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Saint Benoît d'Aniane
Abbé d'Aniane et réformateur (+ 821)
Échanson de Charlemagne, ce Wisigoth né en Languedoc deviendra moine à Sainte-Seine l'Abbaye en Bourgogne avant de retourner dans son pays natal pour y fonder une abbaye sur les bords de l'Aniane. Au moment du concile d'Aix la Chapelle en 817, il préside une réunion de tous les Pères abbés bénédictins de l'empire carolingien pour la concordance des Règles bénédictines.
Dès la deuxième moitié du VIIIe siècle, les monastères souffrent beaucoup des guerres qui opposent Pépin le Bref au duc Waïffre. Une réforme monastique est nécessaire et elle est réalisée dans la première moitié du IXe siècle par Saint Benoît d’Aniane qui impose la règle bénédictine. (Les origines monastiques - diocèse de Limoges)
Au monastère Saint-Corneille d’Inden en Germanie, l’an 821, le trépas de saint Benoît d’Aniane, qui propagea la Règle de saint Benoît, donna aux moines les coutumes à observer et travailla beaucoup à restaurer la liturgie romaine.
Martyrologe romain
SOURCE : http://nominis.cef.fr/contenus/saint/611/Saint-Benoit-d-Aniane.html
Saint Benoît d'Aniane, abbé d'Aniane et réformateur
Ce Wisigoth né au milieu du VIII° siècle en Languedoc, après un passage à la cour de Charlemagne où il assume des fonctions prestigieuses, deviendra moine à Sainte-Seine-l'Abbaye en Bourgogne où il change son de Vitiza en celui de Benoît. Il retourne quelques années plus tard dans son pays natal pour y fonder un monastère sur les bords de l'Aniane. Ayant travaillé à découvrir les différentes traditions monastiques (saint Pacôme, saint Basile, etc.), il est fasciné par l’équilibre de la règle de saint Benoît de Nursie. Son cheminement spirituel et sa volonté réformatrice rejoignent merveilleusement l’intuition des carolingiens désireux d’unifier la vie monastique en Occident. Il sera ainsi l’inspirateur du concile d'Aix la Chapelle en 817, qui vise à imposer la règle bénédictine comme la norme des abbayes de l’empire. Benoît d’Aniane mourut le 11 février 821 dans le monastère d’Inda que Louis le Pieux avait fait construire pour lui à proximité de sa cour d’Aix-la-Chapelle
Pierre Riché. Histoire des Saints, tome V, p. 82-84
La Regula de Benoît d’Aniane est essentiellement une adaptation de la Règle de Benoît de Nursie aux conditions de l’Empire Carolingien : c’est une recension de « coutumes ». « Ces coutumes, dit Guy de Valous, ne sont pas autre chose qu’un commentaire pratique de la Règle de saint Benoît, en particulier des points auxquels le législateur n’a pas donné une extension suffisante. Ainsi, nombre d’articles de la Regula de Benoît d’Aniane ne sont qu’une élimination de prescriptions impraticables ou surannées ; certains sont motivés par les conditions climatiques, d’autres par les conditions sociales et politiques du IX° siècle. Benoît d’Aniane, pour lutter contre les abbés laïcs, limite les pouvoirs abbatiaux que Benoît de Nursie avait étendus pour contrôler l’individualisme et empêcher l’indiscipline. Il faut mettre ces articles en rapport avec les droits acquis les années suivantes, notamment pour certains monastères, le libre choix de l’Abbé par les moines, et, pour d’autres, la séparations des menses abbatiales et monastiques, de façon à éviter la dissipation des ressources des moines par des bénéficiaires indélicats. Il faut aussi adapter la Règle de saint Benoît de Nursie pour réglementer les voyages aux synodes des Abbés et des moines, et enfin la rendre compatible avec un monachisme « de masse », un monachisme qui est devenu une puissance économique souvent considérable, et qui est à présent installé dans certaines villes (Lyon, Arles,…) quand il n’a pas donné naissance à des « cités de Dieu », telle celle de Saint-Riquier, véritables petits états.
Dans ces conditions, comment ne pas s’étonner que
nombre de vocations aient été suspectes, et que nombre de postulants,
encouragés par l’exemple d’Abbés ou d’évêques, se soient empressés de tourner
recommandations et réglementations ? Benoît d’Aniane a connu bien des
situations désastreuses et a dû lutter contre les prébendaires et les moines
venus en religion pour fuir les malheurs du temps. Cela explique la minutie
parfois déconcertante des précisions et le « ritualisme » dont on a
souvent accusé Benoît d’Aniane.
SOURCE : http://www.abbaye-tournay.com/2015/02/memoire-de-saint-benoit-daniane-2/
Saint Benoit de Nursie tenant le livre de la « Règle »
et saint Benoît d’Aniane tenant le modèle du monastère d'Aniane, Bas-relief du
XVIIe siècle, église de Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert).
