Among English Benedictine nuns, the most celebrated are: St. Etheldreda, d. 679; Abbess of Ely. Here they are gradually rebuilding the abbey on its original foundations. The English were the first to put into practice the decrees of the Lateran Council. In England the convents were suppressed and the nuns turned adrift. Cistercians (Common Observance) 291,040. In Austria many of the medieval convents have remained undisturbed, and likewise a few in Switzerland. Peter the Venerable (France), d. 1156; ninth Abbot of Cluny; employed by several popes in important affairs of the Church. Francois Lamy, b. Germany owed its evangelization to the English Benedictines, Sts. All these colleges flourished until the Reformation, and even after the dissolution of the monasteries many of the ejected monks retired to Oxford on their pensions, to pass the remainder of their days in the peace and seclusion of their Alma Mater. (See The Abbey of Bursfeld.) St. Celestine V or Pietro di Murrhone (Apulia), b. A custom sprang up in the Middle Ages of uniting lay people to a religious community by formal aggregation, through which they participated 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 house or order. The only differences in color within the Benedictine federation are those of the monks of Monte Vergine, who though now belonging to the Cassinese congregation of Primitive Observance, still retain the white habit adopted by their founder in the twelfth century, and those of the congregation of St. Ottilien, who wear a red girdle to signify their special missionary character. St. Benedict himself began by converting and civilizing the barbarians who overran Italy in the sixth century, the best of whom came and learned the Gospel principles at Monte Cassino. There, as also in Switzerland, it had to contend with and supplement the much stricter Irish or Celtic Rule introduced by St. Columbanus and others. St. Thecla, eighth century; a nun of Wimborne; Abbess of Kitzingen; died in Germany. In more recent times the missionary spirit has manifested itself anew amongst the Benedictines. The Association Laws of 1903 again dispersed the congregation, the monks of Pierre-qui-Vire finding a temporary home in Belgium, those of Belloc and Encalcat going to Spain, and Kerbeneat to South Wales, whilst those of Bethisy and Saint-Benoit, being engaged in parochial work, obtained authorization and have remained in France. The Abbot of St. Ottilien is the superior general and the Beuronese Abbot of Seckau the apostolic visitor. Luc dAchery, b. country, they settled in Portugal and obtained possession of the old monastery of Cucujaes. There seem to have been Benedictine confratres as early as the ninth century. He was the author of many books, one of which, his De Institutione Clericorum, is a valuable treatise on the faith and practice of the Church in the ninth century. Willibrord and Boniface, who preached the Faith there in the seventh and eighth centuries and founded several celebrated abbeys. This term was formerly applied to children offered by their parents in a solemn way to a monastery, a dedication by which they were considered to have embraced the monastic state. The monks of St. Gall and Monte Cassino excelled in illumination and mosaic work, and the latter community are credited with having invented the art of painting on glass. Hermannus Contractus (Germany), eleventh century; a monk of St. Gall; learned in Eastern languages; author of the Salve Regina. Permission was obtained from the pope for these to unite and form a new congregation, the first general chapter of which was held in 1421, when Abbot Barbo was elected the first president. They also undertook work in Bengal in 1874, but this has since been relinquished to the secular clergy. Besides its regular prelates, the English congregation is, by virtue of the Bull Plantata (1633), allowed to perpetuate as titular dignities the nine cathedral-priories which belonged to it before the Reformation, viz., Canterbury, Winchester, Durham, Coventry, Ely, Worcester, Rochester, Norwich, and Bath; to these have been added three more, Peterborough, Gloucester, and Chester, originally Benedictine abbeys but raised to cathedral rank by Henry VIII. The last few centuries, however, have witnessed a widespread revival of the Benedictine life for women as well as for men. The Celtic rule was not entirely supplanted by that of St. Benedict until more than a hundred years later, when the change was effected chiefly through the influence of Pepin the Short, the father of Charlemagne. St. Sylvester (Italy), b. Who are Benedictine Monks? Benedictine life in America may be said to be in a flourishing condition. Other free unions, for purposes of mutual help and similarity of discipline, were to be found also in Scotland, Scandinavia, Poland, Hungary, and elsewhere, in which the same idea was carried out, viz., not so much a congregation in its later sense, with a centralized form of government, as a mere banding together of houses for the better maintenance of rule and policy. The influence of Cluny, even in monasteries which did not join its congregation or adopt