VOLUME III SLICE V Bedlam to Benson, George (continued 9)

See Johann Czetz, Memoiren über Bems Feldzug (Hamburg, 1850); Kálmán Deresényi, General Bem’s Winter Campaign in Transylvania, 1848-1849 (Hung.), (Budapest, 1896).

(R. N. B.)

BEMA (βῆμα), in ecclesiastical architecture, the semicircular recess or exedra, in the basilica, where the judges sat, and where in after times the altar was placed. It generally is roofed with a half dome. The seats, θρόνοι, of the priests were against the wall, looking into the body of the church, that of the bishop being in the centre. The bema is generally ascended by steps, and railed off. In Greece the bema was the general name of any raised platform. Thus the word was applied to the tribunal from which orators addressed assemblies of the citizens at Athens. That in the Pnyx, where the Ecclesia often met, was a stone platform from 10 to 11 ft. in height. Again in the Athenian law court counsel addressed the court from such a platform: it is not known whether each had a separate bema or whether there was only one to which each counsel (? and the witnesses) in turn ascended (cf. W. Wyse in his edition of Isaeus, p. 440). Another bema was the platform on which stood the urns for the reception of the bronze disks (ψῆφοι) by means of which at the end of the 4th century the judges recorded their decisions.

BEMBERG, HERMAN (1861- ), French musical composer, was born of French parents at Buenos Aires, and studied at the Paris Conservatoire, under Massenet, whose influence, with that of Gounod, is strongly marked in his music. As a composer he is known by numerous songs and pieces for the piano, as well as by his cantata La Mort de Jeanne d’Arc (1886), comic opera Le Baiser de Suzon (1888) and grand opera Elaine (produced at Covent Garden in 1892). Among his songs the dramatic recitative Ballade du Désespéré is well known.

BEMBO, PIETRO (1470-1547), Italian cardinal and scholar, was born at Venice on the 20th of May 1470. While still a boy he accompanied his father to Florence, and there acquired a love for that Tuscan form of speech which he afterwards cultivated in preference to the dialect of his native city. Having completed his studies, which included two years’ devotion to Greek under Lascaris at Messina, he chose the ecclesiastical profession. After a considerable time spent in various cities and courts of Italy, where his learning already made him welcome, he accompanied Giulio de’ Medici to Rome, where he was soon after appointed secretary to Leo X. On the pontiff’s death he retired, with impaired health, to Padua, and there lived for a number of years engaged in literary labours and amusements. In 1529 he accepted the office of historiographer to his native city, and shortly afterwards was appointed librarian of St Mark’s. The offer of a cardinal’s hat by Pope Paul III. took him in 1539 again to Rome, where he renounced the study of classical literature and devoted himself to theology and classical history, receiving before long the reward of his conversion in the shape of the bishoprics of Gubbio and Bergamo. He died on the 18th of January 1547. Bembo, as a writer, is the beau ideal of a purist. The exact imitation of the style of the genuine classics was the highest perfection at which he aimed. This at once prevented the graces of spontaneity and secured the beauties of artistic elaboration. One cannot fail to be struck with the Ciceronian cadence that guides the movement even of his Italian writings.

His works (collected edition, Venice, 1729) include a History of Venice (1551) from 1487 to 1513, dialogues, poems, and what we would now call essays. Perhaps the most famous are a little treatise on Italian prose, and a dialogue entitled Gli Asolani, in which Platonic affection is explained and recommended in a rather long-winded fashion, to the amusement of the reader who remembers the relations of the beautiful Morosina with the author. The edition of Petrarch’s Italian Poems, published by Aldus in 1501, and the Terzerime, which issued from the same press in 1502, were edited by Bembo, who was on intimate terms with the great typographer. See Opere de P. Bembo (Venice, 1729); Casa, Vita di Bembo, in 2nd vol. of his works.

BEMBRIDGE BEDS, in geology, strata forming part of the fluvio-marine series of deposits of Oligocene age, in the Isle of Wight and Hampshire, England. They lie between the Hamstead beds above and the Osborne beds below. The Bembridge marls, freshwater, estuarine and marine clays and marls (70-120 ft.) rest upon the Bembridge limestone, a freshwater pool deposit (15-25 ft.), with large land snails (Amphidromus and Helices), freshwater snails (Planorbis, Limnaea), and the fruits of Chara. The marls contain, besides the freshwater Limnaea and Unio, such forms as Meretrix, Ostrea and Melanopsis. A thin calcareous sandy layer in this division has yielded the remains of many insects and fossil leaves.

See “Geology of the Isle of Wight,” Mem. Geol. Survey, 2nd ed. 1889.

BEMIS, EDWARD WEBSTER (1860- ), American economist, was born at Springfield, Massachusetts, on the 7th of April 1860. He was educated at Amherst and Johns Hopkins University. He held the professorship of history and political economy in Vanderbilt University from 1887 to 1892, was associate professor of political economy in the university of Chicago from 1892 to 1895, and assistant statistician to the Illinois bureau of labour statistics, 1896. In 1901 he became superintendent of the Cleveland water works. He wrote much on municipal government, his more important works being some chapters in History of Co-operation in the United States (1888); Municipal Ownership of Gas in the U.S. (1891); Municipal Monopolies (1899).

BÉMONT, CHARLES (1848- ), French scholar, was born at Paris on the 16th of November 1848. In 1884 he graduated with two theses, Simon de Montfort and La Condamnation de Jean Sansterre (Revue historique, 1886). His Les Chartes des libertés anglaises (1892) has an introduction upon the history of Magna Carta, &c., and his History of Europe from 395 to 1270, in collaboration with G. Monod, was translated into English. He was also responsible for the continuation of the Gascon Rolls, the publication of which had been begun by Francisque Michel in 1885 (supplement to vol. i., 1896; vol. ii., for the years 1273-1290, 1900; vol. iii., for the years 1290-1307, 1906). He received the honorary degree of Litt. Doc. at Oxford in 1909.

BEN (from Old Eng. bennan, within), in the Scottish phrase “a but and a ben,” the inner room of a house in which there is only one outer door, so that the entrance to the inner room is through the outer, the but (Old Eng. butan, without). Hence “a but and a ben” meant originally a living room and sleeping room, and so a dwelling or a cottage.

BENARES, the Holy City of the Hindus, which gives its name to a district and division in the United Provinces of India. It is one of the most ancient cities in the world. The derivation of its ancient name Varanasi is not known, nor is that of its alternative name Kasi, which is still in common use among Hindus, and is popularly explained to mean “bright.” The original site of the city is supposed to have been at Sarnath, 3½ m. north of the present city, where ruins of brick and stone buildings, with three lofty stupas still standing, cover an area about half a mile long by a quarter broad. Sakya Muni, the Buddha, came here from Gaya in the 6th century B.C. (from which time some of the remains may date), in order to establish his religion, which shows that the place was even then a great centre. Hsüan Tsang, the celebrated Chinese pilgrim, visited Benares in the 7th century A.D. and described it as containing 30 Buddhist monasteries, with about 3000 monks, and about 100 temples of Hindu gods. Hinduism has now supplanted Buddhism, and the Brahman fills the place of the monk. The modern temples number upwards of 1500. Even after the lapse of so great a time the city is still in its glory, and as seen from the river it presents a scene of great picturesqueness and grandeur. The Ganges here forms a fine sweep of about 4 m. in length, the city being situated on the outside of the curve, on the northern bank of the river, which is higher than the other. Being thus elevated, and extending along the river for some 4 m., the city forms a magnificent panorama of buildings in many varieties of oriental architecture. The minarets of the mosque of Aurangzeb rise above all. The bank of the river is entirely lined with stone, and there are many very fine ghats or landing-places built by pious devotees, and highly ornamented. These are generally crowded with bathers and worshippers, who come to wash away their sins in the sacred river Ganges. Near the Manikarnika ghat is the well held to have been dug by Vishnu and filled with his sweat; great numbers of pilgrims bathe in its venerated water. Shrines and temples line the bank of the river. But in spite of its fine appearance from the river, the architecture of Benares is not distinguished, nor are its buildings of high antiquity. Among the most conspicuous of these are the mosque of Aurangzeb, built as an intentional insult in the middle of the Hindu quarter; the Bisheshwar or Golden Temple, important less through architectural beauty than through its rank as the holiest spot in the holy city; and the Durga temple, which, like most of the other principal temples, is a Mahratta building of the 17th century. The temples are mostly small and are placed in the angles of the streets, under the shadow of the lofty houses. Their forms are not ungraceful, and many of them are covered over with beautiful and elaborate carvings of flowers, animals and palm branches. The observatory of Raja Jai Singh is a notable building of the year 1693. The internal streets of the town are so winding and narrow that there is not room for a carriage to pass, and it is difficult to penetrate them even on horseback. The level of the roadway is considerably lower than the ground-floors of the houses, which have generally arched rooms in front, with little shops behind them; and above these they are richly embellished with verandahs, galleries, projecting oriel windows, and very broad overhanging eaves supported by carved brackets. The houses are built of chanar stone, and are lofty, none being less than two storeys high, most of them three, and several of five or six storeys. The Hindus are fond of painting the outside of their houses a deep red colour, and of covering the most conspicuous parts with pictures of flowers, men, women, bulls, elephants and gods and goddesses in all the many forms known in Hindu mythology.

