Benedictine is Christian monasticism originated in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria in the late third century and began to take root in the western provinces of the Roman Empire a century later. Various monastic ideals from the East, some more individualistic, others more collegial, were transplanted in North Africa, Italy, Spain, and Gaul, whence also to the British Isles. Some of the writings of Eastern ascetics were translated into Latin, but soon there were indigenous Western ascetic writings, including rules by which to govern the monastic life.
A shadowy figure in this history, Benedictvi, active in central Italy in the second quarter of the sixth century, edited, shortened, tightened, and in general improved one of these monastic rules, making it his own. But in his time and through the two and one-half centuries following, many kinds of monastic communities and many different monastic rules coexisted in Western Europe. During that period Benedict's fame was established and his memory kept vivid because Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) gathered the oral tradition concerning Benedict into a biography, basically a collection of miracle stories that subsequently gained wide circulation.
Then, once the Franks had brought about the political unification of much of the Continent in the years around 800, they set out to institute uniformity of practice in many different spheres, one of which was the monastic life. In 817 Benedict's rule for monks became the standard by which all monasteries were governed. Memory of the competing rules faded, and monks and nuns created the myth of Benedict as founding father of Western monasticism and of his rule as the Holy Rule. The Benedictine monopoly then held firm for three centuries. (Holdsworth W. S., 1945).
Criticism by the reformers who first challenged this monopoly fell heavily upon the accumulated wealth of monasteries, including such.......