any of the other reforms mentioned above, was large and far-reaching. Subiaco Abbey is an American Benedictine monastery located in the Arkansas River valley of Logan County, Arkansas, part of the Swiss-American Congregation of Benedictine monasteries. and since then new houses have been established at Maria Laach, Germany (1892), Louvain, and Billerbeck, Belgium (1899 and 1901), and in 1895 the Portuguese monastery of Cucujaes was added to the congregation. Independent Benedictine Congregations.The various reforms, beginning with Cluny in the tenth century and extending to the Olivetans of the fourteenth, have been enumerated in the first part of this article and are described in greater detail in separate articles, under their respective titles. St. Wilfrid, born c. 634, d. 709; Bishop of York. Quasi-Benedictine Foundations.1. Pierre Coustant, b. Not only were the marshes drained, sterile plains rendered fertile, and wild beasts tamed or driven away, but the bandits and outlaws who infested many of the great highways and forests were either put to flight or converted from their evil ways by the industrious and unselfish monks. It had been aggregated to the Italian province of the congregation in 1864, but was transferred to the Spanish province on its formation in 1893. The Benedictine Order was first established permanently in America by Dom Boniface Wimmer, of the Abbey of Metten, in Bavaria. 1005 in Lombardy, d. at Canterbury, 1089; a monk at Bec (1042); founder of the school there; Archbishop of Canterbury (1070). For many centuries, however, black has been the prevailing color, hence the term black monk has come to signify a Benedictine not belonging to one of those separate congregations which has adopted a distinctive color, e.g. St. Boniface (England), b. Benedictine monasteries have always . Even when the bishop was not himself a monk, he held the place of titular abbot, and the community formed his chapter. The statistics for missions and churches served include those churches and missions over which the monasteries exercise the right of patronage, as well as those actually served by monks. The Order of St. Benedict ( Ordo Sancti Benedicti in Latin, abbreviated as OSB), known also as the Benedictines (sometimes referred to as Black Monks, due to the color of their religious habits), is a monastic religious order in the Roman Catholic Church.Strictly speaking, however, the Benedictines do not constitute a single religious order, since each of its monasteries is autonomous. In 1803 many of the abbeys were suppressed and those that were suffered to remain were forbidden to receive fresh novices. In 1504 its title was changed to that of the Cassinese Congregation. The earliest departures from this system occurred when several of the greater abbeys began sending out offshoots, under the form of daughter-houses retaining some sort of dependence upon the mother abbey from which they sprang. Up to 1901 Belmont had no community of its own, but only members from the other houses who were resident there either as professors or students; the general chapter of that year, however, decided that novices might henceforth be received for St. Michaels monastery. In Switzerland also the Abbots of St. Gall at one time supported (m) the military Order of the Bear, which Frederick II had instituted in 1213. Paris, Tours, and Lyons have been mentioned; amongst others were Reims and Bologna, and, in England, Cambridge, where the Benedictines of Croyland first set up a school in the twelfth century. The Abbey of Lamspring continued to flourish amongst Lutheran surroundings until it was suppressed by the Prussian Government in 1802 and the community dispersed. The latter had no stalls in choir and no vote in chapter; neither were they bound to the daily recitation of the breviary Office as were the choir monks. Ramsey Abbey, founded by St. Oswald of Worcester, long enjoyed the reputation of being the most learned of the English monasteries. Claude Martin, b. It was also made the pro-cathedral of the Diocese of Newport, the bishop and canons of which are chosen from the English Benedictines, the cathedral-prior acting as provost of the chapter. St. Mechtilde, sister to St. Gertrude and nun at Eisleben. Eadmer (England), d. 1137; a monk of Canterbury and disciple of St. Anselm, whose life he wrote. St. Augustine (Rome), d. 604; Prior of St. Andrews on the Coelian Hill; the Apostle of England (596); first Archbishop of Canterbury (597). St. Filbert (France), d. 684; founder of Jumieges. In many also, whilst the canonesses were merely seculars, that is, not under vows of religion, and therefore free to leave and marry, the abbesses retained the character and state of religious superiors, and as such were solemnly professed as Benedictine nuns. They possessed thirty-seven commanderies. To further this end he brought over from England in 782 Alcuin and several of the best scholars of York, to whom he entrusted the direction of the academy established at the royal court, as well as various other schools which he caused to be started in different parts of the empire. St. Benedict's Abbey. Early in the ninth