Benedictines In Britain

St Benedict of Nursia 480-544 In the sixth century, St Benedict was one of many

Abbots who wrote a Rule for his monks. After living as a hermit he had established monasteries at Subiaco and Monte Cassino in Italy.

These were destroyed by the Barbarian invasions but a few manuscripts of his Rule survived and were carried by refugees to other Monasteries in Rome, North Italy and Gaul.

Statue of St Benedict

The Spread of the Rule During the course of two centuries the use

of the Rule spread and it was due to the influence of Charlemagne that it acquired a monopoly in the West.

In this way, Saint Benedict came to be considered the founder of the Black Monks of the Middle Ages, called from that time the ‘Order of St Benedict’

English Benedictine History On 25 May 597, only 53 years after the death of St

Benedict, Augustine and his companions reached the shore at Pegwell Bay near Folkestone to fulfil the mission given by Pope Gregory the Great.

They were to convert the pagan tribes living on the island of Britain, which they duly did, starting with the King of Kent, Ethelbert, who had a Christian wife.

The monks entered Canterbury carrying a cross and singing Alleluia. They established Canterbury as their ecclesiastical capital, and founded there a monastery and abbey.

English Benedictine History Pope Gregory was a Benedictine monk and had

been abbot of a monastery in Rome, one of several he had founded.

He wrote the biography of St Benedict, the father of Western monasticism: their lives overlapped by about 10 years.

Augustine of Canterbury was also a Benedictine from Rome; and the first abbey at Canterbury was Benedictine.

English Benedictine History Thus began the long and intimate

relationship between the English nation and the world’s oldest and largest religious order.

At the time of the 1500th Anniversary, the Archbishop of Westminster was Cardinal Basil Hume OSB former abbot of Ampleforth.

English Benedictine History Canterbury was Benedictine, but so was

the senior abbey in England, Westminster. In fact, their abbeys were almost everywhere.

Benedictines live by a set of standing orders, the 73 chapters of the famous Rule of St Benedict.

Rule of St Benedict Augustine and Gregory were steeped in the

Rule. Before his departure from Rome, and

regularly after it, Augustine regularly received Gregory’s advice; and that advice followed the mellow, careful, gracious, compassionate spirit of the Rule.

Evangelisation of the English This was how he was to evangelise the English: He was to respect their local customs and holy

places, only changing what he had to change and, when he did so, doing it gently.

He had not to impose burdens on the weak they could not sustain, nor leave the strong without goals to strive for.

He was to convert by the Word and by good deeds, not by the sword.

Evangelisation of the English The monks would rise at daybreak to pray, pause

at other times of the day for the same purpose and gather for the Eucharist. They would also plant gardens, build barns, copy manuscripts, teach and care for the sick.

St Benedict stressed the need for work for everyone who sought God, believing that work was as essential as prayer for the healthy Christian life.

The Rule of St Benedict It is full of that most English of qualities,

honest common sense. But this is no coincidence, for this is where we got it from.

English people reading the Rule for the first time are always struck by how familiar and contemporary most of it sounds, how sensible and unfanatical.

The Rule of St Benedict Indeed, monks are using it today to teach

businessmen how to run successful businesses. The Benedictine art of forming and managing a

community has been tried and tested for 1500 years.

The beauty of the Rule is that it recognises and respects human nature.

It is the very opposite of the kind of fundamentalist religion that tries to run roughshod over the way people are.

The Rule of St Benedict On every table there are two cooked

dishes, to suit various people’s infirmities: thus a person who cannot eat of one dish can take his meal off the other. So let two cooked dishes suffice for all the brethren, and if there is any fruit or green vegetables available, let a third be added.

For bread a generous pound should be enough for the day. (Chapter 39)

The Rule of St Benedict If the work happens to have been rather

heavy, then it shall be in the Abbot’s discretionary power to provide something extra as need requires, providing that over eating is absolutely ruled out. (Chapter 39)

The Rule of St Benedict Each one has his own gift from God, one in this

way another in that, and so it is with some hesitation that the quantity of other people’s food or drink is regulated by us. However, taking into account the feebleness of the weak, we consider that half a pint of wine is sufficient for each daily. Those to whom God gives the power to abstain may be sure that they will have their own reward. If the local conditions or the work or summer heat demand more, it can be left to the judgement of the superior, provided always that no excess or drunkenness finds its way in. (Chapter 40)

The Rule of St Benedict From the above, you can be reasonably sure

that Friar Tuck was not a Benedictine! (although I have known one or two portly monks including Dom Casimir our bursar!)