Benares is bounded by a road which, though 50 m. in circuit, is never distant from the city more than five kos (7½ m.); hence its name, Panch-kos road. All who die within this boundary, be they Brahman or low caste, Moslem or Christian, are sure of admittance into Siva’s heaven. To tread the Panch-kos road is one of the great ambitions of a Hindu’s life. Even if he be an inhabitant of the sacred city he must traverse it once in the year to free himself from the impurities and sins contracted within the holy precincts. Thousands from all parts of India make the pilgrimage every year. Benares, having from time immemorial been a holy city, contains a vast number of Brahmans, who either subsist by charitable contributions, or are supported by endowments in the numerous religious institutions of the city. Hindu religious mendicants, with every conceivable bodily deformity, line the principal streets on both sides. Some have their legs or arms distorted by long continuance in one position; others have kept their hands clenched until the finger nails have pierced entirely through their hands. But besides an immense resort to Benares of poor pilgrims from every part of India, as well as from Tibet and Burma, numbers of rich Hindus in the decline of life go there for religious salvation. These devotees lavish large sums in indiscriminate charity, and it is the hope of sharing in such pious distributions that brings together the concourse of religious mendicants from all quarters of the country.

The city of Benares had a population in 1901 of 209,331. The European quarter lies to the west of the native town, on both sides of the river Barna. Here is the cantonment of Sikraul, no longer of much military importance, and the suburb of Sigra, the seat of the chief missionary institutions. The principal modern buildings are the Mint, the Prince of Wales’ hospital (commemorating the visit of King Edward VII. to the city in 1876) and the town hall. The Benares college, including a first-grade and a Sanskrit college, was opened in 1791, but its fine buildings date from 1852. The Central Hindu College was opened in 1898. Benares conducts a flourishing trade by rail and river with the surrounding country. It is the junction between the Oudh & Rohilkhand and East Indian railways, the Ganges being crossed by a steel girder bridge of seven spans, each 350 ft. long. The chief manufactures are silk brocades, gold and silver thread, gold filigree work, German-silver work, embossed brass vessels and lacquered toys; but the brasswork for which Benares used to be famous has greatly degenerated.

The Hindu kingdom of Benares is said to have been founded by one Kas Raja about 1200 B.C. Subsequently it became part of the kingdom of Kanauj, which in A.D. 1193 was conquered by Mahommed of Ghor. On the downfall of the Pathan dynasty of Delhi, about A.D. 1599, it was incorporated with the Mogul empire. On the dismemberment of the Delhi empire, it was seized by Safdar Jang, the nawab wazir of Oudh, by whose grandson it was ceded to the East India Company by the treaty of 1775. The subsequent history of Benares contains two important events, the rebellion of Chait Singh in 1781, occasioned by the demands of Warren Hastings for money and troops to carry on the Mahratta War, and the Mutiny of 1857, when the energy and coolness of the European officials, chiefly of General Neill, carried the district successfully through the storm.

The District of Benares extends over both sides of the Ganges and has an area of 1008 sq. m. The surface of the country is remarkably level, with numerous deep ravines in the calcareous conglomerate. The soil is a clayey or a sandy loam, and very fertile except in the Usar tracts, where there is a saline efflorescence. The principal rivers are the Ganges, Karamnasa, Gumti and Barna. The principal crops are barley, rice, wheat, other food-grains, pulse, sugar-cane and opium. The main line of the East Indian railway runs through the southern portion of the district, with a branch to Benares city; the Oudh & Rohilkhand railway through the northern portion, starting from the city; and a branch of the Bengal & North-Western railway also terminates at Benares. The climate of Benares is cool in winter but very warm in the hot season. The population in 1901 was 882,084, showing a decrease of 4% in the decade due to the effects of famine.

The Division of Benares has an area of 10,431 sq. m., and comprises the districts of Benares, Mirzapur, Jaunpur, Ghazipur and Ballia. In 1901 the population was 5,069,020, showing a decrease of 6% in the decade.

See E.B. Havell, Benares (1906); M.A. Sherring, The Sacred City of the Hindus (1868).

BENBOW, JOHN (1653-1702), English admiral, the son of a tanner in Shrewsbury, was born in 1653. He went to sea when very young, and served in the navy as master’s mate and master, from 1678 to 1681. When trading to the Mediterranean in 1686 in a ship of his own he beat off a Salli pirate. On the accession of William III. he re-entered the navy as a lieutenant and was rapidly promoted. It is probable that he enjoyed the protection of Arthur Herbert, earl of Torrington, under whom he had already served in the Mediterranean. After taking part in the bombardment of St Malo (1693), and superintending the blockade of Dunkirk (1696), he sailed in 1698 for the West Indies, where he compelled the Spaniards to restore two vessels belonging to the Scottish colonists at Darien (see Paterson, William) which they had seized. On his return he was appointed vice-admiral, and was frequently consulted by the king. In 1701 he was sent again to the West Indies as commander-in-chief. On the 19th of August 1702, when cruising with a squadron of seven ships, he sighted, and chased, four French vessels commanded by M. du Casse near Santa Marta. The engagement is the most disgraceful episode in English naval history. Benbow’s captains were mutinous, and he was left unsupported in his flagship the “Breda.” His right leg was shattered by a chain-shot, despite which he remained on the quarter-deck till morning, when the flagrant disobedience of the captains under him, and the disabled condition of his ship, forced him reluctantly to abandon the chase. After his return to Jamaica, where his subordinates were tried by court-martial, he died of his wounds on the 4th of November 1702. A great deal of legendary matter has collected round his name, and his life is really obscure.

See Yonge’s Hist. of the British Navy, vol. i.; Campbell’s British Admirals, vol. iii.; also Owen and Blakeway’s History of Shrewsbury.

BENCE-JONES, HENRY (1814-1873), English physician and chemist, was born at Thorington Hall, Suffolk, in 1814, the son of an officer in the dragoon guards. He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. Subsequently he studied medicine at St George’s hospital, and chemistry at University College, London. In 1841 he went to Giessen in Germany to work at chemistry with Liebig. Besides becoming a fellow, and afterwards senior censor, of the Royal College of Physicians, and a fellow of the Royal Society, he held the post of secretary to the Royal Institution for many years. In 1846 he was elected physician to St George’s hospital. He died in London on the 20th of April 1873. Dr Bence-Jones was a recognized authority on diseases of the stomach and kidneys. He wrote, in addition to several scientific books and a number of papers in scientific periodicals, The Life and Letters of Faraday (1870).

BENCH (an O. E. and Eng. form of a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Ger. Bank, Dan. baenk and the Eng. doublet “bank”), a long narrow wooden seat for several persons, with or without a back. While the chair was yet a seat of state or dignity the bench was ordinarily used by the commonalty. It is still extensively employed for other than domestic purposes, as in schools, churches and places of amusement. Bench or Banc, in law, originally was the seat occupied by judges in court; hence the term is used of a tribunal of justice itself, as the King’s Bench, the Common Bench, and is now applied to judges or magistrates collectively as the “judicial bench,” “bench of magistrates.” The word is also applied to any seat where a number of people sit in an official capacity, or as equivalent to the dignity itself, as “the civic bench,” the “bench of aldermen,” the “episcopal bench,” the “front bench,” i.e. that reserved for the leaders of either party in the British House of Commons. King’s Bench (q.v.) was one of the three superior courts of common law at Westminster, the others being the common pleas and the exchequer. Under the Judicature Act 1873, the court of king’s bench became the king’s bench division of the High Court of Justice. The court of common pleas was sometimes called the common bench.

Sittings in bane were formerly the sittings of one of the superior courts of Westminster for the hearing of motions, special cases, &c., as opposed to the nisi prius sittings for trial of facts, where usually only a single judge presided. By the Judicature Act 1873 the business of courts sitting in bane was transferred to divisional courts.

BENCH-MARK, a surveyor’s mark cut in stone or some durable material, to indicate a point in a line of levels for the determination of altitudes over a given district. The name is taken from the “angle-iron” which is inserted in the horizontal incision as a “bench” or support for the levelling staff. The mark of the “broad-arrow” is generally incised with the bench-mark so that the horizontal bar passes through its apex.

BENCH TABLE (Fr. banc; Ital. sedile; Ger. Bank), the stone seat which runs round the walls of large churches, and sometimes round the piers; it very generally is placed in the porches.