Saint Benedict of Aniane
Also
known as
- Benedict
of Anian
- Euticius
- Witiza
- the
Second Benedict
- 12 February
- 11 February on some calendars
Profile
Born a Visigoth, the son
of Aigul, Count of
Maguelone. Educated at the court of Pepin. Courtier and cup-bearer
to King Pepin and Blessed Charlemagne. Part of the 773 campaign of Charlemagne. Narrowly escaped drowning in the Tesin
near Pavia, Italy while trying to
save his brother.
Benedictine monk at Saint Sequanus monastery where he took the
name Benedict. Lived two and one half years on bread and water,
sleeping on the bare ground, praying through the night,
and going barefoot.
In the Frankish empire, monasticism suffered lay ownership and the
attacks of the Vikings. Monastic discipline
decayed. In 779 Benedict founded
the Aniane monastery on his own land;
the monks did manual labor, copied manuscripts,
lived on bread and water except on Sundays and great feast days when they
added wine or milk, if they received any in alms. The results of his
austere rule were disappointing, so he adopted the Benedictine Rule, and the monastery grew. He then
reformed and inaugurated other houses; Saint Ardo travelled with him and
served as his secretary.
Bishop Felix of Urgel
proposed that Christ was not the natural, but only the adoptive son of God (Adoptionism); Benedict opposed
this heresy, wrote against it, and
assisted in the Synod of Frankfurt in 794.
Emperor Louis the Pious built the abbey of Maurmunster as
a model abbey for Benedict
in Alsace, France, and then
Cornelimunster near Aachen, Germany, then made Benedict
director of all the monasteries in the empire.
The monk instituted
widespread reforms, though because of opposition they were not as drastic as he
had wanted.
Participated in the
synods in Aachen. Benedict was an
advisor and supported of the emperor. Wrote the Capitulare monasticum, a systematization of
the Benedictine Rule as the rule for
all monks in the empire.
Compiled the Codex regularum, a collection of all monastic regulations,
and Concordia regularum, showing the resemblance of Benedict’s
rule to those of other monastic leaders. The rules
stressed individual poverty and chastity with obedience to
a properly constituted abbot, himself a monk. Benedict insisted upon
the liturgical character of monastic life, including a
daily Conventual Mass and additions to
the Divine Office. He stressed the clerical element in monasticism which led to the
development of teaching and writing as opposed to
manual labor in the field. This
direction lapsed some after Benedict’s death, but had lasting
effects on Western monasticism. Benedict is considered
the restorer of Western monasticism and is often
called “the second Benedict”.
Born
- 11 February 821 at Cornelimunster, Aachen, Germany of natural causes
- buried on 12 February 821
- Benedictine abbot with supernatural fire near him
- man in a cave with food being lowered to him in a basket
- man giving the habit to Saint William of
Aquitaine
Additional Information
- Book of Saints, by the Monks of Ramsgate
- Catholic
Encyclopedia, by J P
Kirsch
- Lives of the
Saints, by Father Alban Butler
- New Catholic Dictionary
- Pictorial Lives of the Saints
- Saints of the Day, by Katherine Rabenstein
- Saints of the
Order of Saint Benedict, by Father Aegedius Ranbeck, O.S.B.
- books
- other
sites in english
- images
- sitios
en español
- Martirologio Romano, 2001 edición
- fonti
in italiano
- nettsteder
i norsk
- spletne
strani v slovenšcini
MLA Citation
- “Saint Benedict of
Aniane“. CatholicSaints.Info. 14 November 2020. Web. 12
February 2021.
<https://catholicsaints.info/saint-benedict-of-aniane/>
SOURCE https://catholicsaints.info/saint-benedict-of-aniane/
St. Benedict of Aniane
Born about 745-750; died at Cornelimünster, 11
February, 821. Benedict, originally known as Witiza, son of
theGoth, Aigulf, Count of Maguelone in Southern France,
was educated at
the Frankish court
of Pepin, and entered the royal service. He took part in
the Italian campaign of Charlemagne (773),
after which he left his royal master to enter the religious
life, and was received into the monastery of
St. Sequanus (Saint-Seine). He gave himself most zealously to
practices of asceticism, and learned to value the Rule
of St. Benedict as the best foundation for the monastic
life. Returning home in 779, he established on his own land near the little
river of Aniane a newmonastic settlement, which soon developed
into a great monastery,
under the name of Aniane, and became the model and centre of
the monastic reform in France,
introduced by Louis the Pious. The emperor's chief adviser
was Benedict, and the general adoption of the Rule
of St. Benedict in the monasteries of
the Empire was the most important step towards the
reform. Benedict took a prominent part in the synods held
in Aachen in 816 and 817, the results of which were embodied in the
important prescriptions for the restoration
of monastic discipline, dated10
July, 817; he was the enthusiastic leader of these assemblies, and he himself
reformed many monasteries on
the lines laid down in the ordinances promulgated there.