When the local conditions are such that not even this allowance is available, but only much less or even none at all, then let those who live there bless God and never grumble. Above all we urge that they keep free from complaining.

What the Benedictines Did For Us In the nearly 1000 years between the

arrival of St Augustine and the dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII, Benedictine Monasteries became a fundamental part of the social fabric.

Together with the Cistercians, who followed the same Benedictine Rule, but thought the Benedictines too soft, these monasteries provided England with the following:

What the Benedictines Did For Us First Welfare State First Education System First Introduction to Systematic Agriculture Virtual Monopoly in Reading, Writing and all

forms of scholarship

What the Benedictines Did For Us The door of the monastery is always open

to all, and that its bread is free to the whole world.

In a similar vein, it was not unusual for monks living near the sea to warn sailors of perilous obstacles or to provide lodgings for shipwrecked men. Monks also contributed to the building or repair of roads and bridges.

What the Benedictines Did For Us They not only established schools and were

schoolmasters in them, but also laid the foundations for the universities. They were the thinkers and philosophers of the day and shaped the political and religious thought. They recorded the history of the day too.

What the Benedictines Did For Us They introduced crops, industries and

production methods that had not previously been familiar including rearing of cattle and horses including selective breeding, brewing of beer and raising bees or fruit.

These skills continue to this day.

What the Benedictines Did For Us Waterpower was used for crushing wheat, sieving

flour, fulling cloth and tanning. Metallurgy skills – being leading iron producers.

Slag from furnaces was used as fertiliser due to the high phosphate content.

Cistercian Abbots met every year and were thus able to share technological advances across Europe. The break up of the monasteries broke up this network of technology transfer.

The Benedictine Inheritance The mediaeval abbots were powerful figures in

the realm, but also immense benefactors of the people.

After the reformation and until relatively recent times it was fashionable to decry the monasteries and belittle their contribution. Work by Anglican and Catholic historians has restored their reputation and it can now be seen that they were in truth the backbone of the nation.

The Benedictine Inheritance In their pragmatism and lack of fanaticism, above

all in their common sense and sympathy for human nature, they laid down the foundations of the English Character.

The Rule of St Benedict as it applied to abbots, for instance, is a treasure-house of wisdom for the exercise of authority through leadership and consultation, and it is hard not to see in it the origins of the English system of parliamentary government.

The Benedictine Inheritance The Benedictines had a profound effect on

Anglican liturgy – Evensong in today’s cathedrals is largely based on the Benedictine monastic office as often our cathedrals were monastic houses with monks chanting the office in choir in the cathedral.

Even today, retired Abbots of existing monasteries are given the titular title of Abbot of cathedral monastery that is no longer in existence – like cardinals who have titular titles to the ancient churches in and around Rome.

The Benedictine Inheritance In ignorance of all of this, the events

celebrated at Canterbury to mark 1500 years of Benedictines in England may have seemed like mere “heritage”, something for tourists, but with no meaning for the present.

On the contrary, these events explain how we became what we are; and tell us something new about what that is.

The Benedictine Order Each independent house of the Order is a

separate family ruled by an Abbot and has its own novitiate.

The work of each house is centred on the Divine Office or public prayer, recited or sung in choir at intervals throughout the day. This work is common to and characteristic of all Benedictine houses whether of Monks or of Nuns.

Benedictine Congregations in UK English Benedictine Congregation Solemnes Congregation Subiaco Congregation Congregation of the Annunciation Olivetan Congregation Anglican Benedictines Cistercian Monks; Cistercian Nuns; Cistercians of

the Strict Observance (Trappists) & Bernardine Nuns

Arms of the Monastery of St Benedict

The black field is taken from the arms of St Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury as a reminder of the Black Habit. The red Cinquefoil is taken from the personal arms of Dom Philip de Caverel, Abbot of St Vedast at Arras who gave us hospitality after the Dissolution and enabled them to build the Monastery of St Gregory the Great. The 5 ermine spots which adorn it are in reference to the 5 monks of St Gregory’s who were martyred at Tyburn. The two Ravens honour St Benedict taken from the ancient book of Grünenberg (1483). The Cross is taken from Downside.

Sources: The Rule of St Benedict Ealing Abbey Daily Telegraph May 1997 Stanbrook Abbey and other Monastic

Websites 1066 And All That – W C Sellar & R J

Yeatman, Penguin 1930 Tom Kostrzewa Obl OSB Cam John Green Obl OSB