BEND, (1) (From Old Eng. bendan), a bending or curvature, as in “the bend of a river,” or technically the ribs or “wales” of a ship. (2) (From Old Eng. bindan, to bind), a nautical term for a knot, the “cable bend,” the “fisherman’s bend.” (3) (From the Old Fr. bende, a ribbon), a term of heraldry, signifying a diagonal band or stripe across a shield from the dexter chief to the sinister base; also in tanning, the half of a hide from which the thinner parts have been trimmed away, “bend-leather” being the thickest and best sole-leather.

BENDA, the name of a family of German musicians, of whom the most important is Georg (d. 1795), who was a pupil of his elder brother Franz (1709-1786), Concertmeister in Berlin. Georg Benda was a famous clavier player and oboist, but his chief interest for modern musical history lies in his melodramas. Being a far more solid musician than Rousseau he earns the title of the musical pioneer of that art-form (i.e. the accompaniment of spoken words by illustrative music) in a sense which cannot be claimed for Rousseau’s earlier Pygmalion. Benda’s first melodrama, Ariadne auf Naxos, was written in 1774 after his return from a visit to Italy. He was a voluminous composer, whose works (instrumental and dramatic) were enthusiastically taken up by the aristocracy in the time of Mozart. Mozart’s imagination was much fired by Benda’s new vehicle for dramatic expression, and in 1778 he wrote to his father with the greatest enthusiasm about a project for composing a duodrama on the model of Benda’s Ariadne auf Naxos and Medea, both of which he considered excellent and always carried about with him. He concluded at the time that that was the way the problems of operatic recitative should be solved, or rather shelved, but the only specimen he has himself produced is the wonderful melodrama in his unfinished operetta, Zaide, written in 1780.

BENDER (more correctly Bendery), a town of Russia, in the government of Bessarabia, on the right bank of the Dniester, 37 m. by rail S.E. of Kishinev. It possesses a tobacco factory, candle-works and brick-kilns, and is an important river port, vessels discharging here their cargoes of corn, wine, wool, cattle, flour and tallow, to be conveyed by land to Odessa and to Yassy in Rumania. Timber also is floated down the Dniester. The citadel was dismantled in 1897. The town had in 1867 a population of 24,443, and in 1900 of 33,741, the greater proportion being Jews. As early as the 12th century the Genoese had a settlement on the site of Bender. In 1709 Charles XII., after the defeat of Poltava, collected his forces here in a camp which they called New Stockholm, and continued there till 1713. Bender was taken by the Russians in 1770, in 1789 and in 1806, but it was not held permanently by Russia till 1812.

BENDIGO (formerly Sandhurst), a city of Bendigo county, Victoria, Australia, 101 m. by rail N.N.W. of Melbourne. Pop. (1901) 31,020. It is the centre of a large gold-field consisting of quartz ranges, with some alluvial deposits, and many of the mines are deep-level workings. The discovery of alluvial gold in 1851 brought many immigrants to the district; but the opening up of the quartz reefs in 1872 was the principal factor in the importance of Bendigo. It became a municipality in 1855 and a city in 1871. It is the seat of Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops. Besides mining, the local industries are the manufacture of Epsom pottery, bricks and tiles, iron-founding, stone-cutting, brewing, tanning and coach-building. The surrounding district produces quantities of wheat and fruits for export, and much excellent wine is made.

BENDL, KAREL or Karl (1838-1897), Bohemian composer, was born on the 16th of April 1838 at Prague. He studied at the organ school, and in 1858 had already composed a number of small choral works. In 1861 his Poletuje holubice won a prize and at once became a favourite with the local choral societies. In 1864 Bendl went to Brussels, where for a short time he held the post of second conductor of the opera. After visiting Amsterdam and Paris he returned to Prague. Here in 1865 he was appointed conductor of the choral society known as Hlahoe, and he held the post until 1879, when Baron Dervies engaged his services for his private band. Bendl’s first opera Lejla was successfully produced in 1868. It was followed by Bretislav a Jitka (1870), Stary Zenich, a comic opera (1883), Karel Skreta (1883), Dite Tabera, a prize opera (1892), and Matki Mila (1891). Other operas by Bendl are Indicka princezna, Cernohorci, a prize opera, and the two operas Carovny Kvet and Gina. His ballad Svanda dudak acquired much popularity; he published a mass in D minor for male voices and another mass for a mixed choir; two songs to Ave Maria; a violin sonata and a string quartet in F; and a quantity of songs and choruses, many of which have come to be regarded as national possessions of Bohemia. Bendl died on the 20th of September 1897 at Prague.

BENEDEK, LUDWIG, Ritter von (1804-1881), Austrian general, was born at Ödenburg in Hungary on the 14th of July 1804, his father being a doctor. He received his commission in the Austrian army as ensign in 1822, becoming lieutenant in 1825, first lieutenant in 1831 and captain in 1835. He was employed for a considerable time in the general staff, and had risen to the rank of colonel, when he won his first laurels in the suppression of the rising of 1846 in Galicia (see Austria: History). In this campaign his bold leadership in the field and his capacity for organization were so far conspicuous that he was made a Ritter (knight) of the Leopold order by his sovereign, and a freeman (Ehrenbürger) by the city of Lemberg. In 1847 he commanded a regiment in Italy, and on the outbreak of war with Sardinia he was placed in command of a mixed brigade, at the head of which he displayed against regular troops the same qualities of unhesitating bravery and resolution which had given him the victory in many actions with the Galician rebels. His conduct at Curtatone won for him the commandership of the Leopold order, and shortly afterwards the knighthood of the Maria Theresa order. At the action of Mortara his tactical skill and bravery were again conspicuous, and Radetzky particularly distinguished him in despatches. The archduke Albert, with whom he served, is said to have given him the sword of his father, the great archduke Charles. He was promoted major-general soon afterwards over the heads of several colonels senior to him, and was sent as a brigade commander to Hungary. Again he was distinguished as a fighting general at Raab, Komorn, Szegedin and many other actions, and was three times wounded. Benedek then received the cross for military merit, and soon afterwards was posted to the staff of the army in Italy. In 1852 he was made lieutenant field marshal, and in 1857 commander successively of the II., the IV. and the VIII. corps, and also a Geheimrath. In the political crisis of 1854 he had command of a corps in the army of observation under Hess on the Turkish frontier. In the war of 1859 in Italy, Benedek commanded the VIII. corps, and at the battle of Solferino was in command of the right of the Austrian position. That portion of the struggle which was fought out between Benedek and the Piedmontese army is sometimes called the battle of San Martino. Benedek, with magnificent gallantry, held his own all day, and in the end covered the retreat of the rest of the Austrian army to the Mincio. His reward was the commandership of the order of Maria Theresa, and Vienna and many other cities followed the example of Lemberg in 1846. His reputation was now at its highest, and his great popularity was enhanced, in the prevailing discontent with the reactionary and clerical government of previous years, by the fact that he was a Protestant and not of noble birth. He was promoted Feldzeugmeister and in 1860 appointed quartermaster-general to the army, and soon afterwards governor-general and commander-in-chief in Hungary, in succession to the archduke Albert. In 1861 he was made commander-in-chief in Venetia and the adjoining provinces of the empire, and in the following year he received the grand cross of the Leopold order. In 1864 he resigned the quartermaster-generalship and devoted himself exclusively to the command of the army in Italy. In 1861 he had been made a life-member of the house of peers. In 1866 war with Prussia and with Italy became imminent. Benedek was appointed to command the Army of the North against the Prussians, the control of affairs in Italy being taken over by the archduke Albert. For the story of the campaign of Königgrätz, in which the Austrians under Benedek’s command were decisively defeated, see Seven Weeks’ War. Benedek took over his new command as a stranger to the country and to the troops. Only the personal command of the emperor and the requests of the archduke Albert prevailed upon him to “sacrifice his honour,” as he himself said, in a task for which he felt himself ill prepared. When he took the field his despondency was increased by the passive obstruction which he met with amongst his own officers, many of whom resented being placed under a man of the middle class instead of the archduke Albert, and by the general state of unpreparedness which he found existing at the front. Further, his own staff was self-willed to the verge of disloyalty, and his assistants, Lieutenant Field Marshal von Henikstein, and Major-General Krismanic in particular, endeavoured to control Benedek’s operations in the spirit of the 18th-century strategists. Under these circumstances, and against the superior numbers, moral and armament of the Prussians, the Austrians were foredoomed to defeat. A series of partial actions convinced Benedek that success was unattainable, and he telegraphed to the emperor advising him to make peace; the emperor refused on the ground that no decisive battle had been fought; Benedek, thereupon, instead of retreating across the Elbe, determined to bring on a decisive engagement, and took up a position with the whole of his forces near Königgrätz with the Elbe in his rear. Here he was completely defeated by the Prussians on the 3rd of July, but they could not prevent him from making good his retreat over the river in magnificent order on the evening of the battle. He conducted the operations of his army in retreat up to the great concentration at Vienna under the archduke Albert, and was then suspended from his command and a court-martial ordered; the emperor, however, in December determined that the inquiry should be stopped. Benedek from this time lived in absolute retirement, and having given his word of honour to the archduke Albert that he would not attempt to rehabilitate himself before the world, he published no defence of his conduct, and even destroyed his papers relating to the campaign of 1866. This attitude of self-sacrificing loyalty he maintained even when on the 8th of November 1866 the official Wiener Zeitung published an article in which he was made responsible for all the disasters of the war. The history of the campaign from the Austrian point of view as at present known leaves much unexplained, and the published material is primarily of a controversial character. The official Österreichs Kämpfe speaks of the unfortunate general in the following terms: “A career full of achievements, distinction and fame deserved a less tragic close. A dispassionate judgment will not forget the ever fortunate and successful deeds which he accomplished earlier in the service of the emperor, and will ensure for him, in spite of his last heavy misfortune (Last), an honourable memory.” Praise of his earlier career could not well be denied, and the official history is careful not to extend its eulogy to cover the events of 1866; the recognition in these words cannot therefore be set against the general opinion of subsequent critics that Benedek was the victim of political necessities, perhaps of court intrigues. For the rest of his life Benedek lived at Graz, where he died on the 27th of April 1881.

