The Early Stage of Formulation of Benedictine Work Ethic (6th — 9th Centuries)

The history of Benedictine monasticism is a narrative of the application of the Rule of S. Benedict (Regula sancti Benedicti), its interpretation in the normative tradition of monasteries during several centuries. This article examines the very early stage of the formation of this tradition at the beginning of the 9th century, at the root of the medieval Benedictine monasticism. The church reform of Louis the Pious, a part of his renovatio imperii Francorum program, obliged monastic convents which were living in accordance with different statutes to accept the Rule of S. Benedict, uniform for all. It was completely new for most monasteries of the empire, so the imperial synod in Aachen (816) adjusted it to the realities of the 9th century and developed an additional set of clarifications, setting out the main theses of the Rule in the form of recommendations for their practical application. Since the synodal canons were just stating the norm, briefly and in general terms, major abbeys adapted its regulations to their own conditions and needs, giving rise to “local customs” (consuetudines loci), or “statutes” (statuta), the main form of monastic normative tradition. Only one aspect of it was chosen for the study — the regulation of physical labor (labor manuum, opera manuum cotidiana) of monks. The author analyzes in detail the Rule of Benedict, compares its regulations with the instructions for monks to “work with their own hands” in the synodal canons (can. IV, XXVI, XXVII) and the “statutes” of the monasteries of Reichenau and Korby (Statuta Murbacensia, Statuta seu Brevia Adalhardi) and comes to the conclusion that the scope of monastic labor was significantly narrow. In the IXth century, the influence of S. Benedict’s Rule on the local normative tradition can be seen mostly in the assimilation by the aristocratic conventions of Frankish monasteries of the very idea of physical labor as a spiritual value.