The Benedictine Order

The Benedictine Order comprises monks living under the Rule of St. Benedict, and commonly known as "black monks". The order will be considered in this article under the following sections:

I. History of the Order;
II. Lay brothers, Oblates, Confraters, and Nuns;
III. Influence and Work of the Order;
IV. Present Condition of the Order;
V. Benedictines of Special Distinction;
VI. Other Foundations Originating from, or Based upon, the Order.

I. HISTORY OF THE ORDER

The term Order as here applied to the spiritual family of St. Benedict is used in a sense differing somewhat from that in which it is applied to other religious orders. In its ordinary meaning the term implies one complete religious family, made up of a number of monasteries, all of which are subject to a common superior or "general" who usually resides either in Rome or in the mother-house of the order, if there be one. It may be divided into various provinces, according to the countries over which it is spread, each provincial head being immediately subject to the general, just as the superior of each house is subject to his own provincial. This system of centralized authority has never entered into the organization of the Benedictine Order. There is no general or common superior over the whole order other than the pope himself, and the order consists, so to speak, of what are practically a number of orders, called "congregations", each of which is autonomous; all are united, not under the obedience to one general superior, but only by the spiritual bond of allegiance to the same Rule, which may be modified according to the circumstances of each particular house or congregation. It is in this latter sense that the term Order is applied in this article to all monasteries professing to observe St. Benedict's Rule.

Beginnings of the Order

St. Benedict did not, strictly speaking, found an order; we have no evidence that he ever contemplated the spread of his Rule to any monasteries besides those which he had himself established. Subiaco was his original foundation and the cradle of the institute. From St. Gregory we learn that twelve other monasteries in the vicinity of Subiaco also owed their origin to him, and that when he was obliged to leave that neighbourhood he founded the celebrated Abbey of Monte Cassino, which eventually become the centre whence his Rule and institute spread. These fourteen are the only monasteries of which there is any reliable evidence of having been founded during St. Benedict's lifetime. The tradition of St. Placid's mission to Sicily in 534, which first gained general credence in the eleventh century, though accepted as genuine by such writers as Mabillon and Ruinart, is now generally admitted to be mere romance. Very little more can be said in favour of the supposed introduction of the Benedictine Rule into Gaul by St. Maurus in 543, though it also has been strenuously upheld by many responsible writers. At any rate, evidences for it are so extremely doubtful that it cannot be seriously regarded as historical. There is reason for believing that it was the third Abbot of Monte Cassino who began to spread a knowledge of the Rule beyond the circle of St. Benedict's own foundations. It is at least certain that when Monte Cassino was sacked by the Lombards about the year 580, the monks fled to Rome, where they were housed by Pope Pelagius II in a monastery adjoining the Lateran Basilica. There, in the very centre of the ecclesiastical world, they remained for upwards of a hundred and forty years, and it seems highly probable that this residence in so prominent a position constituted an important factor in the diffusion of a knowledge of Benedictine monasticism. It is generally agreed also that when Gregory the Great embraced the monastic state and converted his family palace on Apostle, it was the Benedictine form of monachism that he adopted there.

It was from the monastery of St. Andrew in Rome that St. Augustine, the prior, and his forty companions set forth in 595 on their mission for the evangelization of England, and with them St. Benedict's idea of the monastic life first emerged from Italy. The arguments and authorities for this statement have been admirably marshalled and estimated by Reyner in his "Apostolatus Benedictinorum in Angliâ" (Douai, 1626), and his proofs have been adjudged by Mabillon to amount to demonstration. [Cf. Butler, "Was St. Augustine a Benedictine?" in Downside Review, III (1884).] At their various stopping places during the journey through France the monks left behind them traditions concerning their rule and form of life, and probably also some copies of the Rule, for we have several evidences of its having gradually introduced into most of the chief monasteries of Gaul during the seventh century. Lérins, for instance, one of the oldest, which had been founded by St. Honoratus in 375, probably received its first knowledge of the Benedictine Rule from the visit of St. Augustine and his companions in 596. Dismayed by the accounts they had heard of the ferocity of the English, the missionaries had sent their leader back to Rome to implore the pope to allow them to abandon the object of their journey. During his absence they remained at Lérins. Not long after their departure, Aygulph, Abbot of Fleury, was called in to restore the discipline and he probably introduced the full Benedictine observance; for when St. Benedict Biscop visited Lérins later on in the seventh century he received the Benedictine habit and tonsure from the hands of Abbot Aygulph. Lérins continued through several centuries to supply from its monks bishops for the chief churches of Southern Gaul, and to them perhaps may be traced the general diffusion of St. Benedictine's Rule throughout that country. There, as also in Switzerland, it had to contend with and supplement the much stricter Irish or Celtic Rule introduced by St. Columbanus and others. In or practised side by side. Gregory of Tours says that at Ainay, in the sixth century, the monks "followed the rules of Basil, Cassian, Caesarius, and other fathers, taking and using whatever seemed proper to the conditions of time and place", and doubtless the same liberty was taken with the Benedictine Rule when it reached them. In other monasteries it entirely displaced the earlier codes, and had by the end of the eighth century so completely superseded them throughout France that Charlemagne could gravely doubt whether monks of any kind had been possible before St. Benedict's time. The authority of Charlemagne and of his son, Louis the Pious, did much, as we shall presently see, towards propagating the principles of the Father of western monachism.

St. Augustine and his monks established the first English Benedictine monastery at Canterbury soon after their arrival in 597. Other foundations quickly followed as the Benedictine missionaries carried the light of the Gospel with them throughout the length and breadth of the land. It was said that St. Benedict seemed to have taken possession of the country as his own, and the history of his order in England is the history of the English Church. Nowhere did the order link itself so intimately with people and institutions, secular as well as religious, as in England. Through the influence of saintly men, Wilfrid, Benedict Biscop, and Dunstan, the Benedictine Rule spread with extraordinary rapidity, and in the North, when once the Easter controversy had been settled and the Roman supremacy acknowledged (Synod of Whitby, 664), it was adopted in most of the monasteries that had been founded by the Celtic missionaries from Iona. Many of the episcopal sees of England were founded and governed by the Benedictines, and no less than nine of the old cathedrals were served by the black monks of the priories attached to them. Even when the bishop was not himself a monk, he held the place of titular abbot, and the community formed his chapter.

