Rule of Saint Benedict
composition: secureauthorship: probable
witness: Sankt Gallen Codex 914, ninth century, copied from a Monte Cassino exemplar
A monastic rule written for people who are not heroes fixes a moderate daily order of prayer, work and sleep, and makes obedience to an abbot who must himself take counsel the centre of the common life.
- a written rule as the authority, above the abbot's preference
- moderation stated as a principle, not a concession
- manual work and reading given fixed hours alongside prayer
- stability: the monk stays in one community for life
The Rule sets out seventy-three short chapters covering the hours of prayer, the abbot's election and duties, the reception of guests, the treatment of the sick, food, clothing, sleep and the correction of faults. Its tone is deliberately unheroic: it calls itself a rule for beginners, allows wine because monks cannot be persuaded otherwise, and instructs the abbot to consult the whole community including the youngest, on the grounds that God often reveals the better course to the junior. Much of it adapts an earlier anonymous Rule of the Master, cut and moderated. It became the standard rule of western monasticism, and with it the framework within which most Latin learning survived.
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