Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/853

BENEDICTINES. to procure a beautiful illuminated manuscript, ivory carving, enameled book-cover, hanging or tapestry, reliquary or chalice, it was to such monasteries that he addressed himself. Artists were sent out from them to do whatever had to be done on the spot, or the work was executed in the monastery. Different communities were famous for excellence in particular branches, and often inlerehangcd skillful monks for a time. When Abbot Desiderius established his famous art school at Monte Cassino, in the middle of the Eleventh Century, he imported instructors from Constantinople as well as from all parts of southern Italy, and so revived certain branches which bad fallen into decay in the West. Most of the art products of the Carlovingian Age issued from these monastic schools.

It cannot be said that the Benedictines accomplished any great progress in architecture. They adhered to the old basilican style (see Basilica ), often replacing the antique columns, which had become scarce, by plain square piers or built-up shafts. They showed a certain pov- erty of architectural detail and of sculptured ornament, except at the very close, in the Elev- enth and Twelfth centuries. On the other hand, they always maintained a mastery of fresco- painting. The grand scries at Saint Angelo in Formis is the best example of the school of Monte Cassino, under Byzantine influence (Elev- enth Century) ; that of San Pietro a Grado, near Pisa, shows the unadulterated Italian Benedic- tine. Tlie German style appears at Reichenau and Ingelheim; the French at Saint-Savin near Poitiers. In laying out the buildings of the monasteries, there was not much unifonnity, as the Benedictine rule left each community an autonomous unit.

While, as has been said, the Order had the very greatest influence on the preservation of learning througliout the West, its chief literary glories are associated with the Congregation of Saint-Maur in France, founded by letters patent of Louis XIII., in 1618. which had later its chief seat at Saint-Germain-des-Pr6s, near Paris. When the Order of the Benedictines was sup- pressed, with the other religious Orders, by the Revolution in 1792, its splendid conventual build- ings were destroj'ed. Numbering among its monks such scholars as Mabillon, Montfaucon, Sainte- Martha, D'Achfry, Mart6ne, Durand, Rivet, Cl^mencet, Carpentier. Toustain, Constant, and Tassin, it rendered services to literature which would be difficult to overestimate. Besides ad- mirable editions of many of the Fathers (see Benedictine Editions of the F.thers), the world of letters owes to these men the Art de verifier Ics dates (3 vols., fol., 178,3-87) ; a much enlarged edition of Ducange's Glossarixm MedicE et Infirnire Latinitatis (6 vols., fol.. 1733-36) ; a supplement (1766, 4 vols., fol.) ; the De He Di- phiiiiatiea (1681 and 1709, fol.) ; the Nouveau traiie de diplomatifjue (6 vols., 4to, 17.50-65) ; L'(i)tti(/uit6 expliquee (15 vols., fol., 1719-24); the Monuments de la nwiiarchie franfaise (5 vols., fol., 1729-33) ; the Acta Sanctorum Ordinis S. Benedieti (9 vols., fol., 1688-1702) ; a new and much improved edition of the Gallia Christiana (14 vols., fol., 1715-56) ; the Annales Ordinis 8. Benedieti (6 vols., fol., 1713-39) ; the Veterum Seripiorum. Spicilegium (13 vols., 4to, 1653-77) ; the De Antiqnis ilonachorum Ritihus (2 vols., 4to, 1690) ; the De Antiquis Ecclesiw Ritihus (3 vols., 4to, 1700-02) ; the Yeterum Scriplorum et Monumcntorum Amplissima Collectio (9 vols., fol., 1724-33) ; and the Ilistoire littiraire de la France (9 vols., 4to, 1733-49). Since the Revo- lution, the revived French Benedictines, until troubled by recent Government interference, had resumed some of the unfinished labors of the Congregation of Saint-Maur; that of Solesmes, established in 1837, under the direction of Dom Gueranger, Cardinal Pitra, and others, has en- tered on literary enterprises of its own, such as the HpicUcgium Solesmcnse (10 vols., 4to), and has also been famous for its revival of the ancient ecclesiastical music in all its purity. In view of all that has been said above, Sir Walter Scott may be seen to have been amply justified in writing, at a time when the English- speaking world had completely forgotten its obli- gations to the monks, of their "works of perma- nent advantage to the Nvorld at large; showing that the revenues of tlie Benedictines were not always spent in self-indulgence, and that the members of the Order did not uniformly, slumber in sloth and indolence." By degrees, however, i corruption of manners began to accompany in- creasing wealth, until it became the practice in many places to receive almost exclusively the sons of noble and wealthy persons as novices among the 'black monks.' Several of the Popes attempted to regulate these disorders; and re- forms of great consequence sprang from within the bosom of the Order itself. The first serious inroad into the influence of the regular Ben- edictines was made by the reform of Cluny ( q.v. ), under Abbot Odo, in 927 ; but as it did not break away from the Order, it really gave it new life and splendor. The mother house of Cluny was an immense establishment with a church, destroyed at the Revolution, larger than any Gothic cathedral, a superb specimen of Romanesque. The patronage of the arts by this house and the eight hundred or more monasteries affiliated with it was offensive to Saint Bernard, who objected to the lavish expenditure for great church towers, elaborately sculptured facades and capitals, rich hangings and vestments, and treasuries filled with sacred vessels of gold and silver. From him came the spread of the reform of Citeaux (see Cistercians), in 1098. The new spirit was less literary, less exclusive; the arts and industries were not so thoroughly cultivated within the precincts. Greater opportunity was offered to lay artists; the conversi, or lay broth- ers, were encouraged to break loose and form asso- ciati(ms of artists who competed with the monas- tic artists. This culminated during the Twelfth Century, which witnessed not only the transition to the Gflthic style of art, but the transference of artistic supremacy from monastic to secular hands. Another famous reform on stricter lines was that of the Trappists (q.v.), in 1664, an off- shoot from the Cistercians.

At one time the Order is said to have had no less than 37,000 monasteries; in the Fifteenth Century 15,107 are enumerated, of which the Reformation abolished a great many. In England^ at the Dissolution under Henry VIIL, there were (as given by Tanner, Notitia. Monastica, 1695) 113 abbeys and priories for monks, and 73 houses of Benedictine nuns. They now have less than a score in that country. In the United States the Order was introduced in 1846, by a colony from the famous Abbey of Metten, in Bavaria,