In order to have him in the vicinity of his royal residence, Louis had
founded on the Inde, a stream near Aachen,
the Abbey of Cornelimünster, which was to be an exemplar for all other abbeys,
and to be under the guidance of Benedict. In
the dogmatic controversy over Adoptionism,
under the leadership of Felix of Urgel, Benedict took
the part of orthodoxy.
To promote the monasticreforms, he compiled a collection of monastic rules.
A pupil of his, the monk Ardo,
wrote a biography of the great abbot.
Sources
Kirsch, Johann Peter. "St. Benedict of
Aniane." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. New York:
Robert Appleton Company,1907. 11 Feb.
2016 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02467a.htm>.
Transcription. This article was transcribed for
New Advent by Steve Fanning.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil
Obstat. 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John M.
Farley, Archbishop of New York.
Copyright © 2020 by Kevin
Knight. Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
BENEDICT OF ANIANE: The reformer of the
Benedictine order in the Frankish empire. He was born about 750 in his father's
county of Maguelone in Languedoc; d. at Inden (13 m. n.e. of Aix-la-Chapelle)
Feb. 11, 821. His youth was spent at the court of Pepin and of Charlemagne,
where, as a page, he had opportunity to distinguish himself in feats of arms.
During Charles's first Lombard campaign, Benedict rescued his brother from
drowning at the risk of his-own life, and the shock brought to a head the
resolve which had been slowly forming in him, to renounce the world and give
himself to the service of God in the monastic life. This he entered in 773 at
SaintSeine in the diocese of Langres. Returning home in 779, he built a small monastery
on his own land near the little river Aniane (where the town of Aniane, 16 m.
w.n.w. of Montpellier, later grew up), which was replaced by a larger one lower
down when the number of his disciples increased, and by a third still larger
about 792. This became the center of Benedict's efforts for the reformation of
the monastic life in the south and southwest of France. King Louis of
Aquitaine, who had favored him from the outset, entrusted him with the
oversight of all the monasteries within his territory, and the greatest
churchmen, such as Alcuin and Leidrad of Lyons, sought his counsel. He had a
wide knowledge of patristic literature, and forwarded the cause of education
with zeal. He stood out as a champion of the orthodox faith against Adoptionism,
and wrote two treatises against it, the first of which is specially interesting
as showing how close was the practical connection between Adoptionism and
Arianism. His influence became still wider with the accession of Louis the
Pious, who first brought him up to the Alsatian abbey of Maurmünster, and then,
to have him nearer at hand, founded another for him at Inden, giving him the
general oversight of all the monasteries in the empire. He could now hope to
accomplish his great purpose of restoring the primitive strictness of the
monastic observance wherever it had been relaxed or exchanged for the less
exacting canonical life. This purpose was clearly seen in the capitularies
drawn up by an assembly of abbots and monks at Aix-la-Chapelle in 817, and enforced
by Louis's order throughout the empire.
Benedict's chief works are compilations of the older ascetic literature. The first of them is called by his biographer, Ardo, Liber ex regulis diversorum patrum collectus; an enlarged edition of this was prepared by Lucas Holsten (published at Rome only after Holsten's death, in 1661, with the title Codex regularum). The other work, called Concordia regularum by Benedict himself, is based on the first; in it the sections of the Benedictine rule (except ix-xvi) are given in their order, with parallel passages from the other rules included in the Liber regularum, so as to show the agreement of principles and thus to enhance the respect due to the Benedictine. The Concordia was first published in 1638 by H. Menard of the Congregation of St. Maur, with valuable notes (reprinted in MPL, ciii). A third collection of homilies, to be read daily in the monasteries, has not been definitely identified. Benedict's place is in the second rank of the men who made the reigns of Charles and Louis glorious. He had not the breadth of view possessed by Charlemagne himself or by Adalhard nor the lofty endeavor for a fusion of secular and spiritual learning of Paulus Diaconus and Alcuin. He was primarily an ecclesiastic, who zealously placed his not inconsiderable theological learning at the service of orthodoxy, but gave the best thing he had, the loving fervor of an upright Christian soul, to the cause of Benedictine monasticism.
OTTO SEEBASS.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: The Vita by Ardo Smaragdus,
his successor as abbot, with preface by Henschen, is in ASB, 12 Feb.,
ii, 608-620, in MPL, ciii, and is edited by Waitz in MGH,
Script., xv, 198-220, Hanover, 1887. There is a Fr. transl.,
Montpellier, 1876. P. A. J. Paulinier, St. Benoît d'Aniane et la fondation
du monastère de ce nom, Montpellier, 1871; P. J. Nicolai, Der heilige
Benedict, Gründer von Aniane, Cologne, 1865; R. Foss, Benadikt von
Aniane, Berlin, 1884; O. Seebass, in ZKG, xv (1895), 244-260;
Hauck, KD, ii. 528-545.
SOURCE : http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/encyc02/htm/iv.iv.xcviii.htm
Benedict of Aniane and Reform Efforts
Still, it must be admitted, degeneration was ever followed by reform, and these revivals, never failing when exactly needed, provide us with the strongest proof of the inherent vitality of the Benedictine Institute. The first of these movements of reform was the work of Benedict of Aniane, whose labors received a helping hand from Charlemagne and his son the Emperor Louis.
