BELVEDERE. 



BENEDICTINE ORDER. 



6(1 



pp. 286, 337, 358 ; Winer's fieahcdrterbur/t. under Bel ; Jahn, Hebre, 

 Antitnatut,^ 407.) 



ELVEDE'RE, in Architecture, is a small building constructed a 

 the top of a house or palace, and open to the air, at least on one side 

 and often on all. The term is an Italian compound, signifying " a fin 

 view;" and in Italy it is constructed expressly for that purpose, com 

 bined with the object of enjoying the cool evening breeze, which b low 

 fresher on the house-top than in the confined streets. Many house 

 in Rome have belvederes, for the most part of a simple form. The 

 most celebrated construction of this kind at Rome, which is in the 

 Vatican, was built by Bramante in that part called the cou rt of the 



[View of the Belvedere of the Vatican, from a print in the British Museum.] 



Belvedere. The form of this building is semicircular, and it stands 

 nver an enormous niche, a remarkable feature in the facade, of which 

 tin lielvedere makes a part. From this belvedere the view is one of 

 the finest that can be imagined, extending over the whole city of Rome 

 and the Campagna, bounded by the distant Apennines, the tops of 

 which are covered with snow for a large part of the year. Belvederes 

 are not uncommon in France; but the term is applied rather to a 

 summer-house in a park or garden, than to the constructions on the 

 tope of houses, although small edifices, similar to those in Italy, are 

 imes constructed on the tops of buildings for the purpose of 

 commanding a fine view. Were buildings constructed in this country 

 with a more thoughtful adaptation to their various purposes, a belve- 

 dere, suited to the particular locality, and not a mere unadapted copy 

 of those of Italy, might often be made a very pleasing addition 

 to an English mansion or villa residence. There is a small building in 

 Windsor Great Park which is called a Belvedere. 



It is not improbable that the wooden trellice-work, so common in 

 the painted representations of buildings at Pompeii, was a con- 

 struction similar in its purpose to the belvedere of the modern 

 Italians. (Plans and Eltratium, in MSS. of t/te Vatican, 3 vols. fol., 

 anil a 1'iVir </ the !""'/'<" /// the. King's Library, Brit. Mw>.; Gell's, and 

 Mazois' Pompeii, jilattt.) 



BEMA (/MJM"). was tnc pulpit, pedestal, or platform from which 



speakers addressed the public assemblies of the citizens of ancient 



. The stone bema of the Pnyx at Athens still remains tolerably 



t, (except that the summit is broken,) with the seats from which 



it rises, and the steps by which it was ascended : its present height is 



about ten feet. (Wordsworth, 'Greece,' pp. 214, 215, ed. 1859; 



Murray's ' Handbook of Greece,' p. 186.) 



The raised platform which formed the tribunal of the judge in the 

 it Roman basilicas [BASILICA] was known as the bema, and hence 

 when basilicas were adapted or imitated for Christian churches, the 

 i.i-li'ip'i) seat, in which he sat as well to adjudicate as to assist in the 

 religious worship, was designated the bema. The term bema after- 

 wards came to be applied to the entire sanctuary or holiest place of 

 the basilica ; the elevated seat of the bishop being placed at its farthest 

 ml, in the centre of the circle. The sanctuary of Greek churches is 

 at the present day called the bema, but it is now always separated from 

 the apsis by a soliil wooden screen, which reaches to the ceiling. 



BKJf (75, constructed ]^l pr ]3. ami) is the first syllable in many 



I lebrew names, which may be compared with our forms of names like 

 n..f'ihnsfin, Robertson, &c. : for instance, Tirt"^, Benhadad, 



/./' of Ilutlad, or Adod, the chief idol of the 

 Syrian*. > 3'1S~]3J. Senoni, U turn nf my pain : 7^E~12. Benjamin, \x tr,n 



of lie right (hand), that is, son of happiness. These examples show 

 that not only literal sonship but also metaphysical relation is expressed 

 by Ben. The construct state or regimen of a Semitic noun is that 

 ARTS AKD SCI. BIT. VOI 11. 



shortening by which is expressed that it governs a following genitive 

 as in the examples given. 



BEN, OIL OF. An oil expressed from the fruit of the Guilandtna 

 morinya. It is a thick, slightly yellow fluid at 60' Fahr., and solid at 

 lower temperatures. It is inodorous, and possesses a sweet taste. It 

 does not readily become rancid, and is consequently used as a vehicle 

 in perfumery. This oil has been examined by several chemists, but 

 their results are somewhat discordant ; it seems, however, to contain 

 margaric and benic acids ; and Walter states also, that atearic acid, and 

 moringic acid (C, H.,,0 ) are amongst its constituents. 



BENCH. [BAX] 



BENCHER. [INNS OP COURT.] 



