nastic life The Monks and their Missionary Work 349 rude and unscrupulous Warriors hesitated to destroy the property^ or disturb the life of those who were believed to enjoy God's special favor. The monastery furnished, too, a refuge for the friendless, an asylum for the disgraced, and food and shelter for the indolent, who would otherwise have had to earn their living. There were, therefore, many different motives which led people to enter monasteries. Kings and nobles, for the good of their souls, readily gave land upon which to found colonies of monks, and there were plenty of remote spots in the mountains and forests to invite those who wished to escape from the world and its temptations, its dangers or its cares. Monastic CQmmunities first developed on a large scale in Egypt Necessity for in the fourth century. The idea, however, was quickly taken up tion'^of mo- in Europe. At the time that the Germans were winning their first great victory at Adrianople, St. Jerome was busily engaged in writing letters to men and women whom he hoped to induce to become monks or hermits. In the sixth century monasteries multiplied so rapidly in v/estern Europe that it became necessary to establish definite rules for these communities which proposed to desert the ordinary ways of the world and lead a holy life apart. Accordingly St. Benedict drew up, about the year 526, a sort of constitution for the monastery of Monte Cassino, in southern Italy, of which he was the head.-^ This was so saga- cious, and so well met the needs of the monastic life, that it was rapidly accepted by the other monasteries and gradually became the " rule " according to which all the Western monks lived.^ 1 The illustration on page 348 shows the monastery of Monte Cassino. It is situated on a lofty hill, lying some ninety miles south of Rome. Benedict selected a site formerly occupied by a temple to Apollo, of which the columns may still be seen in one of the courts of the present building. The monastery was destroyed by the Lombards not long after its foundation and later by the Mohammedans, so none of the present buildings go back to the time of Benedict. 2 Benedict did not introduce monasticism in the West, as is sometimes sup- posed, nor did he even found an order in the proper sense of the word, under a single head, like the later Franciscans and Dominicans, Nevertheless, the monks who lived under his rule are ordinarily spoken of as belonging to the Benedictine order. A translation of the Benedictine Rule may be found in Henderson, Nisiorica^ Documents, pp. 27^-^1^.