Benedict's aims were as clear and simple as they were praiseworthy and sincere, but at the same time the results they achieved were only indirectly good at best. The reason for this phenomenon is obvious to us now, and it is with reluctance that we have to admit that the cause of failure lies in an attempt to change the Benedictine Rule in one of its most essential features.
Benedict the Founder had provided that each monastery should be separate and independent; Benedict the Reformer aimed at the closest unity, and so rigid a uniformity that it should be as if "all had been taught by one single master in one single spot." These, in fact, were the principles which underlay the resolutions of the famous Assembly at Aix in July 817. Efforts were not spared to put these resolutions into practice by means that, we can readily believe, must have caused some hesitating doubts even in the mind of the earnest Benedict himself.
We must not, however, be too ready to criticize the suggestions of the Aix Assembly. As we have seen above, some measure of unity might have been a useful change; but iron uniformity itself could never have achieved success, even though, in fact, it paved the way for amelioration in a direction we shall indicate.
St. Benedict himself when he wrote his Rule made ample provision for any change of detail that circumstances might demand, and he frequently insisted that matters should be settled in a different way from that which he had laid down, according to the discretion of the abbot. His code, he felt, would often need additions, often perhaps modifications, for no law was ever made whose exact interpretation could be fitted at once to every case arising.
Methods of observance would naturally grow up and crystallize, according to the habits and customs of the different peoples, and it was precisely for the purpose of embodying these various customs into a draft of what we now call constitutions that the fathers assembled at Aix legislated. With this estimable intent they published the eighty Capitula, and it is impossible not to recognize that there was much of what was good and helpful in them for every monastery, no matter where it was.
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ST BENEDICT OF ANIAN, ABBOT (A-D-821)
Feast: February 12
From his life, written with great piety, gravity, and erudition by St. Ardo Smaragdus, his disciple, to whom he committed the government of his Monastery of Anian, when he was called by the emperor near the court. Ardo died March the 7th, in 843, and is honoured at Anian among the saints. He is not to be confounded with Smaragdus, Abbot in the diocese of Verdun, author of a commentary on the rule of St. Bennet. This excellent life is published by Dom Menard, at the head of St. Bennet's Concordia Regularum; by Henschenius, Feb. 12 and by Dom Mabillon, Acta SS. Ben. vol. v. pp. 191, 217. See Helyot, Hist. des Ord. Relig. t. 5. p. 139. See also Bulteau, Hist. de l'Ord de St. Benoit, l.5, c. 2, p. 342; Eckart de Reb. Fran. t. 2, pp. 117, 163.
He was son of Aigulf, Count or Governor of Languedoc, and served King Pepin and his son Charlemagne in quality of cup-bearer, enjoying under them great honours and possessions. Grace made him sensible of the vanity of all perishable goods, and at twenty years of age he took a resolution of seeking the kingdom with his whole heart. From that time he led a most mortified life in the court itself for three years, eating very sparingly and of the coarsest fare, allowing himself very little sleep, and mortifying all his senses. In 774, having narrowly escaped being drowned in the Tesin, near Pavia, in endeavouring to save his brother, he made a vow to quit the world entirely. Returning to Languedoc, he was confirmed in his resolution by the pious advice of a hermit of great merit and virtue, called Widmar; and under a pretext of going to the court at Aix-la-Chapelle, he went to the Abbey of St. Seine, five leagues from Dijon, and having sent back all his attendants, became a monk there. He spent two years and a half in wonderful abstinence, treating his body as a furious wild beast, to which he would show no other mercy than barely not to kill it. He took no other sustenance on any account but bread and water; and when overcome with weariness, he allowed himself nothing softer than the bare ground whereon to take a short rest, thus making even his repose a continuation of penance. He frequently passed the whole night in prayer, and stood barefoot on the ground in the sharpest cold. He studied to make himself contemptible by all manner of humiliations, and received all insults with joy, so perfectly was he dead to himself. God bestowed on him an extraordinary spirit of compunction, and the gift of tears, with an infused knowledge of spiritual things to an eminent degree. Not content to fulfil the rule of St. Benedict in its full rigour, he practiced all the severest observances prescribed by the rules of St. Pachomius and St. Basil. Being made cellarist, he was very solicitous to provide for others whatever St. Benedict's rule allowed, and had a particular care of the poor and of the guests.