See H. Friedjung, Benedeks nachgelassene Papiere (Leipzig, 1901, 3rd and enlarged ed., 1904), and Der Kampf um die Vorherrschaft in Deutschland 1859-1866 (Stuttgart, 1897, 6th ed., 1904); v. Schlichtling, Moltke und Benedek (Berlin, 1900), also therewith A. Krauss, Moltke, Benedek und Napoleon (Vienna, 1901); and a roman à clé by Gräfin Salburg, entitled Königsglaube (Dresden, 1906). The brief memoir in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie represents the court view of Benedek’s case.

BENEDETTI, VINCENT, Count (1817-1900), French diplomatist, was born at Bastia, in the island of Corsica, on the 29th of April 1817. In the year 1840 he entered the service of the French foreign office, and was appointed to a post under the marquis de la Valette, who was consul-general at Cairo. He spent eight years in Egypt, being appointed consul in 1845; in 1848 he was made consul at Palermo, and in 1851 he accompanied the marquis, who had been appointed ambassador at Constantinople, as first secretary. For fifteen months during the progress of the Crimean War he acted as chargé d’affaires. In the second volume of his essays he gives some recollections of his experiences in the East, including an account of Mehemet Ali, and a (not very friendly) sketch of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. In 1855, after refusing the post of minister at Teheran, he was employed in the foreign office at Paris, and acted as secretary to the congress at Paris (1855-1856). During the next few years he was chiefly occupied with Italian affairs, in which he was much interested, and Cavour said of him he was an Italian at heart. He was chosen in 1861 to be the first envoy of France to the king of Italy, but he resigned his post next year on the retirement of E.A. Thouvenel, who had been his patron, when the anti-Italian party began to gain the ascendancy at Paris. In 1864 he was appointed ambassador at the court of Prussia.

Benedetti remained in Berlin till the outbreak of war in 1870, and during these years he played an important part in the diplomatic history of Europe. His position was a difficult one, for Napoleon did not keep him fully informed as to the course of French policy. In 1866, during the critical weeks which followed the attempt of Napoleon to intervene between Prussia and Austria, he accompanied the Prussian headquarters in the advance on Vienna, and during a visit to Vienna he helped to arrange the preliminaries of the armistice signed at Nikolsburg. It was after this that he was instructed to present to Bismarck French demands for “compensation,” and in August, after his return to Berlin, as a result of his discussions with Bismarck a draft treaty was drawn up, in which Prussia promised France her support in the annexation of Belgium. This treaty was never concluded, but the draft, which was in Benedetti’s handwriting, was kept by Bismarck and, in 1870, a few days after the outbreak of the war, was published by him in The Times. During 1867 Benedetti was much occupied with the affair of Luxemburg. In July 1870, when the candidature of the prince of Hohenzollern for the throne of Spain became known, Benedetti was instructed by the duc de Gramont to present to the king of Prussia, who was then at Ems, the French demands, that the king should order the prince to withdraw, and afterwards that the king should promise that the candidature would never be renewed. This last demand Benedetti submitted to the king in an informal meeting on the promenade at Ems, and the misleading reports of the conversation which were circulated were the immediate cause of the war which followed, for the Germans were led to believe that Benedetti had insulted the king, and the French that the king had insulted the ambassador. Benedetti was severely attacked in his own country for his conduct as ambassador, and the duc de Gramont attempted to throw upon him the blame for the failures of French diplomacy. He answered the charges brought against him in a book, Ma Mission en Prusse (Paris, 1871), which still remains one of the most valuable authorities for the study of Bismarck’s diplomacy. In this Benedetti successfully defends himself, and shows that he had kept his government well informed; he had even warned them a year before as to the proposed Hohenzollern candidature. Even if he had been outwitted by Bismarck in the matter of the treaty of 1866, the policy of the treaty was not his, but was that of E. Drouyn de Lluys. The idea of the annexation of part of Belgium to France had been suggested to him first by Bismarck; and the use to which Bismarck put the draft was not one which he could be expected to anticipate, for he had carried on the negotiations in good faith. After the fall of the Empire he retired to Corsica. He lived to see his defence confirmed by later publications, which threw more light on the secret history of the times. He published in 1895 a volume of Essais diplomatiques, containing a full account of his mission to Ems, written in 1873; and in 1897 a second series dealing with the Eastern question. He died on the 28th of March 1900, while on a visit to Paris. He received the title of count from Napoleon.

See Rothan, La Politique Française en 1866 (Paris, 1879); and L’Affaire de Luxemburg (Paris, 1881); Sorel, Histoire diplomatique (Paris, 1875); Sybel, Die Begründung des deutschen Reiches (Munich, 1889), &c.

(J. W. He.)

BENEDICT (Benedictus), the name taken by fourteen of the popes.

Benedict I. was pope from 573 to 578. He succeeded John III., and occupied the papal chair during the incursions of the Lombards, and during the series of plagues and famines which followed these invasions.

Benedict II. was pope from 684 to 685. He succeeded Leo II., but although chosen in 683 he was not ordained till 684, because the leave of the emperor Constantine was not obtained until some months after the election.

Benedict III. was pope from 855 to 858. He was chosen by the clergy and people of Rome, but the election was not confirmed by the emperor, Louis II., who appointed an anti-pope, Anastasius (the librarian). But the candidature of this person, who had been deposed from the presbyterate under Leo IV., was indefensible. The imperial government at length recognized Benedict and discontinued its opposition, with the result that he was at last successful. The mythical pope Joan is usually placed between Benedict and his predecessor, Leo IV.

Benedict IV. was pope from 900 to 903.

Benedict V. was pope from 964 to 965. He was elected by the Romans on the death of John XII. The emperor Otto I. did not approve of the choice, and carried off the pope to Hamburg, where he died.

Benedict VI. was pope from 972 to 974. He was chosen with great ceremony and installed pope under the protection of the emperor, Otto the Great. On the death of the emperor the turbulent citizens of Rome renewed their outrages, and the pope himself was strangled by order of Crescentius, the son of the notorious Theodora, who replaced him by a deacon called Franco. This Franco took the name of Boniface VII.

Benedict VII. was pope from 974 to 983. He was elected through the intervention of a representative of the emperor, Count Sicco, who drove out the intruded Franco (afterwards Pope Boniface VII.). Benedict governed Rome quietly for nearly nine years, a somewhat rare thing in those days.

Benedict VIII., pope from 1012 to 1024, was called originally Theophylactus. He was a member of the family of the count of Tusculum, and was opposed by an anti-pope, Gregory, but defeated him with the aid of King Henry II. of Saxony, whom he crowned emperor in 1014. In his pontificate the Saracens began to attack the southern coasts of Europe, and effected a settlement in Sardinia. The Normans also then began to settle in Italy. In Italy Benedict supported the policy of the emperor, Henry II., and at the council of Pavia (1022) exerted himself in favour of ecclesiastical discipline, then in a state of great decadence.

Benedict IX., pope from 1033 to 1056, son of Alberic, count of Tusculum, and nephew of Benedict VIII., was also called Theophylactus. He was installed pope at the age of twelve through the influence of his father. The disorders of his conduct, though tolerated by the emperors, Conrad II. and Henry III., who were then morally responsible for the pontificate, at length disgusted the Romans, who drove him out in 1044 and appointed Silvester III. his successor. Silvester remained in the papal chair but a few weeks, as the people of Tusculum quickly recovered their influence and reinstated their pope. Benedict, however, was obliged to bow before the execration of the Romans. He sold his rights to his godfather, the priest Johannes Gratianus, who was installed under the name of Gregory VI. (1045). The following year Henry III. obtained at the council of Sutri the deposition of the three competing popes, and replaced them by Suidger, bishop of Bamberg, who took the name of Clement II. But before the close of 1047 Clement II. died, probably from poison administered by Benedict, who was reinstalled for the third time. At last, on the 17th of July 1048, the marquis of Tuscany drove him from Rome, where he was never seen again. He lived several years after his expulsion and appears to have died impenitent.

