BEN 



213 



BEN 



of Kutshuk-KainanUhy, (21st July, 1774,) restored the 

 ruins of the place to the Turks, lu the campaign of 1809, 

 the Russians again assailed and captured it without much 

 effort, but restored it to Turkey at the peace of J ussy ; and 

 it once more fell into their hands two years afterwards, in 

 the campaign which terminated with the treaty of Bucho- 

 rest, in 1812, by the terras of which Bender and the sur- 

 rounding districts were ceded to Russia. 



BENEDICT, SAINT, the founder of the order of Bene- 

 dictine monks, was born at Nursia in the dukedom of Spo- 

 letto in Italy, about the year 480. He was sent to Rome 

 when very young, and there received the first part of his 

 education ; when fourteen years of age he removed to Sub- 

 laco, a desert place about forty miles distant, where he was 

 concealed in a cavern ; bis place of retirement, for a con- 

 siderable time, being known only to his friend St. Romanus, 

 who is said to have descended to him by a rope, and sup- 

 plied him daily with provisions. The monks of a neigh- 

 bouring monastery subsequently chose him for their abbot : 

 their manners, however, pot agreeing with those of Benedict, 

 he returned to his solitude, whither many persons followed 

 him and put themselves under his direction, and in a short 

 time he was enabled to build no fewer than twelve monaste- 

 ries. About the year 529 he retired to Monte Cassino, where 

 idolatry was still prevalent, and where a temple to Apollo yet 

 existed". Having converted the people of the adjacent country 

 to the true faith, he broke the statue of Apollo, overthrew 

 the altar, and built two oratories on the mountain, one dedi- 

 cated to St. Martin, the other to St. John. Here St. Bene- 

 dict also founded a monastery, and instituted the order of 

 his name, which in time became so.famous and extended 

 all over Europe. It was here too that he composed his 

 ' Regula Monachorum ;' which does not, however, seem to 

 have been confirmed till fifty-two years after his death, 

 when Pope Gregory the Great gave his sanction to it. 



Authors are not agreed upon the place where St. Bene- 

 dict died : some say at Monte Cassino, others affirm it to 

 have been at Rome, whither he had been sent by Pope Boni- 

 face. Stevens, in the ' Continuation of Dugdale's Monas- 

 ticon.' places his death about the year 543, others in 547 ; 

 the day, however, stands in the calendar fixed to March 21. 

 Gregory the Great, in the second ' Book of his Pialogues,' 

 has written a ' Life of St. Benedict,' and given a long de- 

 tail of his supposed miracles. Dupin says that the ' Regula 

 Monachorum ' is the only genuine work of St. Benedict. 

 Other tracts are, however, ascribed to him, particularly a 

 ' Letter to St. Maurus,' a ' Sermon upon the Decease of 

 St. Maurus,' a ' Sermon upon the Passion of St. Placidus 

 and his Companions,' and a ' Discourse de Ordine Monas- 

 terii.' (See the Life by St. Gregory, already mentioned, re- 

 printed in the Ada Sanctorum of the Bollandists, for the 

 month of March, torn. iii. fol. Antv. 1658; Butler's Lives 

 nf the Saintt, 8vo. Dubl. 1779, vol. iii. p. 231 ; Chalmers's 

 ilio%raph. Dictionary, vol. iv. p. 433.) St. Gregory states 

 that be received his account of St. Benedict from four abbots, 

 the saint's disciples, namely Constantine, his successor at 

 Monte Cassino, Siroplicius, the third abbot of that house, 

 Valentinian, the first abbot of the monastery of Lateran, 

 and Honorarus, who succeeded St. Benedict at Sublaco. 



BENEDICTINE ORDER. The exact year when the 

 monk'* who followed the rule of St. Benedict were first esta- 

 blished as an Order is unknown. The essence of the rule 

 was that they were to live in a monastery subject to an 

 abbot. The ' Histoire des Ordres Monastiques,' torn. v. 

 4to. Paris, 171S, 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 

 dealh. The progress which this order made in the west, in 

 a short time, was rapid. In France its interests were pro- 

 moted by St. Maur or Maurus, in Sicily by St. Placidc, 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 Benedictine nuns is quite 

 uncertain. (See Stevcns's Contin. of the \fonasticon, vol. i. 

 p. 168.) 



The Benedictine Order is said by many (see \fonast. 

 Angl. old edition, vol. i. p. 12, Reyner, Apoitol., tr. i. p. 

