§ 44. THE RULE OF ST. BENEDICT. 223
hours, especially on Sunday, to religious reading; and from six to seven hours to manual labor in doors or in the field, or, instead of this, to the training of children, who were committed to the cloister by their parents {ohlati).^
Here was a starting point for the afterward celebrated cloister schools, and for that attention to literary pursuits, which, though entirely foreign to the uneducated Benedict and his immediate successors, afterward became one of the chief ornaments of his order, and in many cloisters took the 2:>lace ol" manual labor.
In other respects the mode of life was to be simple, without extreme rigor, and confined to strictly necessary things. Clothing consisted of a tunic with a black cowl (whence the name : Black Friars) ; the material to be determined by the climate and season. On the two weekly fast days, and from the middle of September to Easter, one meal was to suffice for the day. Each monk is allowed daily a pound of bread and pulse, and, according to the Italian custom, half a flagon {Jiemina) of wine ; though he is advised to abstain from the wine, if he can do so without injury to his health. Flesh is permitted only to the weak and sick,'' who were to be treated with special care. During the meal some edifying piece was read, and silence enjoined. The individual monk knows no personal property, not even his simple dress as such ; and the fruits of his labor go into the common treasury. He should avoid all contact with the world, as dangerous to the soul, and therefore every cloister should be so arranged, as to be able to carry on even the arts and trades necessary for supplying its
tation of Ps. cxix. 164: "Seven times a day do I praise thee," and v. 62: "At midnight I will rise to give tlianlis unto thee." The I'salter was the hturgy and hymn boolj of the convent. It was so divided among tlie seven sei-vices of the day, that the whole psalter should be chanted once a week.
' Cap. 59 : " Si quis forte de nobilibus offert filium suum Deo in monasterio, si ipse puer minori aetate est, parentes ejus faciant petitionem," etc.
" Cap 40 : " Carnium quadrupedum ab omnibus abstinetur comesl io, pneter omnino debiles et segrotos." Even birds are excluded, which were at that time onlj delicacies for pi-inces and nobles, as Mabillon shows from the contemporary testimony of Gregory of Toura
224 THIRD PEEIOD, A.D. 311-590.
wants.' Hospitality and other works of love are espeeiallj commended.
Tlie penalties for transgression of the rule ai-e, first, private admonition, then exclusion from the fellowship of prayer, next exclusion from fraternal intercourse, and finally expulsion from tiie cloister, after which, however, restoration is possible, even to the third time.
§ -45. The Benedictines. Cassiodorus.
Benedict had no presentiment of the vast historical importance, which this rule, originally designed simply for the cloister of Monte Cassino, was destined to attain. He probably never asjiired beyond the regeneration and salvation of his own soul and that of his brother monks, and all the talk of later Catholic historians about his far-reaching plans of a political and social regeneration of Europe, and the preservation and promotion of literature and art, find no support whatever in his life or in his rule. But he humbly planted a seed, which Providence blessed a hundredfold. By his rule he became, without his own will or knowledge, the founder of an order, which, until in the thirteenth century the Dominicans and Franciscans pressed it partially into the background, spread with great rapidity over tlie wliole of Europe, maintained a cleai- supremacy, formed the model for all other monastic orders, and gave to the Catholic chui-cli an imposing array of missionaries, authors, artists, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, and popes, as Gregory the Great and Gregory VII. In less than a century after the death of Benedict, the conquests of the barbarians in Italy, Gaul, Spain were reconcpiered for civilization, and the vast territories of Great Britain, Germany, and Scandinavia incorporated into Christendom, or opened to missionary labor; and in this progress of history the monastic institution, regulated and organized by Benedict's rule, bears an honorable share.
* Cap. G6: " Monastcriuin, si possit fieri, ita debet constnii, ut omnia necessaiia, id est, aqua, molendinum, hoftus, pistriimm, vel artes diversae intra monasterium ox erceantur, ut uou sit necessitas monachia vagandi foras. quia omnino non expedil animaljus eoium."