His brethren, upon the abbot's death, were disposed to choose our saint, but he being unwilling to accept of the charge on account of their known aversion to a reformation, left them, and returned to his own country, Languedoc, in 780, where he built a small hermitage near a chapel of St. Saturninus, on the brook Anian, near the river Eraud, upon his own estate. Here he lived some years in extreme poverty, praying continually that God would teach him to do his will, and make him faithfully correspond with his eternal designs. Some solitaries, and with them the holy man Widmar, put themselves under his direction, though he long excused himself. They earned their livelihood by their labour, and lived on bread and water, except on Sunday and solemn festivals, on which they added a little wine and milk when it was given in alms. The holy superior did not exempt himself from working with the rest in the fields, either carrying wood or ploughing; and sometimes he copied good books. The number of his disciples increasing, he quitted the valley and built a monastery in a more spacious place, in that neighbourhood. He showed his love-of poverty by his rigorous practice of it; for he long used wooden, and afterwards glass or pewter, chalices at the altar; and if any presents of silk or ornaments were made him, he gave them to other churches. However, he some time after changed his way of thinking with respect to the church; built a cloister and a stately church, adorned with marble pillars, furnished it with silver chalices and rich ornaments, and bought a great number of books. He had in a short time three hundred religious under his direction, and also exercised a general inspection over all the monasteries of Provence, Languedoc, and Gascony, which respected him as their common parent and master. At last he remitted something in the austerities of the reformation he had introduced among them. Felix, bishop of Urgel, had advanced that Christ was not the natural, but only the adoptive son of the eternal Father. St. Benedict most learnedly opposed this heresy, and assisted, in 794, at the council assembled against it at Frankfort. He employed his pen to confute the same, in four treatises, published in the miscellanies of Balusius.
Benedict was become the oracle of the whole kingdom, and he established his reformation in many great monasteries with little or no opposition. His most illustrious colony was the Monastery of Gellone, founded in 804 by William, Duke of Aquitain, who retired into it himself, whence it was called St. Guillem du Desert. By the councils held under Charlemagne, in 813, and by the Capitulars of that prince, published the same year, it was ordained that the canons should live according to the canons and laws of the church, and the monks according to the rule of St. Bennet, by which regulation an uniformity was introduced in the monastic order in the West. The emperor Louis Debonnair, who succeeded his father on the 28th of January, 814 committed to the saint the inspection of all the abbeys in his kingdom. To have him nearer his own person, the emperor obliged him to live in the Abbey of Marmunster, in Alsace; and as this was still too remote, desirous of his constant assistance in his councils, he built the monastery of Inde, two leagues from Aix-le-Chapelle, the residence of the emperor and court. Notwithstanding St. Benedict's constant abode in this monastery, he had still a hand in restoring monastic discipline throughout France and Germany, as he also was the chief instrument in drawing up the canons for the reformation of prebendaries and monks in the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle in 817, and presided in the; assembly of abbots the same year, to enforce restoration of discipline. His statutes were adopted by the order, and annexed to the rule of St. Benedict, the founder. He wrote, whilst a private monk at Seine, the Code of Rules, being a collection of all the monastic regulations which he found extant; as also a book of homilies for the use of monks, collected, according to the custom of that age, from the works of the fathers; likewise a Penitential, printed in the additions to the Capitulars. In his Concord of Rules he gives that of St. Bennet, with those of other patriarchs of the monastic order, to show their uniformity in the exercises which they prescribe. This great restorer of the monastic order in the West, worn out at length with mortification and fatigues, suffered much from continual sickness the latter years of his life. He [e died at Inde, with extraordinary tranquillity and cheerfulness, on the 11th of February, 821, being then about seventy-one years of age, and was buried in the same monastery, since called St. Cornelius's, the church being dedicated to that holy pope and martyr. At Anian his festival is kept on the 11th, but by most other Martyrologies on the 12th of February, the day of his burial. His relics remain in the Monastery of St. Cornelius, or of Inde, in the duchy of Cleves, and have been honoured with miracles.
St. Bennet, by the earnestness with which he set himself to study the spirit of his holy rule and state, gave a proof of the ardour with which he aspired to Christian perfection. The experienced masters of a spiritual life, and the holy legislators of monastic institutes, have in view the great principles of an interior life, which the gospel lays down; for in the exercises which they prescribe powerful means are offered by which a soul may learn perfectly to die to herself, and be united in all her powers to God. This dying to and profound annihilation of ourselves is of such importance that so long as a soul remains in this state, though all the devils in hell were leagued together, they can never hurt her. All their efforts will only make her sink more deeply in this feeling knowledge of herself, in which she finds her strength, her repose, and her joy, because by it she is prepared to receive the divine grace; and if self-love be destroyed, the devil can have no power over us, for he never makes any successful attacks upon us but by the secret intelligence which he holds with this domestic enemy. The crucifixion of the old man, and perfect disengagement of the heart, by the practice of universal self-denial, is absolutely necessary before a soul can ascend the mountain of the God of Jacob, on which his infinite majesty is seen, separated from all creatures; as Blosius,[1] and all other directors in the paths of an interior life, strongly inculcate.
Endnotes
1 Instit. Spir c. 1, n. 6, &c.
(Taken from Vol. I of "The Lives or the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints" by the Rev. Alban Butler, the 1864 edition published by D. & J. Sadlier, & Company)
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Benedict of Aniane, OSB Abbot Hermit (AC)
Born in Languedoc, France, 750; died at Cornelimuenster, Aachen, Germany, February 11, 821; feast day formerly on February 12.
