Benedict afford.
At the time of the Norman Conquest it may be said that all English
monks were professedly under one and the same Rule--the famous
Benedictine Rule. The Rule of a monastery was the constitution or
code of laws, which regulated the discipline of the house, and the
Rule of St. Benedict dates back as far as the sixth century, though
it was not introduced into England for more than a hundred years
after it had been adopted elsewhere. Four hundred years is a very
long time for any constitution or code of law to last unchanged, and
though the English monasteries professedly were living according to
the Benedictine Rule during all the Saxon and the Danish times, yet
there is too much reason to believe that if St. Benedict could have
risen from the dead in the days of Edward the Confessor and made a
visitation of many an English house, he would have been rather
astonished to be told that the monks were living according to his
Rule.
About one hundred and fifty years before the Conquest, a great
reformation had been attempted of the French monasteries, which it
was said had fallen into a state of great decay as far as discipline
and fervour were concerned, and a revision of the old rule had been
found necessary, the reformers breaking away from the old
Benedictines and subjecting themselves to a new and improved Rule.
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