Germany owed its evangelization to the English Benedictines, Sts. Willibrord and Boniface, who preached the Faith, there in the seventh and eighth centuries and founded several celebrated abbeys. From thence spread, hand in hand, Christianity and Benedictine monasticism, to Denmark and Scandinavia, and from the latter even to Iceland. In Spain monasteries had been founded by the Visigothic kings as early as the latter half of the fifth century, but it was probably some two or three hundred years later St. Benedict's Rule was adopted. Mabillon gives 640 as the date of its introduction into that country (Acta Sanctorum O.S.B., saec. I, praef. 74), but his conclusions on this point are not now generally accepted. In Switzerland the disciples of Columbanus had founded monasteries early in the seventh century, two of the best known being St. Gall's, established by the saint of that name, and Dissentis (612), founded by St. Sigisbert. The Celtic rule was not entirely supplanted by that of St. Benedict until more than a hundred years later, when the change was effected chiefly through the influence of Pepin the Short, the father of Charlemagne. By the ninth century, however, the Benedictine had become the only form of monastic life throughout the whole of Western Europe, excepting Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, where the Celtic observance still prevailed for another century or two. At the time of the Reformation there were nine Benedictine houses in Ireland and six in Scotland, besides numerous abbeys of Cistercians.

Benedictine monasticism never took such deep root in the eastern countries of Europe as it had done in the West. The Bohemians and the Poles, nevertheless, owed their conversion respectively to the Benedictine missionaries Adalbert (d. 997) and Casimir (d. 1058), whilst Bavaria and what is now the Austrian Empire were evangelized first by monks from Gaul in the seventh century, and later on by St. Boniface and his disciples. A few of the larger abbeys founded in these countries during the ninth and tenth centuries still exist, but the number of foundations was always small in comparison with those farther west. Into Lithuania and the Eastern Empire the Benedictine Rule never penetrated in early times, and the great schism between East and West effectually prevented any possibilities of development in that direction.

Early Constitution of the Order

During the first four or five centuries after the death of St. Benedict there existed no organic bond of union amongst the various abbeys other than the Rule itself and obedience to the Holy See. According to the holy legislator's provisions each monastery constituted an independent family, self-contained, autonomous, managing its own affairs, and subject to no external authority except that of the local diocesan bishop, whose powers of control were, however, limited to certain specific occasions. The earliest departures from this system occurred when several of the greater abbeys began sending out offshoots, under the form of daughter-houses retaining some sort of dependence upon the mother abbey from which they sprang. This mode of propagation, together with the various reforms that began to appear in the eleventh and succeeding centuries, paved the way for the system of independent congregations, still a feature peculiar to the Benedictine Order.

Reforms

A system which comprised many hundreds of monasteries and many thousands of monks, spread over a number of different countries, without any unity of organization; which was exposed, moreover, to all the dangers and disturbances inseparable from those troublous times of kingdom-making; such a system was inevitably unable to keep worldliness, and even worse vices, wholly out of its midst. Hence it cannot be denied that the monks often failed to live up to the monastic ideal and sometimes even fell short of the Christian and moral standards. There were failures and scandals in Benedictine history, just as there were declensions from the right path outside the cloister, for monks are, after all, but men. But there does not seem ever to have been a period of widespread and general corruption in the order. Here and there the members of some particular house allowed abuses and relaxations of rule to creep in, so that they seemed to be falling away from the true spirit of their state, but whenever such did occur they soon called forth efforts for a restoration of primitive austerity; and these constantly recurring reform movements form one of the surest evidences of the vitality which has pervaded the Benedictine Institute throughout its entire history. It is important to note, moreover, that all such reforms as ever achieved any measure of success came invariably from within, and were not the result of pressure from outside the order.

The first of the reforms directed towards confederating the monastic houses of a single kingdom was set on foot early in the ninth century by Benedict of Aniane under the auspices of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious. Though a Benedictine himself born in Aquitaine and trained at Saint-Seine near Dijon, Benedict was imbued with the rigid austerity of the East, and in his Abbey of Aniane practiced a mode of life that was severe in the extreme. Over Louis he acquired an ascendancy which grew stronger as years went on. At his instigation Louis built for him a monastery adjoining his own palace at Aix-la-Chapelle, which was intended to serve as a model according to which all others were to be reformed, and to bring about this end Benedict was invested with a general authority over all the monasteries of the empire. Absolute uniformity of discipline, observance, and habit, after the pattern of the royal monastery, was then the general scheme which was launched at an assembly of all the abbots at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) in 817 and embodied in a series of eighty capitula passed by the meeting. Though by reason of the very minuteness of these capitula, which made them vexatious and ultimately intolerable, this scheme of centralized authority lasted only for the lifetime of Benedict himself, the capitula (printed in full in Herrgott, "Vetus Disciplina Monastica", Paris, 1726) were recognized as supplying a much needed addition to St. Benedict's Rule concerning points not sufficiently provided for therein, and as filling much the same place then as the approved Constitutions of a monastery or congregation do now.

A century later, in 910, the first real reform that produced any widespread and general effect was commenced at the Abbey of Cluny in Burgundy, under St. Berno, its first abbot. The object was an elaboration of the Benedictine ideal, for the uniform preservation of which a highly centralized system of government, hitherto unknown to Benedictine monachism, except as suggested by St. Benedict of Aniane, was introduced. It was in fact the establishment of a veritable order, in the common acceptance of that term, within the Benedictine family, the abbot of Cluny retaining an actual headship over all dependent houses, the latter being governed only by priors as his vicars. For two centuries or more Cluny was probably the chief religious influence in the Latin Church, as it was also the first abbey to obtain exemption from episcopal oversight. Through the efforts of Berno's immediate successors the congregation grew apace, partly by founding new houses and partly by incorporating those already existing, so that by the twelfth century Cluny had become the centre and head of an order embracing some 314 monasteries in all parts of Europe, France, Italy, the Empire, Lorraine, Spain, England, Scotland, and Poland. Although the congregation had its own constitutions and was absolutely autonomous, its members always claimed to be and were actually recognized as real Benedictines; hence it was not strictly a new order but only a reformed congregation within the order. (See CLUNY).

Following the example of Cluny, several other reforms were initiated from time to time in different parts during the next three centuries, which while taking the Rule of St. Benedict as a basis, aimed frequently at a greater austerity of life than was practised by the black monks or contemplated by the holy Rule. Some were even semi-eremitical in their constitution, and one — Fontevrault — consisted of double monasteries, the religious of both sexes being under the rule of the abbess. In dealing with these reformed congregations a distinction must be made between those which, like Cluny, continued to be considered as part of the main Benedictine body, and those which constituted practically new and independent orders, like Cîteaux, and have always been looked upon as outside the Benedictine confederation, though still professing the Rule of St. Benedict in some form or other. Those of the former category are treated here, since they and their successors constitute the order as we understand it at the present day. In the latter class the most important were Camaldoli (1009), Vallombrosa (1039), Grammont (1076), Cîteaux (1098), Fontevrault (1099), Savigny (1112), Monte Vergine (1119), Sylvestrines (1231), Celestines (1254), and Olivetans (1319). All of these will be described in detail under the respective titles.