Benedict X. (Johannes “Mincius,” i.e. the lout or dolt, bishop of Velletri) was pope from 1058 to 1059. He was elected on the death of Stephen IX. through the influence of the Roman barons, who, however, had pledged themselves to take no action without Hildebrand, who was then absent from Rome. Hildebrand did not recognize him, and put forward an opposition pope in the person of Gerard, bishop of Florence (pope as Nicholas II.), whom he supported against the Roman aristocracy. With the help of the Normans, Hildebrand seized the castle of Galeria, where Benedict had taken refuge, and degraded him to the rank of a simple priest.

(L. D.*)

Benedict XI. (Niccolo Boccasini), pope from 1303 to 1304, the son of a notary, was born in 1240 at Treviso. Entering the Dominican order in 1254, he became lector, prior of the convent, provincial of his order in Lombardy, and in 1296 its general. In 1298 he was created cardinal priest of Santa Sabina, and in 1300 cardinal bishop of Ostia and Velletri. In 1302 he was papal legate in Hungary. On the 22nd of October 1303 he was unanimously elected pope. He did much to conciliate the enemies made by his predecessor Boniface VIII., notably France, the Colonnas and King Frederick II. of Sicily; nevertheless on the 7th of June 1304 he excommunicated William of Nogaret and all the Italians who had captured Boniface in Anagni. Benedict died at Perugia on the 7th of July 1304; if he was really poisoned, as report had it, suspicion would fall primarily on Nogaret. His successor Clement V. transferred the papal residence to Avignon. Among Benedict’s works are commentaries on part of the Psalms and on the Gospel of Matthew. His beatification took place in 1733.

See C. Grandjean, “Registres de Benoît XI.” (Paris, 1883 ff.), Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome.

Benedict XII. (Jacques Fournier), pope from 1334 to 1342, the son of a miller, was born at Saverdun on the Arriège. Entering the Cistercian cloister Bolbonne, and graduating doctor of theology at Paris, he became in 1311 abbot of Fontfroide, in 1317 bishop of Pamiers and in 1326 of Mirepoix. Created cardinal priest of Santa Prisca in 1327 by his uncle John XXII. he was elected his successor on the 20th of December 1334. Benedict made appointments carefully, reformed monastic orders and consistently opposed nepotism. Unable to remove his capital to Rome or to Bologna, he began to erect a great palace at Avignon. In 1336 he decided against a pet notion of John XXII. by saying that souls of saints may attain the fulness of the beatific vision before the last judgment. In 1339 he entered upon fruitless negotiations looking toward the reunion of the Greek and Roman churches. French influence made futile his attempt to come to an understanding with the emperor Louis the Bavarian. He died on the 25th of April 1342.

See the source publications of G. Daumet (Lettres closes, patentes et curiales, ... Paris, 1899 ff.), and J.-M. Vidal (Lettres communes, ... Paris, 1903 ff.).

(W. W. R.*)

Benedict XIII. (Pedro de Luna), (c. 1328-1422 or 1423), anti-pope, belonged to one of the most noble families in Aragon. His high birth, his legal learning—he was for a long time professor of canon law at Montpellier—and the irreproachable purity of his life, recommended him to Pope Gregory XI, who created him cardinal in 1375. He was almost the only one who succeeded in making a firm stand in the tumultuous conclave of 1378; but the deliberation with which he made up his mind as to the validity of the election of Urban VI. was equalled, when he took the side of Clement VII., by the ardour and resourcefulness which he displayed in defending the cause of the pope of Avignon; it was mainly to him that the latter owed his recognition by Castile, Aragon and Navarre. When elected pope, or rather anti-pope, by the cardinals of Avignon, on the 28th of September 1394, it was he who by his astuteness, his resolution, and, it may be added, by his unswerving faith in the justice of his cause, was to succeed in prolonging the lamentable schism of the West for thirty years. The hopes he had aroused that, by a voluntary abdication, he would restore unity to the church, were vain; though called upon by the princes of France to carry out his plan, abandoned by his cardinals, besieged and finally kept under close observation in the palace of the popes (1398-1403), he stood firm, and tired out the fury of his opponents. Escaping from Avignon, he again won obedience in France, and his one thought was how to triumph over his Italian rival, if necessary, by force. He yielded, however, to the instances of the government of Charles VI., and pretending that he wished to have an interview with Gregory XII., with a view to their simultaneous abdication, he advanced to Savona, and then to Porto Venere. The failure of these negotiations, for which he was only in part responsible, led to the universal movement of indignation and impatience, which ended, in France, in the declaration of neutrality (1408), and at Pisa, in the decree of deposition against the two pontiffs (1409). Benedict XIII., who had on his part tried to call together a council at Perpignan, was by this time recognized hardly anywhere but in his native land, in Scotland, and in the estates of the countship of Armagnac. He remained none the less full of energy and of illusions, repulsed the overtures of Sigismund, king of the Romans, who had come to Perpignan to persuade him to abdicate, and, abandoned by nearly all his adherents, he took refuge in the impregnable castle of Peñiscola, on a rock dominating the Mediterranean (1415). The council of Constance then deposed him, as a perjurer, an incurable schismatic and a heretic (26th July 1417). After struggling with the popes of Rome, Urban VI., Boniface IX., Innocent VII. and Gregory XII., and against the popes of Pisa, Alexander V. and John XXIII., Pedro de Luna, clinging more than ever to that apostolic seat which he still professed not to desire, again took up the struggle against Martin V., although the latter was recognized throughout almost all Christendom, and, before his death (29th November 1422, or 23rd May 1423), he nominated four new cardinals in order to carry the schism on even after him.

See Fr. Ehrle, Archiv für Lit. und Kirchengesch. vols. v., vi., vii.; N. Valois, La France et le grand schisme d’occident (4 vols., Paris, 1896-1902); Fr. Ehrle, “Martin de Alpartils chronica actitatorum temporibus domini Benedicti XIII.” (Quellen und Forschungen aus dem Geb. der Gesch., Görres-Gesellschaft, Paderborn, 1906).

(N. V.)

Benedict XIII. (Piero Francesco Orsini), pope from 1724 to 1730, at first styled Benedict XIV., was born on the 2nd of February 1649, of the ducal family of Orsini-Gravina. In 1667 he became a Dominican (as Vincentius Maria), studied theology and philosophy, was made a cardinal in 1672 and archbishop of Benevento in 1686. Elected pope on the 29th of May 1724, he attempted to reform clerical morals; but neither the decrees of the Latin council (1725) nor his personal precepts had much effect. He confirmed the bull Unigenitus; but, despite the Jesuits, allowed the Dominicans to preach the Augustinian doctrine of grace. State affairs he left entirely to the unpopular Cardinal Nicolo Coscia. He died on the 21st of February 1730. His works, were published in 3 vols. at Ravenna in 1728.

Benedict XIV. (Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini), pope from 1740 to 1758, was born at Bologna on the 31st of March 1675. At the age of thirteen he entered the Collegium Clementinum at Rome. He served the Curia in many and important capacities, yet devoted his leisure time to theological and canonistic study. Benedict XIII. made him archbishop of Theodosia in partibus, then of Ancona (1727), and the next year created him cardinal priest. In 1731 Clement XII. translated him to his native city of Bologna, where as archbishop he was both efficient and popular. He published valuable works, notably De servorum Dei beatificatione et canonizatione, De sacrificio missae, as well as a treatise on the feasts of Christ and the Virgin and of some saints honoured in Bologna. In a conclave which had lasted for months he was elected on the 17th of August 1740 the successor of Clement XII. Benedict XIV. was not merely earnest and conscientious, but of incisive intellect, and unfailingly cheerful and witty. In several respects he bettered the economic conditions of the papal states, but was disinclined to undertake the needed thorough-going reform of its administration. In foreign politics he made important concessions to Portugal, Naples, Sardinia, Spain, and was the first pope expressly to recognize the king of Prussia as such. In 1741 he issued the bull Immensa pastorum principis, demanding more humane treatment for the Indians of Brazil and Paraguay, and in the bulls Ex quo singulari (1742) and Omnium sollicitudinum (1744) he rebuked the missionary methods of the Jesuits in accommodating their message to the heathen usages of the Chinese and of the natives of Malabar. In accord with the spirit of the age he reduced the number of holy days in several Catholic countries. To the end of his life he kept up his studies and his intercourse with other scholars, and founded several learned societies. His masterpiece, Libri octo de synoda diocesana, begun in Bologna, appeared during his pontificate. He died on the 3rd of May 1758.

