Ecclesiastical History, an order of monks who profess to follow the rules of St Benedict. The Benedictines, who of all the regular clergy are alone entitled to the appellation of monks, wear a loose black gown with large wide sleeves, and a capuche or cowl on their heads, ending in a point behind. In the canon law they are styled black friars, from the colour of their habit.

The rules of St Benedict, as observed by the English monks before the dissolution of the monasteries, were as follows: The monks of this order were obliged to perform seven times in twenty-four hours, their devotions, the whole circle of which had reference to the passion and death of Christ; they always went two and two together; every day in Lent they fasted till six in the evening, and abated of their usual time of sleeping and eating, but they were not allowed to practise any voluntary austerity without leave of their superior; they never conversed in their refectory at meals, but were obliged to attend to the reading of the Scriptures; and they all slept in the same dormitory, but not two in a bed, and they lay in their clothes. For small faults they were shut out from meals, for greater they were debarred religious commerce and excluded from the chapel; and, as to incorrigible offenders, they were excluded from the monasteries. Every monk had two coats, two cowl, a table-book, a knife, a needle, and a handkerchief; and the furniture of their cells was a mat, a blanket, a rug, and a pillow.

The time when this order came into England is well known; for to it the English owe their conversion from idolatry. In the year 596 Pope Gregory sent hither Augustin, prior of the monastery of St Andrew at Rome, with several other Benedictine monks. Augustin became archbishop of Canterbury, and the Benedictines founded several monasteries in England, as also the metropolitan church of Canterbury, and all the cathedrals that were afterwards erected.

Pope John XXII., who died in 1334, found, after an exact inquiry, that, since the first rise of the order, it had produced 24 popes, near 200 cardinals, 7000 archbishops, 15,000 bishops, 15,000 abbots, above 4000 saints, and upwards of 37,000 monasteries. There have been likewise of this order 20 emperors and 10 empresses, 47 kings and above 50 queens, 20 sons of emperors and 48 sons of kings, above 100 princesses, daughters of kings and emperors, besides dukes, marquises, earls, countesses, &c. innumerable. The order has produced a vast number of eminent writers and other learned men. Rabanus set up the school of Germany; Alcuinus founded the university of Paris; Dionysius Exiguus perfected the ecclesiastical computation; Guido invented the scale of music, Sylvestre the organ; and they boast of having produced Anselmus, Ildephonsus, Venerable Bede, and many others of equal or superior name. There are nuns likewise who follow the rule of St Benedict.