The influence of Cluny, even in monasteries which did not join its congregation or adopt any of the other reforms mentioned above, was large and far-reaching. Many such abbeys, including Subiaco and Monte Cassino, adopted its customs and practices, and modelled their life and spirit according to the example it set. Monasteries such as these often became in turn the centres of revival and reform in their respective neighbourhoods, so that during the tenth and eleventh centuries there arose several free unions of monasteries based on a uniform observance derived from a central abbey. These unions, the germ of the congregational system which developed later on, deserve a somewhat detailed enumeration here. In England there had been three distinct efforts at systematic organization. The various monasteries founded by St. Augustine and his fellow-monks had preserved some sort of union, as was only natural with new foundations in a pagan country proceeding from a common source of origin. As Christianity spread through the land this necessity for mutual dependence diminished, but when St. Benedict Biscop came to England with Archbishop Theodore in 669, it fell to him to foster a spirit of uniformity amongst the various Benedictine monasteries then existing. In the tenth century St. Dunstan set himself to reform the English monastic houses on the model of Fleury and of what he had seen successfully carried out at Ghent during his exile in Flanders. With his co-operation St. Ethelwold brought out his "Concordia Regularis", which is interesting as an early attempt to procure a uniform observance in all the monasteries of a nation. A century later Lanfranc continued the same idea by issuing a series of statutes regulating the life of the English Benedictines. It should be noted here that these several attempts were directed only towards securing outward uniformity, and that as yet there was apparently no idea of a congregation, properly so called, with a central source of all legislative authority. In Fra Chaise-Dieu (Auvergne), St. Victor (Marseilles), St. Claude, Lérins, Sauve-Majour, Tiron, and Val-des-Choux, were all centres of larger or smaller groups of houses, in each of which there was uniformity of rule as well as more or less dependence upon the chief house. Fleury adopted the Cluniac reform, as did also St. Benignus of Dijon, though without subjection to that organization; and all were eventually absorbed by the congregation of St. Maur in the seventeenth century, excepting St. Claude, which preserved its independence until the Revolution, Val-des-Choux, which became Cistercian, and Lérins, which in 1505 joined the Italian congregation of St. Justina of Padua. In Italy the chief groups had their centres at Cluse in Piedmont, at Fonte Avellana, which united to the Camaldolese congregation in 1569, La Cava, which joined the congregation of St. Justina in the fifteenth century, and Sasso-Vivo, which was suppressed as a separate federation in the same century and its forty houses united to other congregations of the Benedictine family. The monasteries of Germany were divided chiefly between Fulda and Hirschau, both of which eventually joined the Bursfeld Union. (See BURSFELD.) In Austria there were two groups of monasteries, the abbeys of Melk (Molck or Melek) and Salzburg being the chief houses. They continued thus until well into the seventeenth century, when systematic congregations were organized in compliance with the Tridentine decrees, as well be described in due course. Other free unions, for purposes of mutual help and similarity of discipline, were to be found also in Scotland, Scandinavia, Poland, Hungary, and elsewhere, in which the same idea was carried out, viz., not so much a congregation in its later sense, with a centralized form of government, as a mere banding together of houses for the better maintenance of rule and policy.

Notwithstanding all these reform movements and unions of monasteries, a large number of Benedictine abbeys in different countries retained to the end of the twelfth century, and even later, their original independence, and this state of things was only terminated by the regulations of the Fourth Lateran Council, in 1215, which were to change materially the whole trend of Benedictine polity and history. By the twelfth canon of this council it was decreed that all the monasteries of each ecclesiastical province were to unite into a congregation. The abbots of each province or congregation were to meet in chapter every third year, with power to pass laws binding on all, and to appoint from amongst their own number "visitors" who were to make canonical visitation of the monasteries and to report upon their condition to the ensuing chapter. In each congregation one of the abbots was to be elected president, and the one so chosen presided over the triennial chapter and exercised a certain limited and well-defined authority over the houses of his congregation, in such a way as not to interfere with the independent authority of each abbot in his own monastery. England was the first and for some time the only country to give this new arrangement a fair trial. It was not until after the issue of the Bull "Benedictina" by Benedict XII, in 1336, that other countries, somewhat tardily, organized their national congregation in conformity with the designs of the Lateran Council. Some of these have continued to the present day, and this congregational system is now, with very few exceptions and some slight variations in matters of detail, the normal form of government throughout the order.

Progress of the Order

At the time of this important change in the constitution of the order, the black monks of St. Benedict were to be found in almost every country of Western Europe, including Iceland, where they had two abbeys, founded in the twelfth century, and from which missionaries had penetrated even into Greenland and the lands of the Eskimo. At the beginning of the fourteenth century the order is estimated to have comprised the enormous number of 37,000 monasteries. It had up to that time given to the Church no less than 24 popes, 200 cardinals, 7,000 archbishops, 15,000 bishops, and over 1,500 canonized saints. It had enrolled amongst its members 20 emperors, 10 empresses, 47 kings, and 50 queens. And these numbers continued to increase by reason of the additional strength which accrued to the order form its consolidation under the new system. In the sixteenth century the Reformation and the religious wars spread havoc amongst its monasteries and reduced their number to about 5,000. In Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden, where several houses had joined the German (Bursfeld) Union, the order was entirely obliterated by the Lutherans about 1551 and its property confiscated by the crown. The arbitrary rule of Joseph II of Austria (1765-90) and the French Revolution and its consequences completed the work of destruction, so that in the early part of the nineteenth century, the order numbered scarcely more than fifty monasteries all told. The last seventy years, however, have witnessed a remarkable series of revivals and an accession of missionary enterprise, with the result that there are now over one hundred and fifty monasteries of black monks, or, including affiliated congregations and convents of nuns, a total of nearly seven hundred. These revivals and examples of expansion will now be treated in detail under the headings of the various congregations, which will bring the history of the order down to the present day.

(1) The English Congregation.—The English were the first to put into practice the decrees of the Lateran Council. Some time was necessarily spent in preliminary preparations, and the first general chapter was held at Oxford in 1218, from which time up to the dissolution under Henry VIII the triennial chapters appear to have been held more or less regularly. (Details of these chapters will be found in Reyner, "Apostolatus Benedictinorum".) At first only the monasteries of the southern province of Canterbury were represented, but in 1338, in consequence of the Bull "Benedictina", the two provinces were united and the English congregation definitely established. This system of the union of houses and periodical chapters interfered in the least possible degree with the Benedictine tradition of mutual independence of monasteries, though the Bull "Benedictina" was intended to give some further development to it. In other countries attempts were made from time to time to effect a greater degree of organization, but in England there was never any further advance along the path of centralization. At the time of the dissolution there were in England nearly three hundred houses of black monks, and though the numbers had from one cause or another somewhat declined, the English congregation may truthfully be said to have been in a flourishing condition at the time of the attempt to suppress it in the sixteenth century. The grave charges brought against the monks by Henry VIII's Visitors, though long believed in, are not now credited by serious historians. This reversal of opinion has been brought about mainly through the researches of such writers as Gasquet (Henry VIII and the English Monasteries, London, new ed., 1899; Eve of the Reformation, London, 1890), and Gairdner (Prefaces to "Calendars of State Papers of Henry VIII").