His works, published in twelve quarto volumes at Rome (1747-1751), appeared in more nearly complete editions at Venice in 1767 and at Prato, 1839-1846; also Briefe Benedicts XIV., ed. F.X. Kraus (2nd ed., Freiburg, 1888); Benedicti XIV. Papae opera inedita, ed. F. Heiner (Freiburg, 1904). See Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie, ii. 572 ff.; Wetzer and Welter, Kirchenlexikon, ii. 317 ff.

(W. W. R.*)

BENEDICT OF ALIGNAN (d. 1268), Benedictine abbot of Notre Dame de la Grasse (1224) and bishop of Marseilles (1229), twice visited the Holy Land (1239 and 1260), where he helped the Templars build the great castle of Safet. He founded a short-lived order, the Brothers of the Virgin, suppressed by the council of Lyons (1274), and died a Franciscan. His writings include a letter to Innocent IV. and De constructione Castri Saphet (Baluze, Miscellanea, ii.).

BENEDICT OF NURSIA, SAINT (c. 480-c. 544), the patriarch of Western monks. Our only authority for the facts of St Benedict’s life is bk. ii of St Gregory’s Dialogues. St Gregory declares that he obtained his information from four of St Benedict’s disciples, whom he names; and there can be no serious reason for doubting that it is possible to reconstruct the outlines of St Benedict’s career (see Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, iv. 412). A precise chronology and a pedigree have been supplied for Benedict, according to which he was born in 480, of the great family of the Anicii; but all we know is what St Gregory tells us, that he was born of good family in Nursia, near Spoleto in Umbria. His birth must have occurred within a few years of the date assigned; the only fixed chronological point is a visit of the Gothic king Totila to him in 543, when Benedict was already established at Monte Cassino and advanced in years (Dial. ii. 14, 15). He was sent by his parents to frequent the Roman schools, but shocked by the prevailing licentiousness he fled away. It has been usual to represent him as a mere boy at this time, but of late years various considerations have been pointed out which make it more likely that he was a young man. He went to the mountainous districts of the Abruzzi, and at last came to the ruins of Nero’s palace and the artificial lake at Subiaco, 40 m. from Rome. Among the rocks on the side of the valley opposite the palace he found a cave in which he took up his abode, unknown to all except one friend, Romanus, a monk of a neighbouring monastery, who clothed him in the monastic habit and secretly supplied him with food. No one who has seen the spot will doubt that the Sacro Speco is indeed the cave wherein Benedict spent the three years of opening manhood in solitary prayer, contemplation and austerity. After this period of formation his fame began to spread abroad, and the monks of a neighbouring monastery induced him to become their abbot; but their lives were irregular and dissolute, and on his trying to put down abuses they attempted to poison him. He returned to his cave, but disciples flocked to him, and in time he formed twelve monasteries in the neighbourhood, placing twelve monks in each, and himself retaining a general control over all. In time patricians and senators from Rome entrusted their young sons to his care, to be brought up as monks; in this manner came to him his two best-known disciples, Maurus and Placidus. Driven from Subiaco by the jealousy and molestations of a neighbouring priest, but leaving behind him communities in his twelve monasteries, he himself, accompanied by a small band of disciples, journeyed south until he came to Cassino, a town halfway between Rome and Naples. Climbing the high mountain that overhangs the town, he established on the summit the monastery with which his name has ever since been associated, and which for centuries was a chief centre of religious life for western Europe. He destroyed the remnants of paganism that lingered on here, and by his preaching gained the rustic population to Christianity. Few other facts of his career are known: there is record of his founding a monastery at Terracina; his death must have occurred soon after Totila’s visit in 543.

Rule of St Benedict.—In order to understand St Benedict’s character and spirit, and to discover the secret of the success of his institute, it is necessary, as St Gregory says, to turn to his Rule. St Gregory’s characterization of the Rule as “conspicuous for its discretion” touches the most essential quality. The relation of St Benedict’s Rule to earlier monastic rules, and of his institute to the prevailing monachism of his day, is explained in the article Monasticism. Here it is enough to say that nowadays it is commonly recognized by students that the manner of life instituted by St Benedict was not intended to be, and as a matter of fact was not, one of any great austerity, when judged by the standard of his own day (see E.C. Butler, Lausiac History of Palladius, part i. pp. 251-256). His monks were allowed proper clothes, sufficient food, ample sleep. The only bodily austerities were the abstinence from flesh meat and the unbroken fast till mid-day or even 3 P.M., but neither would appear so onerous in Italy even now, as to us in northern climes. Midnight office was no part of St Benedict’s Rule: the time for rising for the night office varied from 1.30 to 3.0, according to the season, and the monks had had unbroken sleep for 7½ or even 8 hours, except in the hot weather, when in compensation they were allowed the traditional Italian summer siesta after the mid-day meal. The canonical office was chanted throughout, but the directly religious duties of the day can hardly have taken more than 4 or 5 hours—perhaps 8 on Sundays. The remaining hours of the day were divided between work and reading, in the proportion (on the average of the whole year) of about 6 and 4 hours respectively. The “reading” in St Benedict’s time was probably confined to the Bible and the Fathers. The “work” contemplated by St Benedict was ordinarily field work, as was natural in view of the conditions of the time and best suited to the majority of the monks; but the principle laid down is that the monks should do whatever work is most useful. There were from the beginning young boys in the monastery, who were educated by the monks according to the ideas of the time. We have seen St Benedict evangelizing the pagan population round Monte Cassino; and a considerable time each day is assigned to the reading of the Fathers. Thus the germs of all the chief works carried on by his monks in later ages were to be found in his own monastery.

The Rule consists of a prologue and 73 chapters. Though it has resisted all attempts to reduce it to an ordered scheme, and probably was not written on any set plan, still it is possible roughly to indicate its contents: after the prologue and introductory chapter setting forth St Benedict’s intention, follow instructions to the abbot on the manner in which he should govern his monastery (2,3); next comes the ascetical portion of the Rule, on the chief monastic virtues (4-7); then the regulations for the celebration of the canonical office, which St Benedict calls “the Work of God” or “the divine work,” his monks’ first duty, “of which nothing is to take precedence” (8-20); faults and punishments (23-30); the cellarer and property of the monastery (31, 32); community of goods (33, 34); various officials and daily life (21, 22, 35-57); reception of monks (58-61); miscellaneous (62-73).

The most remarkable chapters, in which St Benedict’s wisdom stands out most conspicuously, are those on the abbot (2,3, 27,64). The abbot is to govern the monastery with full and unquestioned patriarchal authority; on important matters he must consult the whole community and hear what each one, even the youngest, thinks; on matters of less weight he should consult a few of the elder monks; but in either case the decision rests entirely with him, and all are to acquiesce. He must, however, bear in mind that he will have to render an account of all his decisions and to answer for the souls of all his monks before the judgment seat of God. Moreover, he has to govern in accordance with the Rule, and must endeavour, while enforcing discipline and implanting virtues, not to sadden or “overdrive” his monks, or give them cause for “just murmuring.” In these chapters pre-eminently appears that element of “discretion,” as St Gregory calls it, or humanism as it would now be termed, which without doubt has been a chief cause of the success of the Rule. There is as yet no satisfactory text of the Rule, either critical or manual; the best manual text is Schmidt’s editio minor (Regensburg, 1892). Of the many commentaries the most valuable are those of Paulus Diaconus (the earliest, c. 800), of Calmet and of Martène (Migne, Patrol. Lat. lxvi.).

Authorities.—An old English translation of St Gregory’s Dialogues is reprinted in the Quarterly Series (Burns & Oates). On St Benedict’s life and Rule see Montalembert, Monks of the West, bk. iv.; Abbate L. Tosti, S. Benedetto (translated 1896); also Indexes to standard general histories of the period; Thomas Hodgkin’s Italy and Her Invaders and Gregorovius’ History of the City of Rome may be specially mentioned. But by far the best summaries in English are those contained in the relevant portions of F.H. Dudden’s Gregory the Great (1905), i. 107-115, ii. 160-169; on the recent criticism of the text and contents of the Rule, see Otto Zöckler, Askese und Mönchtum (1897), 355-371; and E.C. Butler, articles in Downside Review, December 1899, and Journal of Theological Studies, April 1902.

(E. C. B.)

