The statistics of the order (1905) show that of Black Benedictines there are over 4000 choir-monks and nearly 2000 lay brothers - figures that have more than doubled since 1880. If the Cistercians and lesser offshoots of the order be added, the sum total of choir-monks and lay brothers exceeds 11,000.
In conclusion a word must be said on the Benedictine nuns. From the beginning the number of women living the Benedictine life has not fallen far short of that of the men. St Gregory describes St Benedict's sister Scholastica as a nun (sanctimonialis), and she is looked upon as the foundress of Benedictine nuns. As the institute spread to other lands nunneries arose on all sides, and nowhere were the Benedictine nuns more numerous or more remarkable than in England, from Saxon times to the Reformation. A strong type of womanhood is revealed in the correspondence of St Boniface with various Saxon Benedictine nuns, some in England and some who accompanied him to the continent and there established great convents. In the early times the Benedictine nuns were not strictly enclosed, and could, when occasion called for it, freely go out of their convent walls to perform any special work: on the other hand, they did not resemble the modern active congregations of women, whose ordinary work lies outside the convent. It has to be said that in the course of the middle ages, especially the later middle ages, grave disorders arose in many convents; and this doubtless led, in the reform movements initiated by the councils of Constance and Basel, and later of Trent, to the introduction of strict enclosure in Benedictine convents, which now is the almost universal practice. At the present day there are of Black Benedictine nuns 262 convents with 7000 nuns, the large majority being directly subject to the diocesan bishops; if the Cistercians and others be included, there are 387 convents with nearly Ii,000 nuns. In England there are a dozen Benedictine nunneries.
Authorities
The chief general authority for Benedictine
history up to the middle of the 12th century is Mabillon's Annales,
in 6 vols. folio; for the later period no such general work exists,
but the various countries, congregations or even abbeys have to be taken
separately. Montalembert's Monks of the West gives the early
history very fully; the later history, to the beginning of the 18th
century, may be found in Helyot, Hist. des ordres religieux, v.
and vi. (1792). A useful sketch, with references to the best literature,
is in Max Heimbucher, Orden and Kongregationen (1896), i. 1728; see also the article "Benedictinerorden" in Wetzer
u. Welter, Kirchenlexicon (2nd ed.), and "Benedikt von Nursia
and der Benediktinerorden," in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie
(3rd ed.). For England see Ethelred Taunton, English Black Monks
(1897); and for the modern history (19th century) the series
entitled "Succisa Virescit" in the Downside Review, 1880
onwards, by J. G. Dolan. On the inner spirit and working of the
institute see F. A. Gasquet, Sketch of Monastic Constitutional
History (being the preface to the 2nd ed., 1895, of the trans. of
Montalembert) and English Monastic Life (1904); and Newman's
two essays on the Benedictines, among the Historical Sketches. On
Benedictine nuns much will be found in the above-mentioned authorities,
and also in Lina Eckenstein, Woman in Monasticism (1896). On
Benedictines and the Arts see F. H. Kraus, Geschichte der
christlichen Kunst (Freiburg-i-B., 1896-1897). (E. C. B.)
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