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 BENEDICTINE

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BENEDICTINE

congregation and in 1904 formally incorporated into the Benedictine Order. The Abbot of St. Ottilien is the superior general and the Beuronese Abbot of Seckau the apostolic visitor. This congre- gation has been largely recruited from the congrega- tion of Beuron, to which it is bound by close ties. In 1901 it established a cell at Wipfeld, in Bavaria, and it has also ten mission stations in Central Africa, one of its members being Vicar Apostolic of Zanzibar. Its roll of honour was opened in August. 1905, by a bishop, two monks, two lay brothers, and two mms, who suffered martyrdom for the Faith at the hands of the Central African natives.

(20) Independent Abbeys. — Besides the above congregations there also are two independent abbeys, which belong to no congregation, but are immediately subject to the Holy See: (a) The Abbey of Fort Augustus. Scotland. Founded in 1876, as a priory of the English congregation, mainly through the munificence of Lord Lovat, its first community was drawn from the other houses of that body. It was intended partly to continue the community of Sts. Denis and Adrian, originally of Lam.spring, which had been dispersed since 1841, and of which there were only one or two surviving members; and partly to preserve continuity with the Scottish monasteries that had from time to time been founded in different parts of Germany and Austria, and of which there was, likewise, only one sur\dvor — Father Anselm Robertson, professed at St. James's, Ratisbon, in 184.5. These monks took up residence with the new community and assisted in the clothing of the first novice received for Fort -Augustus. In order that its members might be exempt from the external mission work with which the English Bene- dictines are specially charged, the mona.stery was, in 1883, separated from the English congregation by the Holy See, and in 1888 was made an independent abbey, directly subject to the pope. A monk of the Beuron congregation, Dom Leo Linse, was at the same time appointed its first abbot. The Beuronese constitutions were first adopted, but these have since been replaced by new constitutions. Of late years the community has undertaken the spiritual care of three parishes in the vicinity of the abbey, (b) St. Anselm's Abbey and International Benedic- tine College, Rome. This was originally founded in 1687 as a college for Benedictines of the Cassinese congregation, but later on monks of other congrega- tions were also admitted. Having ceased to exist in 1846, it was revived on a small .scale by the Abbot of St. Paul's, and reconstituted in 1886 as a college and university for Benedictines from all parts of the world by Leo XIII, who at his own expense erected the present extensive buildings. In 1900 the abbey church was consecrated, in the presence of a great gathering of abbots from all over the world, by Cardinal RampoUa, acting as representative of the pope. St. An.selm's is presided over by Abbot Hildebrand de Hemptinne (who is also .4bbot of Maredsous) with the title of "Abbot Primate" of the whole order. It has power to grant degrees in theology, philosophy, and canon law, and both pro- fessors and students are drawn from all congregations of the order. There is accommodation for one hun- dred students, but the full number in residence at one time has not yet exceeded sixty.

II. Lay Brotheks, Obl.\tes, Confr.^^ters, and Nuns. — (1) Lay Brothers. — Up to the eleventh century in Benedictine houses no distinction of rank was made between the clerical and the lay brethren. All were on an equal footing in the community and at first comparatively few seem to have been ad- vanced to the priesthood. St. Benedict himself was probably only a layman; at any rate it is certain that he was not a priest. A monk not in sacred orders was always considered as eligible as a priest II.— 29

for any ofiBce in the commtmity, even that of abbot, though for purposes of convenience some of the monks were usually ordained for the service of the altar; and until literary and scholastic work, which could oidy be undertaken by men of some education and culture, began to take the place of manual labour, all shared alike in the daily round of agri- cultural and domestic duties. St. John Gualbert, the founder of Vallombrosa, was the first to introduce the system of lay brethren, by drawing a line of distinction between the monks who were clerics and those who were not. The latter had uo stalls in choir and no vote in chapter; neither were they bound to the daily recitation of the bre\'iary Office as were the choir monks. Lay brothers were en- trusted with the more menial work of the monastery, and all those duties that involved intercourse with the outside world, in. order that the choir brethren might be free to devote themselves entirely to prayer and other occupations proper to their clerical voca- tion. The system spread rapidly to all branches of the order and was imitated by almost every other religious order. At the present day there is hardly a congregation, Benetiictine or otherwise, that has not its lay brethren,) and even amongst numerous orders of nuns a similar distinction is observed, either between the nuns that are bound to choir and those that are not, or between those that keep strict enclosure and those that are not so enclosed. The habit worn by the lay brethren is usually a modification of that of the choir monks, sometimes differing from it in colour as well as in shape; and the vows of the lay brethren are in most congrega- tions only simple, or renewable periodically, in con- trast with the solemn vows for life taken by the choir religious. In some commimities at the present time the lay brothers equal and even outnumber the priests, especially in those, like Beuron or New Nursia, where farming and agriculture are carried out on a large scale.

(2) Oblates. — This term was formerly applied to children offered by their parents in a solemn way to a monastery, a dedication by which they were con- sidered to have embraced the monastic state. The custom led to many abuses in the Middle Ages, be- cause oblates sometimes abandoned the religious life and returned to the world, whilst still looked upon as professed religious. The Church, therefore, in the twelfth century, forbade the dedication of children in this way, and the term oblate has since been taken to mean persons, either lay or cleric, who voluntarily attach themselves to some monastery or order without taking the vows of religion. They wear the habit and share all the privileges and exercises of the community they join, but they retain dominion over their property and are free to leave at any time. They \isually make a promise of obedience to the superior, which binds them as long as they remain in the monastery, but it only partakes of the nature of a mutual agreement and has none of the properties of a vow or solemn contract.

(3) Confratres. — A custom sprang up m the Middle Ages of uniting lay people to a religious community by formal aggregation, through which they partici- pated in all the prayers and good works of the monks, and though living in the world, they could always feel that they were connected in a special way with some religious hou.se or order. There seem to have been Benedictine confratres as early as the ninth century. The practice was widely taken up by al- most every other order and was developed by the mendicants in the thirteenth century into what are now called "third orders". It was peculiar to Benedictine confratres that they were always aggre- gated to the particular monastery of their selection and not to the whole order in general, as is the case with others. The Benedictines have numbered