Count Ulrich II von Cilli, and Margrave Albrecht III,
(“Achilles”) von Brandenburg-Ansbach. For another
noble sponsor, Frederick I of Wittelsbach, elector and
Count Palatine, the poet reformulates the centuries-old
adage concerning medieval German literary patron-
age, “Whose bread I eat, their song I sing” (We s’ Brot
ich eß, des Lied ich sing). These words have had an
extraordinarily negative resonance in Beheim scholar-
ship because they are deemed an expression of personal
ethics rather than a rhetorical formula. A master of the
rhetorical art, he was a loquacious, self-conscious artist
with a sharp eye for accuracy of textual transmission and
a strong belief that poetry should serve a moral purpose.
His melodies and strophic structures, his wide-ranging
and varied themes, his ecumenical impulses and his
promotion of sacred subject matter as appropriate to
secular audiences, all make him the architect of a rich
compendium of songs and song types.
See also Seuse, Heinrich
Further Reading
Gille, Hans, and Ingeborg Spriewald, ed. Die Gedichte des Michel
Beheim. 3 vols. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1968–1972.
McDonald, William C. “Whose Bread I Eat”: The Song-Poetry
of Michel Beheim. Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1981.
Müller, Ulrich. “Autobiographische Tendenzen im deutschsprachi-
gen Mittelalter: Probleme und Perspektiven der Edition.
Vorgeführt am exemplarischen Fall der Sangvers-Lyrik
und Sangvers-Epik des Michel Beheim.” Editio 9 (1995):
63–79.
Schanze, Frieder. Meisterliche Liedkunst zwischen Heinrich
von Mügeln und Hans Sachs. 2 vols. Munich: Artemis,
1983–1984.
Scholz, Manfred Günter. Zum Verhältnis von Mäzen, Autor und
Publikum im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert: “Wilhelm von Öster-
reich” “Rappoltsteiner Parzifal,” Michel Beheim. Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1987.
William C. McDonald
BENEDICT OF NURSIA, SAINT
(ca. 480–ca. 560)
A south Italian abbot and, like many other monastic
leaders of his day, author of a monastic rule for his
small community. By virtue of the wide adoption of that
slender manual, the Benedictine Rule, Benedict became
the most famous monk in the world and the patriarch
of western monasticism, designated by Pope Paul VI
(1963–78) “the patron of Europe.” For some centuries
the fi rst and only life of Benedict was the hagiographic
account by Pope Gregory the Great in the second book
of his edifying Dialogues. Writing in 593–94, Gregory
composed this melange of fact and legend at least a
generation after Benedict’s death; but historians accept
as factual the bit of biographical data Gregory said he
received from four of Benedict’s disciples.
After education in Rome Benedict turned to religious
life, fi rst with a small community at Enfi de and then as
an anchorite near Subiaco. Attracting disciples because
of his holiness, and sometimes alienating them because
of his severity, Benedict eventually returned to com-
munal religious life, organizing monasteries fi rst in the
Subiaco region and later (ca. 529) on Monte Cassino, in
Campania halfway between Rome and Naples.
Benedict’s real claim to fame is the rule he composed
ca. 526. “This little rule for beginners” is based in part
on the nearly contemporaneous Rule of the Master, but
a comparison of the two reveals why Benedicts has been
awarded the crown by history and the monastic move-
ment. Gregory designates it well as a rule “remarkable
for its discernment.” The Rule is a relatively short docu-
ment, consisting of a prologue, 72 brief chapters, and
an epilogue. The chapters, laying down the principles
of monastic life and practical directives for living it, are
not logically ordered; chapters 67–72 are an appendix
attached to 66.8, and the liturgical and penitential codes
(8–18, 20–23) may have been inserted later. But for all
its lack of order and elegant language it judiciously pres-
ents the basic principles of cenobitic life. It advocates
a spirit of charity for the whole monastic family and an
egalitarianism (e.g., priests have no special rank); its
concern is not for the heroic achievers but for the weaker,
more needful members of the group: “In drawing up its
regulations, we hope to set down nothing harsh, nothing
burdensome” (Prologue, 46).
During the 7th and 8th centuries the Rule was only
one among many in use. In England Celtic monasticism
had propagated over the north from the Irish foundation
of lona, whereas in the Midlands several foundations
seemed to follow composite rules. Wilfrid was the fi rst
to introduce the Benedictine Rule in England for his
Northumbrian monasteries at Ripon (ca. 661) and Hex-
ham (674); Wilfrid also served as director of other mon-
asteries of men and women. Benedict Biscop, founder
of the joint monastery of Wearmouth (674) and Jarrow
(681), whose most illustrious monk was the historian,
exegete, and educator Bede, introduced a rule heavily
infl uenced by the Benedictine but assembled from six
different models. In the southwest near Winchester,
Nursling, the home community of Boniface (Wynfrith),
followed the Benedictine Rule.
Regular monastic life was greatly disrupted and in
places disappeared during the troubled 9th century.
Despite the attempts of King Alfred (871–99) to restore
monastic life by founding the convent of Shaftesbury
(which succeeded) and the monastery at Athelney (which
did not), religious life languished. In the 10th century,
under the close support of King Edgar (957–75), three
dynamic monks, Dunstan (abbot of Glastonbury and
later archbishop of Canterbury), the authoritarian Æthel-
wold (abbot of Abingdon, later bishop of Winchester),BENEDICT OF NURSIA, SAINT