Throughout the period of suppression the monks were the champions of the old Faith, and when turned out of their homes very few conformed to the new religion. Some sought refuge abroad, others accepted pensions and lingered on in England hoping for a restoration of the former state of things, whilst not a few preferred to suffer lifelong imprisonment rather than surrender their convictions and claims. In Queen Mary's reign there was a brief revival at Westminster, where some of the surviving monks were brought together under Abbot Feckenham in 1556. Of the monks professed there during the three years of revived existence, Dom Sigebert Buckley alone survived at the beginning of the seventeenth century; and he, after forty years of imprisonment, when nigh unto death, in 1607, invested with the English habit and affiliated to Westminster Abbey and to the English congregation two English priests, already Benedictines of the Italian congregation. By this act he became the link between the old and the new lines of English black monks, and through him the true succession was perpetuated. About the same time a number of English monks were being trained abroad, mostly in Spain, for the English mission, and these were in 1619 aggregated by papal authority to the English congregation, though the monasteries founded by them had perforce to be situated abroad. St. Gregory's at Douai was established in 1605, St. Lawrence's at Dieulouard in Lorraine in 1606, and St. Edmund's at Paris in 1611. The first two of these communities remained on the continent until driven to England by the French Revolution, but the third has only recently returned. In 1633, by the Bull "Plantata", Pope Urban VIII bestowed upon the restored English congregation "every privilege, grant, indulgence, faculty, and other prerogative which had ever belonged to the ancient English congregation" and also approved of its members taking on oath by which they bound themselves to labour for the reconversion of their country. So zealous were they in this twenty-seven suffered martyrdom for the Faith, whilst eleven died in prison. Two other monasteries were added to the congregation, viz., Lamspring in Germany in 1643, and Saint-Malo in Brittany in 1611, the latter, however, being passed over to the French (Maurist) congregation in 1672.

In 1795 the monks of Douai were expelled from their monastery by the Revolution, and after many hardships, including imprisonment, escaped to England, where, after a temporary residence at Acton Burnell (near Shrewsbury), they settled in 1814 at Downside in Somerset. The monks of Dieulouard were also driven out at the same time and after some years of wandering established themselves in 1802 at Ampleforth in Yorkshire. The monks of St. Edmund's, Paris, not successful in making their escape from France, were dispersed for a time, but when, in 1818, the buildings of St. Gregory's at Douai were recovered by the congregation, the remnants of St. Edmund's community reassembled and resumed conventual life there in 1823. For eighty years they continued undisturbed, recruited by English subjects and carrying on their school for English boys, until, in 1903, the "Association Laws" of the French government once more expelled them from their monastery; returning to England, they have established themselves at Woolhampton in Berkshire. The Abbey of Lamspring continued to flourish amongst Lutheran surroundings until it was suppressed by the Prussian Government in 1802 and the community dispersed. In 1828 a restoration of conventual life in a small way was attempted at Broadway in Worcestershire, which lasted until 1841. The monks then went to other houses of the congregation, though the community was never formally disbanded. Continuity was preserved by the last survivors of Broadway being incorporated in 1876 into the newly founded community of Fort Augustus in Scotland. In 1859 St. Michael's priory, at Belmont, near Hereford, was established, in compliance with a decree of Pius IX, as a central novitiate and house of studies for the whole congregation. It was also made the pro-cathedral of the Diocese of Newport in England, the bishop and canons of which are chosen from the English Benedictines, the cathedral-prior acting as provost of the chapter. Up to 1901 Belmont had no community of its own, but only members from the other houses who were resident there either as professors or students; the general chapter of that year, however, decided that novices might henceforth be received for St. Michael's monastery. In 1899 Leo XIII raised the three priories of St. Gregory's (Downside), St. Lawrence's (Ampleforth), and St. Edmund's (Douai) to the rank of abbeys, so that the congregation now consists of three abbeys, and one cathedral-priory, each with its own community, but Belmont still remains the central novitiate and tyrocinium for all the houses. Besides its regular prelates, the English congregations, by virtue of the Bull "Plantata" (1633), allowed to perpetuate as titular dignities the nine cathedral-priories which belonged to it before the Reformation, viz., Canterbury, Winchester, Durham, Coventry, Ely, Worcester, Rochester, Norwich, and Bath; to these have been added three more, Peterborough, Gloucester, and Chester, originally Benedictine abbeys but raised to cathedral rank by Henry VIII. Six ancient abbacies also, St. Alban's, Westminster, Glastonbury, Evesham, Bury St. Edmunds, and St. Mary's, York, are similarly perpetuated by privilege granted in 1818.

(2) The Cassinese Congregation.—To prevent confusion it is necessary to pint out that there are two congregations of this name. The first, with Monte Cassino as its chief house, was originally known as that of St. Justina of Padua, and with one exception has always been confined to Italy. The other is of much later institution and is distinguished by the title of "Primitive Observance". What follows relates to the former of these two.

Most of the Italian monasteries had fallen under the influence of Cluny in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and had adopted its customs, but by the end of the fourteenth century they had so greatly declined that there was then hardly one left in which the Cluniac observance was retained. The Abbey of St. Justina at Padua, which had formerly been Cluniac, was in a very corrupt and ruinous state in 1407 when Gregory XII bestowed it in commendam on the Cardinal of Bologna. That prelate, desirous of reform, introduced some Olivetan monks, but the three remaining Cluniac monks appealed to the Venetian Republic against this encoachment on their rights, with the result that the abbey was restored to them and the Olivetans dismissed. The cardinal resigned the abbey to the pope, who thereupon gave it to Ludovico Barbo, a canon regular of St. George in alga. He took the Benedictine habit and received the abbatial blessing in 1409. With the help of two Camaldolese monks and two canons of Alga, he instituted a reformed observance, which was quickly adopted in other monasteries as well. Permission was obtained from the pope for these to unite and form a new congregation, the first general chapters of which was held in 1421, when Abbot Barbo was elected the first president. Amongst those that joined were the celebrated abbeys of Subiaco, Monte Cassino, St. Paul's in Rome, St. George's at Venice, La Cava, and Farfa. In 1504 its title was changed to that of the "Cassinese Congregation". It gradually came to embrace all of the chief Benedictine houses of Italy, to the number of nearly two hundred, divided into seven provinces, Rome, Naples, Sicily, Tuscany, Venice, Lombardy, and Genoa. In 1505 the Abbey of Lérins in Provence together with all its dependent houses joined it. A highly centralized system of government was developed, modelled on the Italian republics, by which the autonomy of the individual houses was almost entirely destroyed. All power was vested in a committee of "definitors", in whose hands were all appointments, from that of president down to the lowest official in the smallest monastery. But in spite of this obvious departure from the Benedictine ideal and the dangers arising from such a system, the congregation continued in considerable prosperity until the wars of the Revolution period; and the later decrees of the Italian government put a check to its reception of novices and began a series of suppressions which have reduced its numbers enormously and shorn it of much of its former greatness. The formation of the congregation of Primitive Observance from out of its midst has still further diminished the congregation, until it now consists nominally of sixteen monasteries, some entirely without communities, and only three or four with sufficient numbers to keep up full conventual observances.