 202, Stevens, vol. i. p. 164) to have been brought into 

 England by St. Augustine and his brethren, A.D. 596, and 

 to have continued from thence to the Dissolution under 



several improvements ; but others (as Mavsham in his Pro- 

 oulaion prefixed to the Monasticon, Patrick in his Additions 

 :o Gunton's History of Peterborough, pp. 234, 246, Hickes, 

 Dissert. EpistoUiris, pp. 67, 68, &c.) consider that the Be- 

 nedictine rule was but little known in England till King 

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

 Conquest In the Der.em Scriptores, col. 2232, it is said 

 that St. Wilfrid brought it into England A.D. 666, and in 

 the Quindecem Scriptores, and by Patrick in his Additions 

 to Gunton, p. 247, with greater probability, that he im 

 proved the English church by it. It is expressly men- 

 tioned in King Kenred's charter (Mon. Angl. old edition, 

 torn. i. p. 145) to the monks of Evesham, A.D. 709, and in 

 the bull of pope Constantine granted in the same year to 

 that monastery. (See Mon. Angl. ut supr., Wilkins, Con- 

 di, vol. L p. 71, Spelm. vol. i. p. 213.) But Bede, who has 

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

 this island till A.L>. 73 f, has nothing of it; nor is there any 

 mention of it in the first regulation of the monks in 

 England by Archbishop Cuthbert in the great synod at 

 Cloveshoe. (Wilkins, Condi, vol. i. p. 94, Spelm. vol. i. p. 

 245, A.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, p. 247.) And if the 

 charter of King Kenred and the bull of pope Constantine 

 be genuine (for all the antient grants produced by the 

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

 to the monks of Evesham, is said in the bull to ' have 

 been at that time but little used in those parts.' So 

 that, instead of the Saxon monks being all Benedictines, 

 there were probably but few such till the restoration of 

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

 Oswald (who had been a Benedictine monk at Fleury in 

 France) not only favoured the monks against the secular 

 clergy, but so much advanced the Benedictines that Wil- 

 liam of Malmesbury (De Gestis Pontif. 1. iii.) says this order 

 took its rise here "in England from St. Oswald. The Ely 

 historian (whose work is printed in Whartou's Anglia Sacra, 

 vol. i. p. 604) says, that King Edgar gave Ethelwold the 

 manor of Suthbome, now Sudborn, in Suffolk, to translate 

 the rule of St. Benedict into English, which seems to con- 

 firm the opinion of its being then but little known. 



All our cathedral priories were of this order, except Car- 

 lisle, and most of the richest abbeys in England. Reyner 

 (Apottolat. vol. i. p. 217) says, that the revenues of the 

 Benedictines were almost equal to those of all the other 

 orders. Tanner (Sotit. Monost. edit. Nasm. pp. li. Iii.) enu 

 merates one hundred and thirteen abbeys, priories, and cells 

 of this order in England, the sum of whose revenues, at the 

 time of the Dissolution, amounted to 57.S92/. 1*. ll</., besides 

 seventy-three houses of Benedictine nuns, whose revenues 

 amounted to 79Si/. 12*. Irf., making a total of 65,877/. 14*. 



The Benedictines, says Tanner, were much against all 

 new orders of religious. By the second Lateran council 

 they were obliged to hold triennial chapters, which those of 

 this nation generally held at Northampton. (See Widmore, 

 Hist. Westm. Ab. pp. 79, 82.) 



Fosbrooke, in his British Monachhm, 4to. London, 1817, 

 p. 109, has given an abstract of the Benedictine rule, chielly 

 from the Sanctorum Patrum Requite Monastics, 12mo. 

 Louv. 1J7I. It evidently received enlargements at different 

 times, the whole of which were consolidated in the concord 

 of rules promulgated by Dunstan in the reign of Edgar. 

 (Seethe 'Concordia Regularura S. DunstaniCantuariensis 

 Archiepiscopi,' printed by Reyner in his Apostolatu* Bene- 

 diclinorum in Anglia, Append. P. iii. p. 77, and republished 

 in the first volume of Dugdale's Monasticon.) This concord 

 of rules regulated the practice of the English monks till 

 the year 1077. The Clugniacs, Cistercians, Grandmontines, 

 Premonstratensians, and Carthusians, were, in reality, 

 branches only of the Benedictine order, living under the rule 

 of St. Benedict, but observing a different discipline. For a 

 notice of the learning of the Benedictines, see ST. MAUR. 



The habit of the Benedictine monks was a black loose 

 coat, or a gown of stuff reaching down to their heels, with a 

 cowl or hood of the same, and a scapulary ; and under that 

 another habit, white, as large as the former, made of flannel ; 

 witli boots on their legs. From the colour of their outward 

 habit the Benedictines were generally called Black Monks. 

 (See Tann. Nolil. Monatt., pref. p. viii. : and Fosbrooke, Brit. 

 Monach. p. 382.) Stevens, in his Continuation of the Mo- 

 naiticnn. vol. i. p. 164, says, the form of the habit of these 

 monks was at ffrst left to' the discretion of the abbots, and 

 that St. Benedict did not determine the colour of it. Dug- 



