Monte Cassino and the Rule of St Benedict (c. 529)

Monte Cassino is the hilltop monastery in central Italy founded by Benedict of Nursia around 529. There Benedict wrote the Rule of Saint Benedict, a short guide to community life that became the standard pattern for monks and nuns in Western Europe for more than a thousand years. Benedictine monasteries went on to preserve books, farm the land, educate rulers and shape the religious and cultural life of medieval Europe.

Background: monks before Benedict

Christian monasticism began in Egypt and Syria in the fourth century, when hermits withdrew to the desert and communities formed around leaders such as Pachomius. Through writers such as John Cassian and Basil of Caesarea, its ideals reached the Latin West, where many small monasteries followed rules of their own.

By the early sixth century Italy was ruled by the Ostrogoths, and the old Roman order was changing fast, a process described in Fall of the Western Roman Empire. Monasteries varied greatly in discipline. Some monks wandered from house to house, and later writers, including Benedict, criticised those who lived without a fixed rule or superior.

Benedict of Nursia

Almost everything known about Benedict comes from the second book of the Dialogues of Pope Gregory the Great, written around 593–594, nearly fifty years after Benedict’s death. Gregory was more interested in miracles than in dates, so the details of Benedict’s life must be treated with caution.

According to Gregory, Benedict was born at Nursia, modern Norcia in Umbria, around 480, and was sent to Rome to study. Disgusted by the immorality of the city, he left and lived as a hermit in a cave at Subiaco, east of Rome, for about three years. His reputation attracted followers. A community of monks at nearby Vicovaro invited him to be their abbot, but, according to Gregory, when his discipline proved too strict they tried to poison him.

Benedict then organised twelve small monasteries around Subiaco, each with twelve monks and a superior. Conflict with a jealous local priest eventually led him to leave the area with a few disciples.

The founding of Monte Cassino

Around 529 Benedict settled on the mountain above the town of Casinum, about 130 kilometres south-east of Rome. Gregory says a pagan temple of Apollo still stood on the summit and that local people still worshipped there. Benedict destroyed the altar and built chapels dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours and Saint John the Baptist.

The year 529 is traditional rather than certain. It is the same year Emperor Justinian is often said to have closed the philosophical schools of Athens, and older histories liked to present the two events as the end of classical learning and the beginning of a monastic age. Modern historians treat this symbolism with care.

Benedict lived at Monte Cassino for the rest of his life. His sister Scholastica, a nun, lived nearby, and Gregory tells how they met once a year. The Ostrogothic king Totila visited him around 542 during the Gothic War, and Benedict is said to have foretold his future. Benedict died around 547, although the exact year is uncertain, and was buried beside Scholastica.

The Rule of Saint Benedict

Benedict wrote his Rule for the monks of Monte Cassino, probably over many years. It has a prologue and 73 short chapters. It opens with the word “Listen”, asking the monk to hear his master’s teaching, and calls the monastery a “school for the Lord’s service”.

The Rule borrows heavily from an earlier anonymous text, the Rule of the Master, and from Cassian, Basil and Augustine. What made it stand out was its balance. Benedict said he hoped to set down “nothing harsh, nothing burdensome”, and he allowed the abbot to adapt the rules to the strength of each monk.

The main points include:

• Vows: monks promised stability, remaining in one community for life; conversion of life, meaning a monastic way of living; and obedience.
• The abbot: elected by the community, he was to rule as a father, take counsel from the brothers and answer to God for every soul.
• Prayer: the day was built around eight services of the Divine Office, from the night office of Vigils to Compline at nightfall, so that all 150 psalms were sung each week.
• Work and reading: monks did manual work and spent several hours daily in lectio divina, slow prayerful reading of scripture and other books.
• Moderation: the Rule allowed two cooked dishes at the main meal, a daily measure of wine and adequate sleep, and gave special care to the sick, the old and the young.
• Hospitality: guests were to be received as Christ himself.

The Rule also deals with practical matters. It says how monks should sleep, clothed and in a shared dormitory with a lamp burning; how latecomers to prayer or meals should be corrected; and how the cellarer, who managed the stores, should treat the community’s goods as if they were the vessels of the altar. At the start of Lent each monk was to receive a book from the library to read through in full. Private property was forbidden: everything belonged to the community and was given out by the abbot according to need.