(3) The Cassinese Congregation of Primitive Observance.—In the year 1851 Abbot Casaretto of Subiaco initiated at Genoa a return to a stricter observance than was then in vogue, and several other monasteries of the Cassinese congregation, including Subiaco itself, desiring to unite in this reforming movement, Pius IX joined all such abbeys into one federation, which was called after its chief house, the "Province of Subiaco". Before long monasteries in other countries adopted the same reformed observance and became affiliated to Subiaco. In 1872 this union of monasteries was separated altogether from the original congregation and erected as a new and independent body under the title of the "Cassinese Congregation of Primitive Observance", which was divided into provinces according to the different countries in which its houses were situated, with the Abbot of Subiaco as abbot-general of the whole federation.

(a) The Italian Province dates from the original federation in 1851, and comprises ten monasteries with over two hundred religious. One of these is the Abbey of Monte Vergine, formerly the mother-house of an independent congregation, but which was aggregated to this province in 1879.

(b) The English Province was formed in 1858 when certain English monks at Subiaco obtained permission to make a foundation in England. The Isle of Thanet, hallowed by the memory of St. Augustine's landing there twelve hundred and sixty years previously, was selected and a church which Augustus Welby Pugin had built at Ramsgate was placed at their disposal. By 1860 a monastery had been erected and full conventual life established. It became a priory in 1880 and in 1896 an abbey. In course of time, in addition to serving several neighbouring missions, the community embarked on work in New Zealand, where Dom Edmund Luck, a Ramsgate monk, was made Bishop of Auckland. They also undertook work in Bengal in 1874, but this has since been relinquished to the secular clergy.

(c) The Belgian Province began in 1858 with the affiliation to Subiaco of the eleventh-century Abbey of Termonde. Afflighem followed in 1870, and since then two new foundations have been made in Belgium, and quite recently missionary work has been undertaken in the Transvaal, South Africa.

(d) The French Province, perhaps the most numerous and flourishing in the congregation, dates from 1859. Jean-Baptiste Muard, a parish priest and founder of a society of diocesan missioners, became a monk at Subiaco. After his profession there in 1849, he returned to France with two companions and settled at Pierre-qui-Vire, a lonely spot amid the forests of Avallon, where a most austere form of Benedictine life was established. After his death in 1854, the abbey he had founded was affiliated to the Cassinese P. O. congregation and became the mother-house of the French province. New foundations were made at Béthisy (1859), Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire, the ancient Fleury (1865), Oklahoma, Indian Territory, U.S.A. with an Apostolic vicariate attached (1874), Belloc (1875), Kerbeneat (1888), Encalcat (1891), Nino-Dios, Argentina (1899), and Jerusalem (1901). In 1880 the French Government annexed Pierre-qui-Vire and expelled the community by force; some of them, however, were able to regain possession a year or two later. The remainder sought refuge in England, where in 1882 they acquired the site of the old Cistercian Abbey of Buckfast, in Devonshire. Here they are gradually rebuilding the abbey on its original foundations. The "Association Laws" of 1903 again dispersed the congregation, the monks of Pierre-qui-Vire finding a temporary home in Belgium, those of Belloc and Encalcat going to Spain, and Kerbeneat to South Wales, whilst those of Béthisy and Saint-Benoit, being engaged in parochial work, obtained authorization and have remained in France.

(e) The Spanish Province dates from 1862, the year in which the ancient Abbey of Montserrat, founded in the ninth century, was affiliated to the Cassinese P. O. congregation. The old Spanish congregation, which ceased to exist in 1835, is dealt with separately. Other old monasteries which had been restored, St. Clodio in 1880, Vilvaneira in 1883, and Samos in 1888, were, in 1893, joined with Montserrat to form the Spanish province. Since then new foundations have been made at Pueyo (1890), Los Cabos (1900), and Solsona (1901), besides one at Manila (Philippines) in 1895. This province also includes the Abbey of New Nursia in Western Australia, founded in 1846 by two exiled monks from St. Martin's Abbey, Compostella, who after the general suppression in 1835 had found a home at La Cava in Italy. Seeing no hope of a return to Spain they had volunteered for foreign mission work and were sent to Australia in 1846. Their names were Joseph Serra and Rudesind Salvado. They settled amongst the aboriginal inhabitants at a place some seventy miles north of Perth, which they called New Nursia in honour of St. Benedict's birthplace, and there worked as pioneers of civilization and Christianity amongst the natives. Their labours were crowned with success and their abbey gradually became the centre from which a number of outlying mission stations were established. Dom Serra became coadjutor to the Bishop of Perth in 1848, and Dom Salvado was made Bishop of Port Victoria in 1849, though he still remained superior of New Nursia, which was made an abbey in 1867 with a diocese attached. It had been aggregated to the Italian province of the congregation in 1864, but was transferred to the Spanish province on its formation in 1893. The monks own vast tracts of bushland around their monastery and they rear horses, sheep, and cattle on a large scale. The community includes a number of aboriginal converts amongst its lay brethren.

(4) The Bursfeld Union.—Although more fully dealt with in a separate article, something must be said here about this congregation. Formed in 1430, it included all the principal monasteries of Germany, and at the height of its prosperity numbered one hundred and thirty-six houses of men and sixty-four of women. It flourished until the Protestant Reformation, which with the religious wars that followed entirely obliterated it, and most of its monasteries passed into Lutheran hands. In 1628 the few remaining representatives of the congregation, having recovered a right to some of their possessions, offered seven monasteries to the newly resuscitated English congregation, on condition that the task of getting rid of the Lutheran occupants should devolve upon the English monks, whilst the monasteries should be restored to the Bursfeld congregation in the event of its ever requiring them. No advantage was taken of this offer except with regard to two houses-Rintelin, which was used as a seminary for a few years by the English Benedictines, and Lamspring, which continued as an abbey of English monks from 1644 to 1802. No other monasteries of the Bursfeld Union were ever restored to Benedictine use. (See BURSFELD.)