The son of the Visigoth Aigulf, count or governor of Maguelone, Witiza was cup-bearer to King Pepin and Charlemagne and served in the army of Lombardy. About age 20 he made a resolution to seek the kingdom of God with his whole heart. For three years more he served at the court while mortifying his body.
In 774, having narrowly escaped drowning in the Tesin near Pavia while trying to save his brother during a military campaign in Lombardy, Italy, he made a vow to quit the world entirely. Witiza became a Benedictine monk at Saint-Seine near Dijon, France, where he took the name Benedict and was appointed cellarer. He spent two and one half years there living on bread and water, sleeping on the bare ground, often praying throughout the night, and going barefoot even in winter. He received insults with joy, so perfectly had he died to self. God bestowed upon him the gift of tears and an infused knowledge of spiritual things.
When the abbot died he refused the abbacy offered him there because he knew his brothers were unwilling to reform. In 779 Benedict returned to his estate at Languedoc, where he lived as a hermit near the brook of Aniane (Coriere), attracted numerous disciples including the holy man Widmar, and in 782 built a monastery and a church. The monks employed themselves in manual labor and copying manuscripts. They lived on bread and water except on Sundays and great feast days when they added wine or milk if they received any in alms. The results of his austere rule combining those of Benedict, Pachomius, and Basil were disappointing, so he adopted the Benedictine Rule and the monastery grew. From here his influence spread. He reformed and inaugurated other houses.
When Bishop Felix of Urgel proposed that Christ was not the natural, but only the adoptive son of the eternal Father (Adoptionism), Benedict opposed this heresy and assisted in the Council (synod) of Frankfurt in 794. He also employed his pen to refute this heresy in four treatises, which were published in the miscellanies of Balusius.
Throughout the Frankish empire monasticism had suffered from the dual evils of lay ownership and the attacks of the Vikings. Monastic discipline had decayed regardless of the efforts of 8th and 9th century emperors who had legislated in favor of the Rule of Saint Benedict as the fundamental and stable code of conduct throughout their domains.
Benedict of Aniane and Emperor Louis the Pious cooperated with each other to mutual benefit. The emperor, who built the abbey of Maurmünster as a model abbey for Benedict in Alsace and then Cornelimünster (initially called Inde) near Aachen (Aix-la- Chapelle, Germany), made Benedict director of all the monasteries in the empire. The monk instituted widespread reforms, though because of opposition they were not as drastic as he had wanted.
And Benedict supported the emperor, first by moving closer to his throne at Aachen. Then, at Aachen, he presided over a meeting of all the abbots of the empire in 817--a turning point in Benedictine history. During the meeting Benedict's Capitulare monasticum, a systematization of the Benedictine Rule was approved as the rule for all monks in the empire. He also compiled the Codex regularum, a collection of all monastic regulations, and Concordia regularum, showing the resemblance of Benedict's rule to those of other monastic leaders.
The legislation emphasized the fundamental guidelines of the Benedictine Rule, stressing individual poverty and chastity with obedience to a properly constituted abbot, who was himself a monk. Under imperial pressure for uniformity in food, drink, clothing, and the Divine Office (which can be compared with Charlemagne's insistence on the Roman Rite), there was also some attempt to impose monastic observance in less important details. Benedict insisted upon the liturgical character of monastic life, including a daily conventual Mass and additions to the Divine Office. He also stressed the clerical element in monasticism which led to the development of teaching and writing as opposed to manual labor in the field. This innovative systematizing and centralization fell into desuetude after the death of Benedict and his patron Louis, but it had lasting effects on Western monasticism. The influence of his reforms can be seen in the reforms of Cluny and Gorze. For this reason, Benedict is considered the restorer of Western monasticism and is often called the 'second Benedict.'
Benedict died with extraordinary tranquility and cheerfulness at about age 71 and was buried in the monastery church, where his relics remain and are attributed with the working of miracles (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney, Farmer, Husenbeth, Walsh).
In art, Saint Benedict is portrayed as a Benedictine abbot with supernatural fire near him. Sometimes he is shown (1) in a cave, food lowered to him in a basket (this is more generally Saint Benedict himself), or (2) giving the habit to Saint William of Aquitaine. He is venerated at Dijon (Saint-Seine) and Aniane (Languedoc) (Roeder).
SOURCE : http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/0211.shtml
Pictorial
Lives of the Saints – Saint Benedict of Anian
Benedict
was the son of Aigulf, Governor of Languedoc, and was born about 750. In his
early youth he served as cupbearer to King Pepin and his son Charlemagne,
enjoying under them great honors and possessions. Grace entered his soul at the
age of twenty, and he resolved to seek the kingdom of God with his whole heart.
