Selected Works on Benedict of Nursia and His Rule

Compiled by Steve Muhlberger, Nipissing University

from suggestions made by the readers of LT-ANTIQ in December 1999

Originally posted December 27, 1999

Online Bibliographies of Late Antiquity

A reader of the discussion list LT-ANTIQ asked about useful introductory works on Benedict of Nursia, 6th century author of the Benedictine monastic rule and a pioneer of monasticism in the west, especially on his indebtedness to earlier monastic rules and his later influence.

Readers suggested in particular the following work:

Fry, Timothy, ed.  RB 1980 : the rule of St. Benedict in Latin and English with notes (Collegeville, Minnesota:  Liturgical Press, 1981).

Other works suggested:

Batselier, Dom Pieter, ed.  Benedictus. Symbol abendlaendischer Kultur (Stuttgart; Zuerich, 1998).

Butler, C.  Benedictine Monachism. Second edition (1919; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961).

Daly, L. Benedictine Monasticism. Its formation and Development through the 12th Century (New York. 1965).

Franklin, Carmela Vircillo, Ivan Havener, and J. Alcuin Francis, trs. Early Monastic Rules:  The Rules of the Fathers and
the Regula Orientalis (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press,1982).

Kardong, Terrance. The Benedictines  (Wilmington, Delaware: Michael.Glazier, 1988).

Knowles, David. From Pachomius to Ignatius:  A Study in the Constitutional History of the Religious Orders  (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966).

Knowles, David. The Monastic Order in England:  A History of Its Development From the Times of St Dunstan to the Fourth Latreran Council 940-1216. Second edition. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963).

Lawrence, C. H.  Medieval Monasticism:   forms of religious life in western Europe in the Middle Ages.  Second edition (London; New York: Longman, 1989).

Vogue, Adalbert de. Community and Abbot in The Rule of St Benedict.  (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications,
1979).