Destruction and survival

Monte Cassino’s history has been marked by repeated destruction. The Lombards, who had invaded Italy in 568, sacked the abbey in the late sixth century, often dated around 577 or the 580s; the monks fled to Rome, carrying with them a copy of the Rule. The site lay largely deserted until about 717–718, when Petronax of Brescia restored it with papal support.

Arab raiders destroyed the abbey in 883, and it was rebuilt in the tenth century. Under Abbot Desiderius, from 1058 to 1087, Monte Cassino became one of the richest and most cultured monasteries in Europe; his great basilica was consecrated in 1071, and its scriptorium copied classical texts that might otherwise have been lost. An earthquake in 1349 brought down much of the complex, which was rebuilt in the following centuries in grand Baroque form.

During the Second World War the abbey stood above the German defensive line south of Rome. On 15 February 1944 Allied bombers destroyed it, as told in Battle of Monte Cassino. It was rebuilt to its former plan and reconsecrated by Pope Paul VI in 1964.

How the Rule spread

The Rule did not spread at once. Pope Gregory the Great, who admired Benedict, helped make his reputation, and missionaries and pilgrims carried the text to England and Gaul in the seventh century. Many monasteries at first combined it with other rules, including that of the Irish monk Columbanus.

The decisive step came under the Carolingians. Charlemagne obtained a copy from Monte Cassino, and in 816–817 councils at Aachen, led by Benedict of Aniane under Emperor Louis the Pious, made the Rule the standard for monasteries in the Frankish empire. From then on, Western monasticism was essentially Benedictine. Later reform movements, such as Cluny, founded in 910, and the Cistercians, founded in 1098, presented themselves as returns to the Rule in its purity.

The oldest surviving copy of the Rule, Bodleian Library MS Hatton 48, was written in England around 700. A manuscript at St Gall in Switzerland, copied in the early ninth century, is considered closest to Benedict’s original wording.

Key people

• Benedict of Nursia (c. 480–c. 547): founder of Monte Cassino and author of the Rule.
• Scholastica (c. 480–c. 543): Benedict’s sister, traditionally said to be his twin, honoured as the patron of Benedictine nuns.
• Gregory the Great (c. 540–604): pope from 590 and author of the only early account of Benedict’s life.
• Petronax of Brescia (died c. 747): restorer of Monte Cassino around 717–718.
• Benedict of Aniane (c. 750–821): reformer who made the Rule standard in the Carolingian empire.

Myths and facts

Myth: “Ora et labora” is the Benedictine motto from the Rule. The phrase is a much later summary. The Rule speaks of prayer, work and reading, but never uses these words.

Myth: Benedict founded the Benedictine Order. Benedict wrote for one monastery. Benedictine houses remained independent for centuries; the modern Benedictine Confederation was only created in 1893.

Fact: Benedict’s relics are claimed by two places. Monte Cassino says he lies there, while the French abbey of Fleury claims his remains were brought there in the seventh century.

Timeline

• c. 480: Benedict is born at Nursia (Norcia).
• c. 500: Benedict withdraws to a cave at Subiaco.
• c. 529: Benedict founds the monastery of Monte Cassino.
• c. 547: Benedict dies at Monte Cassino; the exact year is uncertain.
• c. 577–589: The Lombards destroy the abbey; the monks flee to Rome.
• c. 593–594: Gregory the Great writes the life of Benedict in his Dialogues.
• 816–817: Councils at Aachen make the Rule standard in the Carolingian empire.
• 883: Arab raiders sack Monte Cassino.
• 1944, 15 February: Allied bombing destroys the abbey.
• 1964, 24 October: Paul VI reconsecrates the rebuilt abbey and names Benedict patron of Europe.

Why it matters

The Rule of Saint Benedict gave Western Europe a stable model of community life that combined prayer, work and study under elected leadership. Benedictine monasteries became centres of farming, education, book copying and church reform, and many classical and Christian texts survive because their monks copied them. Monte Cassino itself, destroyed and rebuilt again and again, remains a symbol of that continuity.