(5) The Spanish Congregation.—There were originally two distinct congregations in Spain, that of the "Claustrales" or of Tarragona, formed in 1336, and that of Valladolid, organized in 1489. At the time of the general suppression in 1835, the former comprised sixteen abbeys, and the latter fifty, besides one or two priories in Peru and Mexico. Belonging to the Claustrales were Our Lady's Abbey, Vilvaneira, St. Stephen's, Rivas del Sil, founded in the sixth century, and St. Peter's, Cardena, which claimed to be the oldest in Spain. The Valladolid congregation had St. Benedict's, Valladolid (founded 1390), for its mother-house, and amongst its houses were St. Martin's, Compostella (ninth century); St. Benedict's, Sahagún, the largest in Spain; St. Vincent's, Salamanca, famous for its university; Our Lady's, Montserrat; and St. Domingo at Silos. Of the sixty-six monasteries suppressed in 1835, five have been restored, viz., Montserrat (1844), St. Clodio (1880), Vilvaneira (1883), and Samos (1888) by the Cassinese P. O. congregation, and Silos (1880) by the French monks from Ligugé. Of the rest, sixteen remain as parish churches, thirteen are now occupied by other religious orders, two or three are used as barracks, two as prisons, one as a diocesan seminary, a few have been converted into municipal buildings or private residences, and the remainder have been destroyed.

(6) The Portuguese Congregation.—In the sixteenth century the monasteries of Portugal were all held by commendatory abbots and consequently were in a very unsatisfactory state as regards discipline. A reform was initiated in 1558 in the Abbey of St. Thirso, monks from Spain being introduced for the purpose. After much difficulty the leaders succeeded in spreading their reform to two or three other houses, and these were formed into the Portuguese congregation by Pius V in 1566. The first general chapter was held at Tibaes in 1568 and a president elected. The congregation eventually comprised all the monasteries of Portugal and continued in a flourishing state until the wholesale suppression of religious houses in the early part of the nineteenth century, when its existence came to an abrupt end. Only one Benedictine monastery in Portugal has since been restored-that of Cucujães, originally founded in 1091. Its resuscitation in 1875 came about in this way: to evade the law forbidding their reception of novices, the Brazilian Benedictines had sent some of the subjects to Rome for study and training in the monastery of St. Paul's, where they were professed about 1870. The Brazilian government refusing them permission to return to that country, they settled in Portugal and obtained possession of the old monastery of Cucujães. After twenty years of somewhat isolated existence there, unable to re-establish the Portuguese congregation, they were, in 1895, affiliated to that of Beuron. Thus Brazil, which had received its first Benedictines from Portugal, became in turn the means of restoring the Benedictine life in that country.

(7) The Brazilian Congregation.—The first Benedictines to settle in Brazil came from Portugal in 1581. They established the following monasteries: St. Sebastian, Bahia, (1581); Our Lady of Montserrat, Rio de Janeiro (1589); St. Benedict, Olinda (1640); the Assumption, Sao Paulo (1640); Our Lady's, Parahyba (1641); Our Lady's, Brotas (1650); Our Lady's, near Bahia (1658); and four priories dependent on Sao Paulo. All these remained subject to the Portuguese superiors until 1827, when in consequence of the separation of Brazil from the Kingdom of Portugal, an independent Brazilian congregation was erected by Leo XII, consisting of the above eleven houses, with the Abbot of Bahia as its president. A decree of the Brazilian government in 1855 forbade the further reception of novices, and the result was that when the empire came to an end in 1889, the entire congregation numbered only about twelve members, of whom eight were abbots of over seventy years of age. The abbot-general appealed for help to the pope, who applied to the Beuronese congregation for volunteers. In 1895 a small colony of Beuronese monks having spent some time in Portugal learning the language, set out for Brazil and took possession of the abandoned Abbey of Olinda. The divine office was resumed, mission work in the neighbourhood commenced, and a school of alumni (pupils destined for the monastic state) established. Two new abbeys have also been added to the congregation: Quixada, founded in 1900, and St. Andre at Bruges (Belgium) in 1901, for the reception and training of subjects for Brazil. In 1903 Rio de Janeiro was made the mother-house of the congregation and the residence of the abbot-general.

(8) The Swiss Congregation.—The earliest monasteries in Switzerland were founded from Luxeuil by the disciples of Columbanus, amongst whom was St. Gall, who established the celebrated abbey afterwards known by his name. By the end of the eighth century the Benedictine Rule had been accepted in most, if not in all of them. Some of these monasteries still exist and their communities can boast of an unbroken continuity from those early days. The various monasteries of Switzerland were united to form the Swiss congregation in 1602, through the efforts of Augustine, Abbot of Einsiedeln. The political disturbances at the end of the eighteenth century reduced the number of abbeys to six, of which five still continue and constitute the entire congregation at the present day. They are as follows: (a) Dissentis, founded in 612; plundered and destroyed by fire in 1799; restored 1880. (b) Einsiedeln, founded 934, the abbey from which the Swiss-American congregation has sprung. (c) Muri, founded 1027; suppressed 1841; but restored at Gries (Tyrol) 1845. (d) Engelberg, founded 1082. (3) Maria Stein, founded 1085; the community was disbanded in 1798, but reassembled six years later; again suppressed in 1875, when the members went to Delle in France; expelled thence in 1902, they moved to Dürnberg in Austria, and in 1906 settled at Bregenz. The sixth abbey was Rheinau, founded 778, which was suppressed in 1862; its monks, being unable to resume conventual life, were received into other monasteries of the congregation.

(9) The Congregation of St.-Vannes.—To counteract the evils resulting from the practice of bestowing ecclesiastical benefices upon secular persons in commendam, then rife throughout Western Europe, Dom Didier de la Cour, Prior of the Abbey of St.-Vannes in Lorraine, inaugurated in 1598 a strict disciplinary reform with the full approbation of the commendatory abbot, the Bishop of Verdun. Other monasteries soon followed suit and the reform was introduced into all the houses of Alsace and Lorraine, as well as many in different parts of France. A congregation, numbering about forty houses in all, under the presidency of the prior of St.-Vannes, was formed, and was approved by the pope in 1604. On account of the difficulties arising from the direction of the French monasteries by a superior residing in another kingdom, a separate congregation — that of St.-Maur — was organized in 1621 for the monasteries in France, whilst that of St.-Vannes was restricted to those situated in Lorraine. The latter continued with undiminished fervour until suppressed by the French Revolution, but is privileges were handed on by Gregory XVI in 1837 to the newly founded Gallican congregation, which was declared to be its true successor, though not enjoying actual continuity with it.