century two monks of Fulda were sent to Tours by their abbot to study under Alcuin, and through them the revival of learning gradually spread to other houses. Richard of Wallingford at St. Albans and Peter Lightfoot at Glastonbury were well-known fourteenth-century clockmakers; a clock by the latter, formerly in Wells cathedral, is still to be seen in the South Kensington Museum, London. congregation. Since then new foundations have been made at Pueyo (1890), Los Cabos (1900), and Solsona (1901), besides one at Manila (Philippines) in 1895. A group of Benedictine monks have said they are separating from an Illinois Catholic high school after the school hired an openly gay woman in a same-sex marriage. In Spain monasteries had been founded by the Visigothic kings as early as the latter half of the fifth century, but it was probably some two or three hundred years later that St. Benedicts Rule was adopted. Besides St. Vincents ArchAbbey, the following foundations have been made: St. This congregation differs from all others in its constitution. St. Chrodegang.Besides those communities which professedly adhered to the Benedictine Rule in all its strictness, there were others founded for some special work or purpose, which, while not claiming to be Benedictine, took that Rule as the basis upon which to ground their own particular legislation. From St. Gregory we learn that twelve other monasteries in the vicinity of Subiaco also owed their origin to him, and that when he was obliged to leave that neighborhood he founded the celebrated Abbey of Monte Cassino, which eventually became the center whence his Rule and institute spread. The Abbey of St. Justina at Padua, which had formerly been Cluniac, was in a very corrupt and ruinous state in 1407 when Gregory XII bestowed it in commendam on the Cardinal of Bologna. Its roll of honor was opened in August, 1905, by a bishop, two monks, two lay brothers, and two nuns, who suffered martyrdom for the Faith at the hands of the Central African natives. Gelasius II or Giovanni da Gaeta, John Cajetan (Gaeta), 1118-19; historian. Many noble ladies and royal princesses of France are reckoned amongst the abbesses of Fontevrault. In Italy the convents seem to have been very numerous during the Middle Ages. These are a series of declarations on the holy Rule, defining its interpretation and application, to which are added other regulations on points of discipline and practice not provided for by St. Benedict. By 1860 a monastery had been erected and full conventual life established. Benedictine, member of the Order of Saint Benedict (O.S.B. St. Placid and St. Maur are examples from St. Benedicts own day and amongst others may be instanced the English saint, Bede, who entered the monastery of Jarrow in his seventh year. St. Oswald (England), d. 992; nephew of St. Odo of Canterbury; Bishop of Worcester (959); Archbishop of York (972). All power was vested in a committee of definitors, in whose hands were all appointments, from that of president down to the lowest official in the smallest monastery. It should be noted here that these several attempts were directed only towards securing outward uniformity, and that as yet there was apparently no idea of a congregation, properly so called, with a central source of all legislative authority. St. Ethelburga, died c. 670; Abbess of Barking. St. Majolus or Maieul (France), b. The monks of Dieulouard were also driven out at the same time and after some years of wandering established themselves in 1802 at Ampleforth in Yorkshire. In 1899 Leo XIII raised the three priories of St. Gregorys (Downside), St. Lawrences (Ampleforth), and St. Edmunds (Douai) to the rank of abbeys, so that the congregation now consists of three abbeys and one cathedral-priory, each with its own community, but Belmont still remains the central novitiate and tyrocnium for all the houses. Thus St. Birinus evangelized Wessex, St. Chad the Midlands, and St. Felix East Anglia, whilst the Celtic monks from Iona settled at Lindisfarne, whence the work of St. Paulinus in Northumbria was continued by St. Aidan, St. Cuthbert, and many others. 1794, d. 1872; a monk of Downside; Vicar Apostolic of Mauritius (1832). St. Rupert (France), d. 718; the Apostle of Bavaria and Bishop of Salzburg. Recognized for his wisdom and leadership, men seeking to live out the monastic life sought him out to be their abbot. Belonging to the Claustrales were Our Ladys Abbey, Vilvaneira, St. Stephens, Rivas del Sil, founded in the sixth century, and St. Peters, Cardena, which claimed to be the oldest in Spain. Amongst others may be mentioned the Statutes of Lan-franc, the Discipline of Farfa, the Ordo of Bernard of Cluny, and the Constitutions of St. William of Hirschau. He went to St. Pauls, Rome, where he was joined by his two brothers, and all were professed in 1856, one dying soon after. Parochial work is undertaken by the following congregations: Cassinese, English, Swiss, Bavarian, Gallican, American-Cassinese, Swiss-American, Beuronese, Cassinese P. O., Austrian (both), Hungarian, and the Abbey of Fort Augustus.
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