wilfrid, Bene- dict Biscop, and Dunstan, the Benedictine Rule spread \\nth extraordinarj- rapidity, and in the North, when once the Easter controversy had been settled and the Roman supremacy acknowledged (SjTiod of Whitby, 664), it was adopted in most of the monasteries that had been founded by the Celtic missionaries from lona. Many of the episcopal sees of England were founded and governed Dy the

A Benedictin

Benedictines, and no less than nine of the old cathe drals were ser\'ed by the black monks of the priorie attached to them. Even when the bishop was no himself a monk, he held the place of titular abbot and the community formed his chapter.

German}' owed its evangehzation to the Enghsl Benedictines, Sts. Willibrord and Boniface, wht preached the Faith there in the seventh and eightl centuries and founded several celebrated abbeys From thence spread, hand in hand, Christianity anc Benedictine monasticism, to Denmark and Scandi na\-ia, and from the latter even to Iceland. In Spair monasteries had been founded by the Visigothi( kings as early as the latter half of the fifth centurj- but it was probably some two or three lumdrec years later that St. Benedict's Rule was adopted Mabillon gives 640 as the date of its introductior into that countrj' (Acta Sanctorum O. S. B., sa?c. I praef. 74), but liis conclusions on this point are not now generally accepted. In Switzerland the elisciples of Columbantis had foimded monasterie; early in the seventh centurj-, two of the best known being St. Gall's, estabUshed by the saint of that name, and Dissentis (612), foimded by St. Sigisbert The Celtic rule was not entirely supplanted by that of St. Benedict until more than a hundred years later, when the change was effected cliiefly through the influence of Pepin the Short, the father of Charle magne. By the ninth centun,-. however, the Bene- dictine had become the only form of monastic life throughout the whole of Western Europe, excepting Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, where the Celtic observance still prevailed for another century or two. At the time of the Reformation there were nine Benedictine houses in Ireland and six in Scot- land, besides numerous abbeys of Cistercians.

Benedictine monasticism never took such deep root in the eastern countries of Europe as it had done in the West. The Bohemians and the Poles, never- theless, owed their conversion respectively to the Benedictine missionaries Adalbert (d. 997) and Casimir (d. lOoS), wliilst Bavaria and what is now the Austrian Empire were evangelized first by monks from Gaul in the seventh centurj'. and later on bj- St. Boniface and liis disciples. A few of the larger abbej-s founded in these countries during the ninth and tenth centuries still exist, but the number of foundations was alwaj's small in comparison with those farther west. Into Lithuania and the Eastern Empire the Benedictine Rule never penetrated in early times, and the great scliism between East and West effectu- allj' prevented any possibiUties of development in that direction.

Early Cottstitution of the Order. — During the first four or five centuries after the death of St. Benedict there existed no organic bond of union amongst the various abbej-s other than the Rule itself and obedi- ence to the Holj' See. According to the holj- legis- lator's pro\-isions each monasterj- constituted an independent familj*. self-contained, autonomous, managing its own affairs, and subject to no external authority except that of the local diocesan bishop, whose powers of control were, however, hmited to certain specific occasions. The earUest departures from this sj'stem occurred when several of the greater abbej's began sending out offshoots, under the form of daughter-houses retaining some sort of dependence upon the mother abbej' from which thej' sprang. This mode of propagation, together ■nith the various reforms that began to appear in the eleventh and succeeding centuries, paved the waj- for the sj-stem of independent congregations, still a feature peculiar to the ISenedictine Order.

Reforms. — A sj'stem which comprised many hun- dreds of monasteries and manj- thousands of monks, spread over a number of different countries, without any unity of organization; which was exposed.