(10) The Congregation of St.-Maur.—The French monasteries which had embraced the reform of St.-Vannes were in 1621 formed into a separate congregation named after St. Maur, the disciple of St. Benedict, which eventually numbered on hundred and eighty houses, i.e. all in France except those of the Cluniac congregation. The reform was introduced mainly through the instrumentality of Dom Laurent Bénard and quickly spread through France. Saint-Germain-des-Prés at Paris became the mother-house, and the superior of this abbey was always the president. The constitution was modelled on that of the congregation of St. Justina of Padua and it was a genuine return to the primitive austerity of conventual observance. It became chiefly celebrated for the literary achievements of its members, amongst whom it counted Mabillon, Montfaucon, d'Achery, Martene, and many others equally famous for their erudition and industry. In 1790 the Revolution suppressed all its monasteries and the monks were dispersed. The superior general and two others suffered in the massacre at the Carmes, 2 September, 1792. Others sought safety in flight and were received into Lamspring, and abbeys of Switzerland, England, and North America. A few of the survivors endeavoured to restore their congregation at Solesmes in 1817, but the attempt was not successful, and the congregation died out, leaving behind it a fame unrivalled in the annals of monastic history. (see MAURISTS.)

(11) The Congregation of St. Placid.—This congregation was also an outcome of the reform instituted at St.-Vannes. The Abbey of St. Hubert in Ardennes, which had been founded about 706 for canons regular but had become Benedictine in 817, was the first in the Low Countries to embrace the reform. To facilitate its introduction, monks were sent from St.-Vannes in 1618 to initiate the stricter observance. In spite of some opposition from the community as well as from the diocesan, the Bishop of Liège, the revival of discipline gradually gained the supremacy and before long other monasteries, including St. Denis in Hainault, St. Adrian, Afflighem, St. Peter's at Ghent, and others followed suit. These were formed into a new congregation (c. 1630) which was approved by Pope Urban VIII, and existed until the Revolution. Two abbeys of this congregation, Termonde and Afflighem, have since been restored and affiliated to the Belgian province of the Cassinese P. O. congregation.

(12) The Austrian Congregations.—For many centuries the monasteries of Austria maintained their individual independence and their abbots acquired positions of much political power and dignity, which, though considerably diminished since medieval times, are still such as are enjoyed by no other Benedictine abbots. The example of reform set by the congregation of St. Justina in the fifteenth century exercised an influence upon the Austrian monasteries. Beginning (1418) in the Abbey of Melk (founded about 1089), the reform was extended to other houses, and in 1460 a union of those that had adopted it was proposed. Sixteen abbots were present at a meeting held in 1470, but for some reason this union of abbeys does not seem to have been at all lasting, for in 1623 a new Austrian congregation was projected to consist of practically the same abbeys as the former congregation: Melk, Göttweig, Lambach, Kremsmünster, Vienna, Garsten, Altenburg, Seitenstetten, Mondsee, Kleinck, and Marienberg. In 1630 it was proposed to unite this congregation, those of Busfeld and Bavaria, and all the houses that were still independent, into one general federation, and a meeting was held at Ratisbon to discuss the scheme. The Swedish invitation, however, put an end to the plan and the only result was the formation of another small congregation of nine abbeys, with that of St. Peter's, Salzburg, at its head. These two congregations, Melk and Salzburg, lasted until towards the end of the eighteenth century, when the despotic rule of Joseph II (1765-90) gave them their death-blow. In 1803 many of the abbeys were suppressed and those that were suffered to remain were forbidden to receive fresh novices. The Emperor Francis I, however, restored several of them between the years 1809 and 1816, and in 1889 those that still survived, some twenty in number, were formed into two new congregations under the titles of the Immaculate Conception and St. Joseph, respectively. The former comprises ten houses under the presidency of the Abbot of Göttweig, and the latter seven, with the Abbot of Salzburg at its head. The congregation of the Immaculate Conception, in which are Kremsmünster, dating from 777, St. Paul's in Carinthia, and the Scots monastery at Vienna, includes none of later date than the twelfth century; whilst in the congregation of St. Joseph there are Salzburg (before 700), Michaelbeuern (785), four others of the eleventh century, and only one of recent foundation, Innsbruck (1904).

(13) The Bavarian Congregation.—A reform initiated amongst the monasteries of Bavaria, based upon the Tridentine decrees, caused the erection of this congregation in 1684. It then consisted of eighteen houses which flourished until the general suppression at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Beginning in 1830, the pious King Ludwig I restored the abbeys of Metten and Ottobeuern (founded in the eighth century), Scheyern (1112), and Andechs (1455), and founded new monasteries at Augsburg (1834), Munich (1835), Meltenburg (1842), and Schäftlarn (1866). Pius IX restored the congregation (1858) comprising the above houses, of which the Abbot of Metten is president. The abbeys of Plankstetten (1189) and Ettal (1330) were restored in 1900 and 1904, respectively and added to the congregation.

(14) The Hungarian Congregation.—This congregation differs from all others in its constitution. It comprises the four abbeys of Zalavar (1919), Bakonybel (1037), Tihany (1055), and Domolk (1252), which are dependent on the Arch-Abbey of Monte Pannonia (Martinsberg), and to these are added six "residences" or educational establishments conducted by the monks. The members of this body are professed for the congregation and not for any particular monastery, and they can be moved from one house to another at the discretion of the arch-abbot and his sixteen assessors. The arch-abbey was founded by Stephen, the first king of Hungary, in 1001, and together with the other houses enjoys an unbroken succession from the date of foundation. The congregation is affiliated to the Cassinese, though it enjoys a status of comparative independence.