Without relinquishing his place at court, he lived there a most mortified life
for three years; then a narrow escape from drowning made him vow to quit the
world, and he entered the cloister of Saint Seine. In reward for his heroic
austerities in the monastic state, God bestowed upon him the gift of tears, and
inspired him with a knowledge of spiritual things. As procurator, he was most
careful of the wants of the brethren, and most hospitable to the poor and to
guests. Declining to accept the abbacy, he built himself a little hermitage on
the brook Anian, and lived some years in great solitude and poverty. But the
fame of his sanctity drawing many souls around him, he was obliged to build a
large abbey, and within a short time governed three hundred monks. He became
the great restorer of monastic discipline throughout France and Germany. First,
he drew up with immense labor a code of the rules of Saint Benedict, his great
namesake, which he collated with those of the chief monastic founders, showing
the uniformity of the exercises in each, and enforced by his “Penitential” their
exact observance; secondly, he minutely regulated all matters regarding food,
clothing, and every detail of life; and thirdly, by prescribing the same for
all, he excluded jealousies and insured perfect charity. In a Provincial
Council held in 813, under Charlemagne, at which he was present, it was
declared that all monks of the West should adopt the rule of Saint Benedict. He
died February 11, 821.
Reflection – The decay of monastic discipline, and its
restoration by Saint Benedict, prove that none are safe from loss of fervor,
but that all can regain it by fidelity to grace.
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/pictorial-lives-of-the-saints-saint-benedict-of-anian/
Saints
of the Order of Saint Benedict – Saint Benedict of Anian, Abbot
Through lapse of years the discipline of monastic
houses in Gaul had much degenerated from the original stringency of Saint
Benedict’s Rule, that was introduced by Saint Maurus. It was Saint Benedict of
Anian who was destined by Heaven to again restore it. He was born in
Septimania1 of Gothic parents. His father, Aigulf, Count of Languedoc, had done
such good service against the Gascons, that King Pepin’s Queen had young
Benedict brought up at the palace among the sons of the chief nobles. When old
enough, he became the King’s cup-bearer, and subsequently fought with
distinction in the wars of Pepin and Charles. Fearing, however, that salvation
was difficult to gain amid the bloodshed and rapine of war, he laid down his
sword, and, to prepare himself for the monastic state, for three whole years he
mortified himself in his own home by watchings and by fasting. Having then
entered the Monastery of Sequanus, his food for two years consisted of cold
water and dry bread only. Wine he refrained from as if it were poison; he was
sparing of sleep, and in the dead of night, even in midwinter, he used to
stand, with bare feet, in prayer till the soles of his feet were often frozen
to the ground. His humility and austerity excited the scoffs and jeers of his
weaker brethren, yet his patient endurance so won the respect of all, that five
years later, on the death of the Abbot, Benedict was unanimously elected to
succeed him. Being unwilling to make trial of the strict Rule among those
averse to reform, he fled secretly from the Monastery to Septimania, and near
the little river Anian shut himself up in a cell with one chosen companion,
Widmar.
The fame of his sanctity drew numbers to this
neighbourhood, and for their shelter he built a Monastery of the rudest
materials. The poverty and ascetical life of these Religious excited the
charitable to vie with one another in bestowing on them houses, farms, and
vineyards. Wealth, as usual, soon attracted robbers. One, who came on foot and
was hospitably entertained, took a horse with him when leaving. The thief was
caught by the neighbours, and, after being soundly beaten, was handed over to
the Abbot for punishment. The Saint, however, called a surgeon, had the
wretch’s wounds seen to, and, when he was cured, dismissed him with a gift.
The Felician heresy then raging in Spain had
penetrated into Septimania, but was completely driven out of that province by
the preaching of Saint Benedict. After this our Saint was distinguished by
miracles. A fire broke out in a house next the Lady Chapel, and streams of
water failed to extinguish it, till Saint Benedict by his prayers quelled the
conflagration; his mere presence checked the spread of the flames, which,
caused by sparks from the burning house, threatened to destroy the vineyards
and monastic buildings.
Meantime Saint Benedict, thinking it time to
reorganise the constitutions of the Order, after having caused the archives of
the various Monasteries, especially of Monte Cassino, to be consulted, drew up
the Concordia Regularum. Charlemagne and his son Louis nobly seconded our
Saint’s efforts by ordering that all the Monasteries throughout the Empire
should observe as much of the old Benedictine Rule as Saint Benedict of Anian
recommended. When discipline was thus happily restored in monastic houses,
Louis wished to have Saint Benedict come to Court in order to benefit by his
advice in affairs of state. The Saint consented, because he thought he could
thus best help the poor, the suffering, and the injured. He grew old in the performance
of these arduous labours, till a dangerous fever compelled him to leave the
palace at the age of seventy. When dying, he exhorted his brethren to strict
observance of the Rule, and to mortification, assuring them that never, during
the forty years he had been a Monk, had he breakfasted or dined without bitter
tears at the grace before meals. His death took place A.D. 821. During the last
century his relics still reposed in the Monastery of Saint Cornelius or of Jude
in the Duchy of Cleves.
