118 Chapter 6
the chief purveyors of education and the heart of what-
ever intellectual life remained. Their libraries preserved
the Latin classics for a later, more appreciative age.
The heart of monastic life was the rule that gov-
erned the lives of monks or nuns. In the west, the rule
of St. Benedict of Nursia (c. 480–c. 547) was universally
accepted for nearly six centuries and remains the basis
of daily life in many religious orders today (see docu-
ment 6.6). Benedict was abbott of the great monastery
at Monte Cassino, north of Naples. His rule, though
not wholly original, was brief, moderate, and wise in its
understanding of human nature. He based it on the
ideal of mens sano en corpore sano,a healthy mind in a
healthy body. Work, prayer, and study were stressed
equally in an atmosphere governed by loving disci-
pline. The Benedictine rule prescribes an ordered, pious
life well suited to the development of one of medieval
Europe’s most powerful institutions.
The growing importance of monasticism was only
one of the ways in which late Roman society began to
foreshadow that of the Middle Ages. It was above all
increasingly Christian, though the western church had
long since begun to diverge in organization and prac-
tice from its eastern counterpart. It was also agrarian
and generally poor. Though small freeholds continued
to exist in Italy, Frankish Gaul, and elsewhere, much of
the countryside was dominated by self-sufficient estates
worked by tenants and defended by bands of armed re-
tainers. An increasing number of these estates sup-
ported monasteries. For reasons that are as yet poorly
understood, crop yields rarely rose above the subsis-
tence level. Western cities, reduced to a fraction of
their former size, were often little more than large agri-
cultural villages whose inhabitants tilled their fields by
day and retreated within the walls at night. Ruled in
many cases by their bishops, they retained something
of their Roman character, but lack of specie and the vi-
olence endemic in the countryside limited trade and
communications. Contacts with the eastern empire,
though never entirely abandoned, became rare. By the
end of the fifth century, the Mediterranean unity forged
by Rome had ceased to exist. A distinctively European
society, formed of Roman, Celtic, and Germanic ele-
ments, was beginning to emerge.
DOCUMENT 6.6
The Rule of St. Benedict
The following sections capture St. Benedict’s view that monks
should live a disciplined but balanced life dedicated to apos-
tolic poverty.Chapter 33—The sin of owning private property
should be entirely eradicated from the monastery.
No one shall presume to give or receive anything
except by order of the abbot; no one shall possess
anything of his own, books, paper, pens, or any-
thing else, for monks are not to own even their
own bodies and wills to be used at their own de-
sire, but are to look to the father of the monastery
for everything.
Chapter 48—Idleness is the great enemy of
the soul, therefore monks should always be occu-
pied, either in manual labor or in holy reading.
The hours for these occupations should be
arranged according to the seasons, as follows:
From Easter to the first of October, the monks
shall go to work at the first hour and labor until
the fourth hour, and the time from the fourth to
the sixth hour shall be spent in reading. After din-
ner, which comes at the sixth hour, they shall lie
down and rest in silence; but anyone who wishes
may read, if he does it so as not to disturb anyone
else. Nones shall be observed a little earlier, about
the middle of the eighth hour, and the monks shall
go back to work, laboring until vespers. But if the
conditions of the locality or the needs of the
monastery, such as may occur at harvest time,
should make it necessary to labor longer hours,
they shall not feel themselves ill-used, for true
monks should live by the labor of their own hands,
as did the apostles and the holy fathers.
“Regula Monchorum.” in O. J. Thatcher and E. H. McNeal,
eds., A Source Book of Medieval History. New York:
Scribner’s, 1905.