that attention to literary pursuits which, though entirely
foreign to the uneducated Benedict and his immediate successors,
afterward became one of the chief ornaments of his order, and in many
cloisters took the place of manual labor.

In other respects the mode of life was to be simple without extreme
rigor, and confined to strictly necessary things. Clothing consisted of
a tunic with a black cowl (whence the name _Black Friars_); the material
to be determined by the climate and season. On the two weekly fast days,
and from the middle of September to Easter, one meal was to suffice for
the day. Each monk is allowed daily a pound of bread and pulse, and,
according to the Italian custom, half a flagon (_hemina_) of wine;
though he is advised to abstain from the wine, if he can do so without
injury to his health. Flesh is permitted only to the weak and sick,[16]
who were to be treated with special care. During the meal some edifying
piece was read, and silence enjoined. The individual monk knows no
personal property, not even his simple dress as such; and the fruits of
his labor go into the common treasury. He should avoid all contact with
the world as dangerous to the soul, and therefore every cloister should
be so arranged as to be able to carry on even the arts and trades
necessary for supplying its wants.[17] Hospitality and other works of
love are especially commanded.

The penalties for transgression of the rule are, first, private
admonition, then exclusion from the fellowship of prayer, next
exclusion from fraternal intercourse, and finally expulsion from the
cloister, after which, however, restoration is possible, even to the
third time.

Benedict had no presentiment of the vast historical importance which his
rule, originally designed simply for the cloister of Monte Cassino, was
destined to attain. He probably never aspired beyond the regeneration
and salvation of his own soul and that of his brother monks, and all the
talk of some later historians about his far-reaching plans of a
political and social regeneration of Europe, and the preservation and
promotion of literature and art, find no support whatever in his life or
in his rule. But he humbly planted a seed which Providence blessed a
hundredfold. By his rule, he became, without his own will or knowledge,
the founder of an order, which, until in the thirteenth century the
Dominicans and Franciscans pressed it partially into the background,
spread with