RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Benedict Benediction
visitations into the Benedictine monasteries of England, and enforced them in repeated provincial councils. For the monasteries of the Continent, special importance attached to the edict of Benedict XII, himself a Cistercian, who, after introducing a stricter discipline into his own order (1335), issued in the following year an edict concerning the Benedictines. This constitution, known as Summa Magistri or Constitutio Benedictina, decrees that in each monastery a general chapter is to be held annually. For each of the thirty-six provinces into which the order is divided by it, triennial provincial chapters are prescribed. But in spite of this measure, which had a temporarily beneficial effect, spirituality constantly declined. The reforms introduced afterward by the Council of Constance (1415), by a provincial chapter of the Mainz province of the order held at Petershausen (1417), by the congregation of Bursfelde (q.v.) organized for the North-German territories of the order, as well as by many Spanish congregations (e.g., the Observance of Valladolid under Ferdinand the Catholic, 1493), brought about merely a temporary improvement in the conditions.
The Tridentine reforming period (1563-1800) was introduced by the decree De regularibus et monialibus passed in the twenty-fifth session of the Council of Trent (Dec. 3, 1563), which opposes the mischievous excess of exemptions (q.v.), puts the female members of the order without exception and the male members for the most part under the supervision of the bishops, and insists upon strict observance of the older regulations concerning the holding of general 3. 1563- chapters, visitations, etc. Several new 1800. Tri- Benedictine congregations sprang up formmNew under the influence of the Tridentine Congrega- decrees! m South Germany one for tions. Swabia (1564 ), one at Strasburg (1601 ), one at Salzburg (1641), one for Bavaria (1684); in Flanders the congregation of St. Vedast near Arras, founded about 1590; in Lorraine that of St. Vanne and St. Hydulph, which Abbot Didier de la Cour founded in 1600 and Pope Clement VIII confirmed in 1604. An outgrowth of the latter was the congregation of St. Maur, founded in 1618 under the direction of the same Abbot Didier, which spread all over France, attaining the number of 180 monasteries, and raised the work of the order in the direction of learning to a prosperity which it never had before (see St. Maur, Congregation of). But after about 1780, first the forcible secularization under Joseph II, and then the storm of the Revolution in France and the neighboring countries to the south brought about the ruin of the order.
The epoch of restoration, which coincides with
the nineteenth century, has been able to save
only about 500 houses (with about
4. The 4,300 monks), out of the 37,000 houses
Nineteenth (abbeys or priories) which the order
Century, numbered before the catastrophes of
the eighteenth century. Yet in some
of the congregations there is at present a healthy
and vigorous life as far as the morals and discipline
II. -4
are concerned and also as to achievements in theological learning and Christian art (painting, sculpture, etc.). In the latter respect the South- German congregation of Beuron is especially distinguished. The two other South-German congregations (the Bavarian and the Swabian) and those of northern France and Belgium (especially in the monasteries of Solesmes and Maredsous) have recently produced some able scholars and theologians. The Benedictines of the mother house of the order at Monte Cassino (q.v.) and the American congregations connected with it have also rendered considerable services in the same lines. O. ZocKLERf.
Bibliography: The somewhat voluminous early literature on Benedict in the shape of poems and lives may be found in part in MGH, Poet. Lat. med. mvi, i, 36-42, Berlin, 1881 (the Carmina of Paul the Deacon); MGH, Script., vol. xv, parti, pp. 480-482, 574, Hanover, 1887 (Ex adventu corporis S. Benedict! in agrum Floriacensem); four works on the Miracles are published in MGH, Script., vol. xv, part 1, pp. 474-500, part 2 (1888), 863, 866, ix (1851), 374- 376. The Vitce by Gregory and other writers as well as the poems and relations of miracles may be found in ASM, ssec. i, pp. 28, 29-35, and saec. ii, pp. 80, 353-358, 369-394; in ASB, Mar., iii, 276, 288-297, 302-357; and in MPL, lxxx, xcv, cxxiv, cxxvi, cxxxiii, cxxxiv, clx. Consult: P. K. Brandes, Leben des heiligen Benedikt, Einsiedeln, 1858; P. Lechner, Leben des heiligen Benedict, Regensburg, 1859; C. de Montalembert, Les Moines d'Occident, ii, 3-92 (on St. Benedict), 7 vols., Paris, 1860-77, Eng. transl., 7 vols., London, 1861-79, new ed., with introduction by Dom Gasquet on the Rule, 6 vols., 1896; P. Hiigli, Der heilige Benedikt, in Studien und Mittheilungen aus dem Benedict.-Orden, year VI, vol. i(1885), 141- 162; J. H. Newman, Mission of St. Benedict, inHistorical Sketches, vol. ii, London, 1885; F. C. Doyle, Teaching of St. Benedict, London, 1887; G. Grutzmacher, Die Bedeutung Benedikts . . und seiner Regel, Berlin, 1892; L. Tosti, St. Benedict; Historical Discourse on his Life, transl. from the Ital., London, 1896, cf. St. Benedict and Grottaferra. Essays on Tosti's Life of St. Benedict, ib. 1896.
On the order: Bibliographic des Benedictinsde France, Solesmes, 1889; the fundamental work is J. Mabillon, jl nnales ordinisS. Benedicti fi vols., Paris, 1703-39; Montalembert, ut sup.; Sir Jas. Stephens, The French Benedictines, in Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography, London, 1867; S. Branner, Ein Benediktinerbuch, Wurzburg, 1880; Scriptores ordinis S, Benedicti in imperio Austriaco-Hungarico, Vienna, 1881; B. Weldon, Chronicle of English Benedictine Monks, London, 1882 (covers the period from Mary to James II); H. C. Lea, History of Sacerdotal Celibacy, Philadelphia, 1884, and cf. his History of the Inquisition, new ed., New York, 1906; J. H. Newman, Benedictine Schools, in Historical Sketches, ut sup.; F. M. Ranbek, Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, London, 1890; E. L. Taunton, English Black Monks of St. Benedict, 2 vols., ib. 1897; Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen, i, 92-263. Of the Rule among old editions the best is by L. Holstenius, Codex regularum monasticarum, i, 111-135, Augsburg, 1759; another is by E. Mart&ne in his Commentarius in regulam S. Benedicti, Paris, 1690. The best edition is byE. Woelfflin. Benedicti regula monachorum, Leipsic, 1895; serviceable are E. Schmidt, Die Regel des heiligen Benedicts, Regensburg, 1891, and P. K. Brandes, Leben und Regel des . Benedikt, vols, ii, iii, Einsiedeln, 1858-63. The Latin and Anglo-Saxon Interlinear Translation was edited by H Logeman, London, 1888. The Rule was published in Eng. transl., London, 1886, ib. 1896, in Thatcher and McNeal, Source Book, pp. 432-485, in Henderson, Documents, pp. 274-313; and by D. O. H. Blair, London, 1906. A bibliography of commentaries is in KL, ii, 324-325.
BENEDICTINES. See Benedict of Nursia.
BENEDICTION: In the Roman Catholic Church a part of every liturgical act, belonging to the clasa of sacramentals (q.v.)— i.e., things which were
Benediction Benefice