BENEDICT, SIR JULIUS (1804-1885), musical composer, was born in Stuttgart on the 27th of November 1804. He was the son of a Jewish banker, and learnt composition from Hummel at Weimar and Weber at Dresden; with the latter he enjoyed for three years an intimacy like that of a son, and it was Weber who introduced him in Vienna to Beethoven on the 5th of October 1823. In the same year he was appointed Kapellmeister of the Kärnthnerthor theatre at Vienna, and two years later (in 1825) he became Kapellmeister of the San Carlo theatre at Naples. Here his first opera, Giacinta ed Ernesto, was brought out in 1829, and another, written for his native city, I Portoghesi in Goa, was given there in 1830; neither of these was a great success, and in 1834 he went to Paris, leaving it in 1835 at the suggestion of Malibran for London, where he spent the remainder of his life. In 1836 he was given the conductorship of an operatic enterprise at the Lyceum Theatre, and brought out a short opera, Un anno ed un giorno, previously given in Naples. In 1838 he became conductor of the English opera at Drury Lane during the period of Balfe’s great popularity; his own operas produced there were The Gipsy’s Warning (1838), The Bride of Venice (1843), and The Crusaders (1846). In 1848 he conducted Mendelssohn’s Elijah at Exeter Hall, for the first appearance of Jenny Lind in oratorio, and in 1850 he went to America as the accompanist on that singer’s tour. On his return in 1852 he became musical conductor under Mapleson’s management at Her Majesty’s theatre (and afterwards at Drury Lane), and in the same year conductor of the Harmonic Union. Benedict wrote recitatives for the production of an Italian version of Weber’s Oberon in 1860. In the same year was produced his beautiful cantata Undine at the Norwich festival, in which Clara Novello appeared in public for the last time. His best-known opera, The Lily of Killarney, written on the subject of Dion Boucicault’s play Colleen Bawn to a libretto by Oxenford, was produced at Covent Garden in 1862. His operetta, The Bride of Song, was brought out there in 1864. St Cecilia, an oratorio, was performed at the Norwich festival in 1886; St Peter at the Birmingham festival of 1870; Graziella, a cantata, was given at the Birmingham festival of 1882, and in August 1883 was produced in operatic form at the Crystal Palace. Here also a symphony by him was given in 1873. Benedict conducted every Norwich festival from 1845 to 1878 inclusive, and the Liverpool Philharmonic Society’s concerts from 1876 to 1880. He was the regular accompanist at the Monday Popular Concerts in London from their start, and with few exceptions acted as conductor of these concerts. He contributed an interesting life of Weber to the series of biographies of “Great Musicians.” In 1871 he was knighted, and in 1874 was made knight commander of the orders of Franz Joseph (Austria) and Frederick (Württemberg). He died in London on the 5th of June 1885.

BENEDICT BISCOP (628?-690), also known as Biscop Baducing, English churchman, was born of a good Northumbrian family and was for a time a thegn of King Oswiu. He then went abroad and after a second journey to Rome (he made five altogether) lived as a monk at Lerins (665-667). It was under his conduct that Theodore of Tarsus came from Rome to Canterbury in 669, and in the same year Benedict was appointed abbot of St Peter’s, Canterbury. Five years later he built the monastery of St Peter at Wearmouth, on land granted him by Ecgfrith of Northumbria, and endowed it with an excellent library. A papal letter in 678 exempted the monastery from external control, and in 682 Benedict erected a sister foundation (St Paul) at Jarrow. He died on the 12th of January 690, leaving a high reputation for piety and culture. Saxon architecture owes nearly everything to his initiative, and Bede was one of his pupils.

BENEDICTINE, a liqueur manufactured at Fécamp, France. The composition is a trade secret, but, according to König, the following are among the substances used in the manufacture of imitations of the genuine article: fresh lemon peel, cardamoms, hyssop tops, angelica, peppermint, thyme, cinnamon, nutmegs, cloves and arnica flowers. (See Fécamp.)

BENEDICTINES, or Black Monks, monks living according to the Rule of St Benedict (q.v.) of Nursia. Subiaco in the Abruzzi was the cradle of the Benedictines, and in that neighbourhood St Benedict established twelve monasteries. Afterwards giving up the direction of these, he migrated to Monte Cassino and there established the monastery which became the centre whence his Rule and institute spread. From Monte Cassino he founded a monastery at Terracina. These fourteen are the only monasteries of which we have any knowledge as being founded before St Benedict’s death; for the mission of St Placidus to Sicily must certainly be regarded as mere romance, nor does there seem to be any solid reason for viewing more favourably the mission of St Maurus to Gaul. There is some ground for believing that it was the third abbot of Monte Cassino who began to spread a knowledge of the Rule beyond the circle of St Benedict’s own foundations. About 580-590 Monte Cassino was sacked by the Lombards, and the community came to Rome and was established in a monastery attached to the Lateran Basilica, in the centre of the ecclesiastical world. It is now commonly recognized by scholars that when Gregory the Great became a monk and turned his palace on the Caelian Hill into a monastery, the monastic life there carried out was fundamentally based on the Benedictine Rule (see F.H. Dudden, Gregory the Great, i. 108). From this monastery went forth St Augustine and his companions on their mission to England in 596, carrying their monachism with them; thus England was the first country out of Italy in which Benedictine life was firmly planted. In the course of the 7th century Benedictine life was gradually introduced in Gaul, and in the 8th it was carried into the Germanic lands from England. It is doubtful whether in Spain there were Benedictine monasteries, properly so called, until a later period. In many parts the Benedictine Rule met the much stricter Irish Rule of Columbanus, introduced by the Irish missionaries on the continent, and after brief periods, first of conflict and then of fusion, it gradually absorbed and supplanted it; thus during the 8th century it became, out of Ireland and other purely Celtic lands, the only rule and form of monastic life throughout western Europe,—so completely that Charlemagne once asked if there ever had been any other monastic rule.

What may be called the inner side of Benedictine life and history is treated in the article Monasticism; here it is possible to deal only with the broad facts of the external history. The chief external works achieved for western Europe by the Benedictines during the early middle ages may be summed up under the following heads.

1. The Conversion of the Teutonic Races.—The tendency of modern historical scholarship justifies the maintenance of the tradition that St Augustine and his forty companions were the first great Benedictine apostles and missioners. Through their efforts Christianity was firmly planted in various parts of England; and after the conversion of the country it was English Benedictines—Wilfrid, Willibrord, Swithbert, Willehad—who evangelized Friesland and Holland; and another, Winfrid or Boniface, who, with his fellow-monks Willibald and others, evangelized the greater part of central Germany and founded and organized the German church. It was Anschar, a monk of Corbie, who first preached to the Scandinavians, and other Benedictines were apostles to Poles, Prussians and other Slavonic peoples. The conversion of the Teutonic races may properly be called the work of the Benedictines.

2. The Civilization of north-western Europe.—As the result of their missionary enterprises the Benedictines penetrated into all these lands and established monasteries, so that by the 10th or 11th century Benedictine houses existed in great numbers throughout the whole of Latin Christendom except Ireland. These monasteries became centres of civilizing influences by the method of presenting object-lessons in organized work, in agriculture, in farming, in the arts and trades, and also in well-ordered life. The unconscious method by which such great results were brought about has been well described by J.S. Brewer (Preface to Works of Giraldus Cambrensis, Rolls Series, iv.) and F.A. Gasquet.

3. Education.—Boys were educated in Benedictine houses from the beginning, but at first they were destined to be monks. The monasteries, however, played a great part in the educational side of the Carolingian revival; and certainly from that date schools for boys destined to live and work in the world were commonly attached to Benedictine monasteries. From that day to this education has been among the recognized and principal works of Benedictines.

4. Letters and Learning.—This side of Benedictine life is most typically represented by the Venerable Bede, the gentle and learned scholar of the early middle ages. In those times the monasteries were the only places of security and rest in western Europe, the only places where letters could in any measure be cultivated. It was in the monasteries that the writings of Latin antiquity, both classical and ecclesiastical, were transcribed and preserved.

In a gigantic system embracing hundreds of monasteries and thousands of monks, and spread over all the countries of western Europe, without any organic bond between the different houses, and exposed to all the vicissitudes of the wars and conquests of those wild times, to say that the monks often fell short of the ideal of their state, and sometimes short of the Christian, and even the moral standard, is but to say that monks are men. Failures there have been many, and scandals not a few in Benedictine history; but it may be said with truth that there does not appear to have been ever a period of widespread or universal corruption, however much at times and in places primitive love may have waxed cold. And when such declensions occurred, they soon called forth efforts at reform and revival; indeed these constantly recurring reform-movements are one of the most striking features of Benedictine history, and the great proof of the vitality of the institute throughout the ages.

The first of these movements arose during the Carolingian revival (c. 800), and is associated with the name of Benedict of Aniane. Under the auspices of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious he initiated a scheme for federating into one great order, with himself as abbot general, all the monasteries of Charles’s empire, and for enforcing throughout a rigid uniformity in observance. For this purpose a synod of abbots was assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle in 817, and a series of 80 Capitula passed, regulating the life of the monasteries. The scheme as a whole was short-lived and did not survive its originator; but the Capitula were commonly recognized as supplying a useful and much-needed supplement to St Benedict’s Rule on points not sufficiently provided for therein. Accordingly these Capitula exercised a wide influence among Benedictines even outside the empire. And Benedict of Aniane’s ideas of organization found embodiment a century later in the order of Cluny (910), which for a time overshadowed the great body of mere Benedictines (see Cluny). Here it will suffice to say that the most distinctive features of the Cluny system were (1) a notable increase and prolongation of the church services, which came to take up the greater part of the working day; (2) a strongly centralized government, whereby the houses of the order in their hundreds were strictly subject to the abbot of Cluny.