– text and illustration taken from Saints
of the Order of Saint Benedict by Father Aegedius
Ranbeck, O.S.B.
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/saints-of-the-order-of-saint-benedict-saint-benedict-of-anian-abbot/
San Benedetto d'Aniane Abate
Maguelonne (Francia), 750 - Cornelimünster
(Aquisgrana, Germania), febbraio 821
Il «primo grande padre del monachesimo di stripe
germanica», antesignano della riforma cluniacense, era nato come Witiza
(Vitizia) nel 750 in una nobile famiglia visigota del Sud francese. Venne
mandato a studiare alla corte di Pipino il Breve. Entrò poi nell'esercito di
Carlo Magno, combattendo in Italia contro i Longobardi. Qui salvò, a rischio
della sua vita, un fratello caduto nel Ticino. Questo fatto lo segnò. Tornò in
Francia ed entrò nel monastero di San Sequano, vicino Digione. Ne fu abate, ma
i confratelli non sopportavano la sua austerità. Allora lui se ne andò e fondò
un suo monastero ad Aniane, presso Montpellier. La comunità fiorì. Morto Carlo
Magno, divenne consigliere di Ludovico il Pio. Trascorse gli ultimi anni
nell'abbazia di Inden, oggi Cornelimüster, vicino alla residenza imperiale di
Aquisgrana, dove morì nell'821. Di lì, nell'817, dettò un esempio di quelle che
oggi si chiamano Costituzioni.
Martirologio Romano: A Kornelimünster in
Germania, transito di san Benedetto, abate di Aniane, che propagò la regola di
san Benedetto, affidò ai monaci le consuetudini da osservare e si adoperò molto
per il rinnovamento della liturgia romana.
Nome originario: Vitizia. E’ nato nella potente famiglia di Agilulfo, un nobile di origine visigotica che governa il territorio di Maguelonne, nel Sud della Francia, al tempo dei re franchi Pipino il Breve e poi Carlo Magno. Educato a corte, nel 774 segue l’esercito di Carlo Magno, che viene in Italia per combattere contro i Longobardi; e un giorno rischia anche di affogare nel Ticino, presso Pavia, tentando di salvare un suo fratello caduto nei gorghi del fiume.
Dopo questo fatto, che egli considera prodigioso, Vitizia torna in Francia con un monaco cieco, di nome Vidmaro, e insieme con lui entra nel monastero borgognone di San Sequano (St. Seine), dove prende il nome di Benedetto. Passano cinque anni piuttosto contrastati: gli altri monaci non sopportano la severità della sua vita; e tuttavia, quando muore l’abate in carica, vogliono lui come successore.
Ma Benedetto se ne va: questa gente non gli piace. E rieccolo nel Sud della Francia, ad Aniane, presso Montpellier, dove fonda per conto suo un monastero. Nella Francia dell’epoca ci sono comunità monastiche governate dalla regola di san Benedetto da Norcia, e altre che si ispirano all’irlandese san Colombano; e non mancano poi quelli che si ispirano al monachesimo anacoretico orientale. Benedetto si avvicina dapprima a questi ultimi; ma alla fine non si ritrova nel loro aspro ascetismo individuale e adotta il modello benedettino, che ritiene più in sintonia con i tempi e con la tradizione dell’Occidente. Benedetto è un uomo che agisce come predica.
Detta norme severe ed è lui per primo a osservarle, ancora prima di esigerne l’osservanza dagli altri. Anche se poi si accorge che quelle norme così severe impongono troppa preghiera, a scapito del lavoro. Uno squilibrio di vita che mette in crisi l’economia dei monasteri e anche la loro indipendenza dal potere imperiale.
Benedetto, con la sua volontà e il suo esempio, non
giunge a realizzare il sogno di comunità austerissime e libere. Ma mette un
freno al rilassamento, con tutti i gravissimi pericoli che comporta; e la sua
opera di animazione liturgica sarà poi continuata e sviluppata dal monachesimo
di Cluny. La Chiesa ricorda anche il suo contributo di teologo alla difesa
della dottrina cristiana contro le teorie degli “adozionisti” diffusesi in
Spagna; per questo scopo, Benedetto viaggia, scrive, istruisce vescovi e preti.
Trascorre gli ultimi anni nell’abbazia di
Cornelimünster, vicino alla residenza imperiale di Aquisgrana, dove è spesso
chiamato per consiglio da Ludovico il Pio. E proprio ad Aquisgrana si conclude
la sua vita. Seppellito a Cornelimünster, i suoi resti andranno poi dispersi.
Autore: Domenico Agasso
SOURCE : http://www.santiebeati.it/dettaglio/91387
LA VIE DE SAINT BENOIT D'ANIANE par saint ARDON, son disciple, traduite sur le texte même du CARTULAIRE D'ANIANE, par Fernand Baumes (1909) : http://www.abbaye-saint-benoit.ch/saints/aniane/benoitaniane.htm
