Benedictine monks

about AD 529 Monte Cassino, Lazio

In short

Benedict of Nursia founded a monastery on the mountain of Cassino, in southern Lazio. For his monks he wrote a Rule, a set of guidelines for living together in peace and good order. The days were divided between prayer, work in the fields and study, as the later motto ‘ora et labora’, pray and work, sums up. In Benedictine monasteries the monks also copied ancient books by hand.

Why it matters Thanks to the work of monks copying books, many Latin and Greek works have come down to us.

Source: Treccani, entry “Benedetto da Norcia, santo”

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Illustration: Benedictine monks (Monte Cassino, Lazio) — Illustration created with AI for Storiascopio

Where: Monte Cassino, Lazio

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The story

A boy who leaves Rome

Benedict was born at Nursia, in Umbria, around 2 March 480, into a noble family. He had a twin sister, Scholastica, who also became a saint. Almost everything we know about him comes from a single source: the second book of the Dialogues of Pope Gregory the Great, written after his death. It is not a biography in the modern sense: it is the story of a saint, full of miracles and exemplary episodes. Historians use it with caution, but it is all we have.

According to Gregory, Benedict's parents sent him to study in Rome. But he did not like the life of the city, which seemed disorderly to him, and so he decided to leave it to seek God in solitude. He withdrew to a cave at Subiaco, in the mountains east of Rome, where he lived as a hermit for about three years. Little by little other men joined him and Benedict began to guide small communities of monks. Not everything went smoothly: the story recalls that at Subiaco someone tried to poison him.

The monastery on the mountain

Around AD 529 Benedict left Subiaco with some companions and climbed a hill above the town of Cassino, in southern Lazio. According to tradition he founded the monastery where a tower and an ancient temple dedicated to Apollo had stood. The date of 529 is the traditional one; some sources place the foundation between 525 and 530, so it is best to say “around 529”. That monastery is the abbey of Montecassino.

The Rule: how to live together

At Montecassino Benedict wrote his Rule, around 530-540. It was a little book of a prologue and 73 chapters, short and practical, inspired also by the rules of earlier monks such as that of Basil of Caesarea. It was not made for isolated hermits, but for communities living together under the guidance of an abbot, chosen by the monks themselves. The main ideas are three: prayer in common, personal prayer and work. To sum them up the motto “ora et labora”, that is, “pray and work”, has become popular. Be careful: this phrase is not in the Rule. It is a later summary, handy but not original.

What did the Rule say? For example, that the monks' days were marked by seven times of prayer by day and one by night, called “hours”. Manual work was compulsory and took up at least five hours a day. The monks ate two meals a day, with bread and a little wine, and could not eat the meat of four-footed animals, except the sick and the weakest. Anyone who wanted to enter first had to do a year of trial, the novitiate. A famous chapter describes twelve steps of humility. It was a hard life, but an orderly one: the Rule always looks for balance, without excess.

The heart of the system is stability: the monk promises to stay for ever in the same monastery, living with the same brothers. For an age of wars, invasions and dangerous journeys, it was a reassuring idea.

Benedict's death and Montecassino's misfortunes

Benedict died at Montecassino, according to tradition, on 21 March 547, about forty days after his sister Scholastica. The monastery, however, had a troubled history. Between about 570 and 581 the Lombards destroyed it and the monks took refuge in Rome. It was rebuilt around 718. In 883 the Saracens destroyed it again, and it was rebuilt in 949 at the wish of Pope Agapetus II. In 1349 an earthquake ruined it and it was put back on its feet in 1366. The last blow came during the Second World War: on 15 February 1944, during the battle of Cassino, Allied bombing flattened the abbey. It was rebuilt as it had been and the church was consecrated by Pope Paul VI in 1964.

After Benedict

In 1964 Pope Paul VI proclaimed Benedict patron saint of Europe.

Why it happened

In the 5th and 6th centuries Italy was an unsafe country: the Western Empire had ended, the Germanic kingdoms were at war with one another and the cities were less rich and less protected than before. Many Christians looked for a way to live their faith seriously, and some withdrew to lonely places as hermits.

What was missing was a simple rule, suited to ordinary people and to settled communities. Benedict did not invent everything from scratch: he used earlier examples, such as the rule of Basil of Caesarea, and adapted them to a Latin monastery, with a more balanced life, less extreme than that of many hermits.

What changed

The Rule spread through most of western Europe and gave rise to a great order, the Benedictines. In Benedictine monasteries, alongside prayer and work, there was room for reading and study, and tradition says that books were kept and copied there. In a Europe with few schools, this was of enormous value.

With the Rule, manual work became a full part of the monks' lives: every day, alongside prayer and reading, there was a time for working with the hands, and this applied even to someone who had become abbot.

In 1964 Paul VI proclaimed Benedict patron saint of Europe, recalling precisely his role in the birth of European civilisation.

Key people and places

People

Benedict of Nursia: Born at Nursia around 480, died at Montecassino around 547: founder of Western monasticism and author of the Rule.
Scholastica: Benedict's twin sister, a nun: tradition remembers her as a saint; she died about forty days before him.
Gregory the Great: Pope Gregory I: he wrote the Dialogues, the main source on Benedict's life.
Basil of Caesarea: Eastern bishop and monk: his rule inspired Benedict's.
Pope Paul VI: In 1964 he consecrated the rebuilt church of Montecassino and proclaimed Benedict patron saint of Europe.

Places

Nursia: Small town in Umbria where Benedict was born around 480.
Subiaco: Town in the mountains east of Rome: here Benedict lived as a hermit in a cave and guided the first communities.
Montecassino: Monastery on the hill above Cassino, in southern Lazio: destroyed several times and always rebuilt.

Good to know

The Rule is made up of a prologue and 73 chapters, and can be read in a few hours.
“Ora et labora” is not found in the Rule: it is a phrase that was created later, to sum it up.
Benedict and his sister Scholastica were twins, according to tradition.
On 15 February 1944 the abbey of Montecassino was destroyed by a bombing raid during the Second World War.
According to the Rule the monks had to work with their hands for at least five hours a day.