THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 277
Monte Cassino and the Benedictine Life
18.9. Monte Cassino and the Benedictine Life
St Benedict, while recognising the eremitical life, says definitely that he legislates for cenobites only; moreover, he did away with the oriental spirit of rivalry in asceticism, whereby the monks used to vie with one another in their mortifications. St Benedict laid down the principle that all should live by the Rule and conform themselves in all things to the life of the community; and even during Lent, when the undertaking of some extra mortification was recommended, it was all to be under the abbot's control. Moreover, the common community life which St Benedict established in his monasteries was not one of great severity: a hard life it was of course, and one of self-denial; but if judged by the ideals and ideas current in his day, his Rule must have appeared to his contemporaries to be in the matter of diet, of sleep, of work, and of hours of prayer, nothing else than what he describes it — "A little rule for beginners."
Italian and French monks were at that time trying to live up to ideals that were impossible for most in the Western lands, and the general failure was producing a widespread disorganisation and decay. St Benedict came and eliminated these incongruous Eastern elements, and made a reconstruction of the monastic life admirably suited to Western, and especially to Teutonic, conditions. To this must be attributed in greatest measure the success achieved by his Rule.
St Benedict was born in Nursia, near Spoleto, probably about the year 480; he was of a noble Umbrian family, and he was sent to Rome to follow the courses in the schools. The licentiousness there prevalent made him determine to withdraw not only from Rome, but also from the world, and to become a monk. Full of this idea he fled away from Rome to the Sabine hills, and buried himself in a cave overlooking Nero's artificial lake on the Anio at Subiaco, forty miles from Rome. It is probable that he was not a mere boy, but a youth old enough to have become enamoured with a l ady in Rome: c onsequently the date was within a few years of 500. There can be no doubt that the Sacro Speco at Subiaco is the cave inhabited by St Benedict during the first years of his monastic life; its solitude was complete, and the wild severe grandeur of the surrounding scenery was well calculated to inspire his young heart with deep religious feeling. In this cave he lived for three years, only a single monk of a monastery in the neighbourhood knowing of his existence and supplying him with the necessaries of life.
It is not a little remarkable that he who was destined to turn Western monasticism definitely away from the eremitical ideal, should himself, as a matter of course, have gone to live as a hermit on determining to become a monk: it was only after very thorough personal experience of the hermit's life that St Benedict decided it was not to be for his disciples. In another matter also did he turn his back on his own early ideas: after passing three years of solitude in his cave, his existence gradually became known and disciples flocked to him in such numbers that he was able to establish not only a monastery ruled over by himself, but also twelve others in the neighbourhood, over which he exercised the sort of control which the superior-general of a group or congregation of monasteries would now be said to exercise. But when he was compelled to leave Subiaco, and migrated to Monte Cassino, he confined himself exclusively to the government of his own community there, without continuing to exercise control over the other monasteries he had founded.
And so his Rule is concerned with the government of a single monastery only, without any provision for the grouping of monasteries into congregations or orders, as became the vogue later on in the West. This continued the Benedictine practice for many centuries; during the greatest period of Black Monk history the great Benedictine houses stood in isolation, each self -governed and self-contained. It was not till the thirteenth century that, under the inspiration of Cluny and Citeaux, the policy was adopted of federating the Benedictine abbeys of the different ecclesiastical provinces; and to this day the essential autonomy of each house is the foundation stone and central idea of Black Monk polity.
It is impossible to fix the date at which St Benedict founded his monastery at Monte Cassino — probably about 520. He lived there till his death, and Monte Cassino is the place above all others associated with his name. The rest of his life was quite uneventful; in 543 he was visited by Totila, and he died about the middle of the century.
As Benedictine life soon became, and for well-nigh seven centuries continued to be, the norm of monastic life in the Latin Church, it will be to the point to give a rough picture of the daily life that obtained in St Benedict's monasteries, as it may be reconstructed from the Rule.
St Benedict's monks rose early in the morning — usually about 2, but the hour varied with the season of the year. They had had, however, an ample period of unbroken sleep, usually not less than 8 hours: the midnight office between two periods of sleep, so common a feature of later monasticism in the West, had no place in Benedictine life as conceived by St Benedict. The monks repaired to the church for the night office, which consisted of fourteen psalms, and certain readings from Scripture; it was chanted throughout, and must have taken from an hour to an hour and a half. It was followed by a break, which varied from a few minutes in the summer to a couple of hours at midwinter, and which was devoted to private reading of Scripture, or prayer.
The Matin office, now called Lauds, was celebrated at dawn, and Prime at sunrise; each took about half an hour. Prime was followed by work — i.e. field work for most of the monks — or reading, according to the time of the year; and these exercises filled up the time till dinner, which was at 12 or at 3, the short offices of Tierce, Sext, and None being celebrated in the church at the appropriate hours. In summer, when the night sleep was short, the usual Italian siesta was allowed after dinner. The afternoon was passed in work and reading, like the forenoon. Vespers or Evensong was sung some time before sunset, and in the summer was followed by an evening meal. Before dark, while there yet was enough light to read by, they assembled once again in the church, and after a few pages had been read, Compline was said, and they retired to rest in the dusk, before there was need of an artificial light. On Sundays there was no work, and the time assigned to the church services and to reading was considerably lengthened.
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