BENEDICTINE ORDER. The exact year when the monks who 

 followed the rule of St. Benedict were first established as an Order 

 is unknown. Although monks had been introduced from the East 

 at least two centuries before the time of St. Benedict of Nursia, he 

 may be considered, from the wide extension of the order, with its 

 various branches, the great influence it acquired, and the real benefits 

 it bestowed on society, to have been the real founder of monachism 

 in Europe. The essence of the rule was that they were to live in a 

 monastery subject to an abbot, to whom they owed implicit obedience; 

 to observe silence and avoid laughter ; to have no separate property ; 

 to submit to the very spare diet prescribed by rule ; hospitality to be 

 exercised towards strangers; mills, gardens, ovens, &c., to be provided, 

 if possible, on the cloistral premises, the monks to work, and the 

 workmen in the house to labour for the common profit. This last 

 regulation gave birth to a great number of choice specimens of cali- 

 graphy and illumination; and Germany acknowledges the first im- 

 portant steps towards the clearing of their forests and improvements 

 in agriculture and gardening, to the instruction and example of the 

 Benedictine monks. The ' Histoire des Ordres Monastiques,' torn. v. 

 4to, Paris, 1718, upon Mabillon's authority, places the date of the 

 monastery of Piombarole, near Monte Cassino, at least as early .as the 

 year 532, anterior to St. Benedict's death. The progress which this 

 order made in the west, in a short time, was rapid. In France its 

 interests were promoted by St. Maur, or Maurus, in Sicily by St. 

 Placide, in Italy by St. Gregory the Great, and in Frisia, at a later 

 period, by St. Wilbrod. The reciprocal protection afforded to the 

 interests of the papal see by the Benedictine order, and to the 

 interests of the Benedictine order, by the Roman pontiffs, sufficiently 

 account for the order's advancement. There were nuns of this order 

 as well as monks ; but the time and original institution of the Bene- 

 dictine nuns is quite uncertain ; a tradition assigns it to St. Benedict 

 himself, but the first historical mention of Benedictine nuns occurs 

 in the 7th century. 



The Benedictine order is said by many (see 'Monast. Angl.' vol. i.^ 

 Reyner, ' Apostol.' tr. i. ; Stevens, vol. i. ; and Mosheim, cent. vi. part 

 ii. chap, ii.) to have been brought into England by St. Augustine and 

 his brethren, A.D. 596, and to have continued from thence to the Dis- 

 solution under several improvements ; but others (as Marsham in his 

 ' Propulaion ' prefixed to the ' Monasticon ; ' Patrick in his Additions 

 to Gunton's ' History of Peterborough ; ' Hickes, ' Dissert. Epistolaris," 

 &c.) consider that the Benedictine rule was but little known in England 

 till King Edgar's time, and never perfectly observed till after the Con- 

 quest. In the ' Decem Scriptores,' col. 2232, it is said that St. Wilfrid 

 Drought it into England A.D. 666, and in the ' Quindecem Scriptores,' 

 and by Patrick in his Additions to Gunton, p. 247, with greater pro- 

 oability, that he improved the English church by it. It is expressly 

 mentioned in King Kenred's charter (' Mon. Angl.' torn, i.) to the 

 monks of Evesham, A.D. 709, and in the bull of pope Constantine, 

 ;ranted in the same year to that monastery. (See ' Mon. Angl.' ut 

 supr. ; Wilkins, ' Concil.' vol. i. ; Spelm. vol. i.) But Bede, who has 

 given us a very accurate account of the state of religion in this island 

 ill A.D. 731, has nothing of it ; nor is there any mention of it in the 

 irst regulation of the monks in England by Archbishop Cuthbert in the 

 jjreat synod at Cloveshoe. (Wilkins, ' Concil.' vol. i. ; Spelm. vol. i. 

 \.D. 747.) If Wilfrid really advanced this rule, it was not over all 

 England, but in Kent only. (See Patrick's Additions to Gunton's 

 Peterborough.') And if the charter of King Kenred and the bull of 

 >ope Constantine be genuine (for all the ancient grants produced by 

 he monks are not so), this rule, which is there prescribed to the 

 uonks of Evesham, is said in the bull to "have been at that time 

 >ut little used in those parts." So that, instead of the Saxon monks 

 >eing all Benedictines, there were probably but few such till the 

 estoration of monasteries under King Edgar, when St. Dunstan and 

 St. Oswald (who had been a Benedictine monk at Fleury in France) 

 iot only favoured the monks against the secular clergy, but so much 

 dvanced the Benedictines that William of Malniesbury (' De Gestis 

 'ontif.' 1. iii.) says this order took its rise in England from St. Oswald, 

 'he Ely historian (whose work is printed in Wharton's ' Auglia Sacra," 

 rol. i.) says, that King Edgar gave Ethelwold the manor of Suth- 

 wrne, now Sudborn, in Suffolk, to translate the rule of St. Benedict 

 uto English, which seems to confirm the opinion of its being then 

 ut little known. 



All our cathedral priories were of this order, except Carlisle, and 

 nost of the richest abbeys in England, Reyner (' Apostolat.' vol. i.) 

 ays, that the revenues of the Benedictines were almost equal to those 

 f all the other orders. Tanner (' Notit. Monast.' Iii.) enumerates one 



r 