(15) The Gallican Congregation.—This, the first of the new congregations of the nineteenth century, was established in 1837 at Solesmes in France by Dom Guéranger. He had been professed at St. Paul's, Rome, and though at one time desirous of joining the community of Monte Cassino, was urged by the Bishop of Le Mans to restore the Benedictine Order in France. He acquired possession of the old Maurist priory of Solesmes, which Pope Gregory XVI made an abbey and the mother-house of the new congregation. He also declared it to be the true successor to all the privileges formerly enjoyed by the congregations of Cluny, St.-Vannes, and St.-Maur. Guéranger was soon joined by numbers of offshoots. In this way Ligugé, originally founded by St. Martin of Tours in 360, was restored in 1853, Silos (Spain) in 1880, Glanfeuil in 1892, and Fontanelle (St. Wandrille), founded 649, in 1893. New foundations were likewise made at Marseilles in 1865, Farnborough (England), and Wisque in 1895, Paris 1893, Kergonan 1897, and a cell from Silos was established in Mexico in 1901. The community of Solesmes have been expelled from their monastery by the French government no less than four times. In the years 1880, 1882, and 1883 they were ejected by force, and, being afforded hospitality in the neighbourhood, kept up their corporate life as far as possible, using the parish church for the Divine Office. Each time they succeeded in re-entering their abbey, but at the final expulsion in 1903 they were, in common with all other religious of France, driven out of the country. The Solesmes monks have settled in the Isle of Wight, England, those of Fontanelle, Glanfeuil, Wisque, and Kergonan have gone to Belgium, those of Ligugé to Spain, and those of Marseilles to Italy. The Fathers at Paris have been allowed to remain, in consideration of the important literary and history work on which they are engaged. This congregation has endeavoured to carry on the work of the Maurists, and numbers many well-known writers amongst its members. The Abbot of Solesmes is the superior general, to which position he has been twice re-elected.

(16) The Congregation of Beuron.—This congregation was founded by Dom Maurus Wolter, who, whilst a seminary professor, was fired with the desire of restoring the Benedictine Order in Germany. He went to St. Paul's, Rome, where he was joined by his two brothers, and all were professed in 1856, one dying soon after. The two survivors, Maurus and Placid, set out in 1860, with a sum of £40 and the pope's blessing, to reconquer Germany for St. Benedict. In 1863, through the influence of the Princess Katharina von Hohenzollern, they obtained possession of the old Abbey of Beuron, near Sigmaringen, which had been originally founded in 777, but was destroyed in the tenth century by Hungarian invaders and later restored as a house of canons regular; it had been unoccupied since 1805. Dom Maurus became the first abbot of Beuron and superior of the congregation. In 1872 a colony was sent to Belgium to found the Abbey of Maredsous, of which Dom Placid was first abbot. The community of Beuron were banished in 1875 by the "May Laws" of the Prussian Government and found a temporary home in an old Servite monastery in the Tyrol. Whilst there their numbers increased sufficiently to make new foundations at Erdington, England, in 1876, Prague in 1880, and Seckau, Styria, in 1883. In 1887 Beuron was restored to them, and since then new houses have been established at Maria Laach, Germany (1892), Louvain, and Billerbeck, Belgium (1899 and 1901), and in 1895 the Portuguese monastery of Cucujães was added to the congregation. The founder died in 1900, and his brother, Dom Placid Wolter, succeeded him as Archabbot of Beuron.

(17) The American Cassinese Congregation.—Nothing very definite can be said with regard to the first Benedictines in North America. There were probably settlements amongst the Eskimo from Iceland, by way of Greenland, but these must have disappeared at an early date. In 1493 a monk from Montserrat accompanied Columbus on his voyage of discovery and became vicar-Apostolic of the West Indies, but his stay was short, and he returned to Spain. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries one or two English monks, and at least one of the Maurist congregation, worked on the American mission; and at the time of the French Revolution negotiations had been commenced by Bishop Carroll, first Bishop of Baltimore, for a settlement of English Benedictines in his diocese, which, however, came to nothing. The Benedictine Order was first established permanently in America by Dom Boniface Wimmer, of the Abbey of Metten, in Bavaria. A number of Bavarians had emigrated to America, and it was suggested that their spiritual wants in the new country should be attended to by Bavarian priests. Dom Wimmer and a few companions accordingly set out in 1846, and on their arrival in America they acquired the church, a house, and some land belong to the small mission of St. Vincent, Beatty, Pennsylvania, which had been founded some time previously by a Franciscan missionary. Here they set to work, establishing conventual life, as far as was possible under the circumstances, and applying themselves assiduously to the work of the mission. Reinforced by more monks from Bavaria and their poverty relieved by some munificent donations, they accepted additional outlying missions and established a large college. In 1855 St. Vincent's, which had already founded two dependent priories was made an abbey and the mother-house of a new congregation, Dom Wimmer being appointed first abbot and president. Besides St. Vincent's Arch-Abbey, the following foundations have been made: St. John's Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota, founded 1856, mainly through the generosity of King Ludwig I of Bavaria; connected with the abbey is a large college for boys, with an attendance of over 300; St. Benedict's Abbey, Atchison, Kansas, founded 1857, said to possess the finest Benedictine church in America, built in the style of the Rhenish churches of the tenth and eleventh centuries; there is in connexion a school with 150 boys; St. Mary's Abbey, Newark, New Jersey, founded 1857, with a school of 100 boys; Maryhelp Abbey, Belmont, North Carolina, founded 1885, the abbot of which is also vicar-Apostolic of North Carolina; attached to the abbey are two colleges and a school, with over 200 students; St. Procopius's Abbey, Chicago, founded 1887, with a school of 50 boys and an orphanage attached; St. Leo's Abbey, Pasco County, Florida, founded 1889; this abbey has a dependent priory in Cuba; St. Bernard's Abbey, Cullman County, Alabama, founded 1891, with a school of over 100 boys; St. Peter's Priory, established in Illinois in 1892 and transferred to Muenster, Saskatchewan, N. W. T., in 1903; St. Martin's Priory, Lacey, the State of Washington, founded 1895.

(18) The Swiss American Congregation.—In 1845 two monks from Einsiedeln in Switzerland came to America and founded the monastery of St. Meinrad, in Indiana, serving the mission and conducting a small school for boys. It became a priory in 1865, and in 1870 was made an abbey and the centre of the congregation which was canonically erected at the same time. The first abbot, Dom Martin Marty, became, in 1879, first Vicar Apostolic of Dakota, where he had some years previously inaugurated mission work amongst the Indians. The following new foundations were made: Conception Abbey, Conception, Missouri (1873), the abbot of the abbey being president of the congregation; New Subiaco Abbey, Spielerville, Arkansas (1878); St. Benedict's Abbey, Mount Angel, Oregon (1882); St. Joseph's Abbey, Covington, Louisiana (1889); St. Mary's Abbey, Richadton, North Dakota (1899); St. Gall's Priory, Devil's Lake (1893), the last two communities subject to the same abbot. To all these monasteries are attached numerous missions, in which the monks exercise the cure of souls. They also have several seminaries and colleges.

(19) The Congregation of St. Ottilien.—This congregation, specially established for the work of foreign missions, was commenced in 1884 in the Abbey of St. Ottilien, in Bavaria, under the title of the "Congregation of the Sacred Heart". It was not then Benedictine, but in 1897 was affiliated to the Cassinese congregation and in 1904 formally incorporated into the Benedictine Order. The Abbot of St. Ottilien is the superior general and the Beuronese Abbot of Seckau the apostolic