As nearly all the monastic institutions throughout Europe, for more than six hundred years, were regulated by the Rule of St. Benedict, we need only to give some account of this celebrated order to know the constitution and character of them all. And, as their name is legion, we will thus save a great deal of repetition.
This remarkable man was the son of a Roman senator, born at Nurcia, in Italy, A.D. 480. At the age of twelve he was sent to study at Rome. He had probably heard and read about the lives of the holy anchorites and hermits of the East. With these examples before his mind, and the irregularities of his fellow-students around him, he longed for solitude. When about fifteen, unable to endure any longer the corrupt state of Roman society, he separated himself even from his faithful nurse, Cyrilla, who had been sent with him to Rome by his parents, and left her to lament over his mental derangement. The ferocious Huns and Vandals had made even the heart of Italy a wilderness, so that the youthful hermit found a secluded spot not far from Rome. For years he lived in a lonely cave; the only person acquainted with the secret of his retreat was a monk, named Romanus, who supplied him with bread, by saving a portion of his own daily allowance. But as a steep rock lay between the cloister of Romanus and the grotto of Benedict, the bread was let down by a string to the mouth of the cave. At length he was discovered by some shepherds, who were delighted to hear his instructions and witness his miracles. As the fame of his piety increased, he was persuaded to become abbot of a monastery in the neighborhood; but the strictness of his discipline displeased its inmates, and they agreed to rid themselves of the severe recluse by mixing poison in his wine. But on his making the sign of the cross, which he usually did over his meat and his drink, the cup flew into pieces; whereupon he mildly rebuked the monks, and returned to his mountain cave.
Benedict now became an object of greater interest than ever. His fame spread; great multitudes flocked to him; men of wealth and influence joined him, and large sums of money were placed at his disposal. He was now in a position to build twelve monasteries, each of them consisting of twelve monks, under a superior. Having succeeded in so far accomplishing the object of his residence in the district, and being disquieted by the jealous interference of Florentius, a neighboring priest, he quitted Subiaco with a few followers in the year 528. After some wanderings, he arrived at Monte Cassino, where Apollo was still worshipped by the rustics. With great skill and energy he uprooted the remains of heathen idolatry among the peasants. He cut down the grove, destroyed the idol of Apollo, and on the site of the altar an oratory was erected, which he dedicated to St. John the Evangelist and St. Martin. This was the germ of the great and renowned monastery which became the parent root of the innumerable branches which in a short time covered the face of Europe. Here Benedict drew up his famous Rule, about the year 529. It consists of seventy-three chapters, we are told, which contain a code of laws regulating the duties of monks to each other, and between the abbot and his monks. He provides for the administration of an institution, composed of every variety of character, engaged in every variety of occupation, but all to be perfectly subject to one absolute ruler. The comprehensiveness of his system is astonishing, as being the result of one mind, and without example or precedent. It is regarded by the learned as the most celebrated monument of ecclesiastical antiquity, and was in its operations the very strength and watchword of the satellites of Rome.