Though forming a distinct and separate organism Cluny claimed to be, and was recognized as, a body of Benedictine houses; but from that time onwards arose a number of independent bodies, or “orders,” which took the Benedictine Rule as the basis of their life. The more important of these were: in the 11th and 12th centuries, the orders of Camaldulians, Vallombrosians, Fontevrault and the Cistercians, and in the 13th and 14th the Silvestrines, Celestines and Olivetans (see separate articles). The general tendency of these Benedictine offshoots was in the direction of greater austerity of life than was practised by the Black Monks or contemplated by St Benedict’s Rule—some of them were semi-eremitical; the most important by far were the Cistercians, whose ground-idea was to reproduce exactly the life of St Benedict’s own monastery. These various orders were also organized and governed according to the system of centralized authority devised by St Pachomius (see Monasticism) and brought into vogue by Cluny in the West. What has here to be traced is the history of the great body of Benedictine monasteries that held aloof from these separatist movements.

For the first four or five centuries of Benedictine history there was no organic bond between any of the monasteries; each house formed an independent autonomous family, managing its own affairs and subject to no external authority or control except that of the bishop of the diocese. But the influence of Cluny, even on monasteries that did not enter into its organism, was enormous; many adopted Cluny customs and practices and moulded their life and spirit after the model it set; and many such monasteries became in turn centres of revival and reform in many lands, so that during the 10th and 11th centuries arose free unions of monasteries based on a common observance derived from a central abbey. Fleury and Hirsau are well-known examples. Basing themselves on St Gregory’s counsel to St Augustine, Dunstan, Aethelwold and Oswald adopted from the observance of foreign monasteries, and notably Fleury and Ghent, what was suitable for the restoration of English monachism, and so produced the Concordia Regularis, interesting as the first serious attempt to bring about uniformity of observance among the monasteries of an entire nation. In the course of the 12th century sporadic and limited unions of Black Monk monasteries arose in different parts. But notwithstanding all these movements, the majority of the great Black Monk abbeys continued to the end of the 12th century in their primeval isolation. But in the year 1215, at the fourth Lateran council, were made regulations destined profoundly to modify Benedictine polity and history. It was decreed that the Benedictine houses of each ecclesiastical province should henceforth be federated for the purposes of mutual help and the maintenance of discipline, and that for these ends the abbots should every third year meet in a provincial chapter (or synod), in order to pass laws binding on all and to appoint visitors who, in addition to the bishops, should canonically visit the monasteries and report on their condition in spirituals and temporals to the ensuing chapter. The English monks took the lead in carrying out this legislation, and in 1218 the first chapter of the province of Canterbury was held at Oxford, and up to the dissolution under Henry VIII. the triennial chapters took place with wonderful regularity. Fitful attempts were made elsewhere to carry out the decrees, and in 1336 Benedict XII. by the bull Benedictina tried to give further development to the system and to secure its general observance. The organization of the Benedictine houses into provinces or chapters under this legislation interfered in the least possible degree with the Benedictine tradition of mutual independence of the houses; the provinces were loose federations of autonomous houses, the legislative power of the chapter and the canonical visitations being the only forms of external interference. The English Benedictines never advanced farther along the path of centralization; up to their destruction this polity remained in operation among them, and proved itself by its results to be well adapted to the conditions of the Benedictine Rule and life.

In other lands things did not on the whole go so well, and many causes at work during the later middle ages tended to bring about relaxation in the Benedictine houses; above all the vicious system of commendatory abbots, rife everywhere except in England. And so in the period of the reforming councils of Constance and Basel the state of the religious orders was seriously taken in hand, and in response to the public demand for reforming the Church, “in head and members,” reform movements were set on foot, as among others, so among the Benedictines of various parts of Europe. These movements issued in the congregational system which is the present polity among Benedictines. In the German lands, where the most typical congregation was the Bursfeld Union (1446), which finally embraced over 100 monasteries throughout Germany, the system was kept on the lines of the Lateran decree and the bull Benedictina, and received only some further developments in the direction of greater organization; but in Italy the congregation of S. Justina at Padua (1421), afterwards called the Cassinese, departed altogether from the old lines, setting up a highly centralized government, after the model of the Italian republics, whereby the autonomy of the monasteries was destroyed, and they were subjected to the authority of a central governing board. With various modifications or restrictions this latter system was imported into all the Latin lands, into Spain and Portugal, and thence into Brazil, and into Lorraine and France, where the celebrated congregation of St Maur (see Maurists) was formed early in the 17th century. During this century the Benedictine houses in many parts of Catholic Europe united themselves into congregations, usually characterized by an austerity that was due to the Tridentine reform movement.

In England the Benedictines had, from every point of view, flourished exceedingly. At the time of the Dissolution there were nearly 300 Black Benedictine houses, great and small, men and women, including most of the chief religious houses of the land (for lists see tables and maps in Gasquet’s English Monastic Life, and Catholic Dictionary, art. “Benedictines”). It is now hardly necessary to say that the grave charges brought against the monks are no longer credited by serious historians (Gasquet, Henry VIII. and the Monasteries; J. Gairdner, Prefaces to the relevant volumes of Calendars of State Papers of Henry VIII.). In Mary’s reign some of the surviving monks were brought together, and Westminster Abbey was restored. Of the monks professed there during this momentary revival, one, Sigebert Buckley, lived on into the reign of James I.; and being the only survivor of the Benedictines of England, he in 1607 invested with the English habit and affiliated to Westminster Abbey and to the English congregation two English priests, already Benedictines in the Italian congregation. By this act the old English Benedictine line was perpetuated; and in 1619 a number of English monks professed in Spain were aggregated by pontifical act to these representatives of the old English Benedictines, and thus was constituted the present English Benedictine congregation. Three or four monasteries of the revived English Benedictines were established on the continent at the beginning of the 17th century, and remained there till driven back to England by the French Revolution.

The Reformation and the religious wars spread havoc among the Benedictines in many parts of northern Europe; and as a consequence, in part of the rule of Joseph II. of Austria, in part of the French Revolution, nearly every Benedictine monastery in Europe was suppressed—it is said that in the early years of the 19th century scarcely thirty in all survived. But the latter half of the century witnessed a series of remarkable revivals, and first in Bavaria, under the influence of Louis I. The French congregation (which does not enjoy continuity with the Maurists) was inaugurated by Dom Guéranger in 1833, and the German congregation of Beuron in 1863. Two vigorous congregations have arisen in the United States. These are all new creations since 1830. In Italy, Spain, Portugal and Brazil only a few monasteries survive the various revolutions, and in a crippled state; but signs are not wanting of renewed life: St Benedict’s own monasteries of Subiaco and Monte Cassino are relatively flourishing. In Austria, Hungary and Switzerland there are some thirty great abbeys, most of which have had a continued existence since the middle ages. The English congregation is composed of three large abbeys (Downside, Ampleforth and Woolhampton), a cathedral priory (Hereford) and a nunnery (Stanbrook Abbey, Worcester); there are besides in England three or four abbeys belonging to foreign congregations, and several nunneries subject to the bishops. Each congregation has its president, who is merely a president, with limited powers, and not a general superior like the Provincials of other orders; so that the primitive Benedictine principle of each monastery being self-contained and autonomous is preserved. Similarly each congregation is independent and self-governing, there being no superior-general or central authority, as in other orders. Leo XIII. established an international Benedictine College in Rome for theological studies, and conferred on its abbot the title of “Abbot Primate,” with precedence among Black Monk abbots. He is only primus inter pares, and exercises no kind of superiority over the other abbots or congregations. Thus the Benedictine polity may be described as a number of autonomous federations of autonomous monasteries. The individual monks, too, belong not to the order or the congregation, but each to the monastery in which he became a monk. The chief external work of the Benedictines at the present day is secondary education; there are 114 secondary schools or gymnasia attached to the abbeys, wherein the monks teach over 12,000 boys; and many of the nunneries have girls’ schools. In certain countries (among them England) where there is a dearth of secular priests, Benedictines undertake parochial work.

The statistics of the order (1905) show that of Black Benedictines there are over 4000 choir-monks and nearly 2000 lay brothers—figures that have more than doubled since 1880. If the Cistercians and lesser offshoots of the order be added, the sum total of choir-monks and lay brothers exceeds 11,000.

In conclusion a word must be said on the Benedictine nuns. From the beginning the number of women living the Benedictine life has not fallen far short of that of the men. St Gregory describes St Benedict’s sister Scholastica as a nun (sanctimonialis), and she is looked upon as the foundress of Benedictine nuns. As the institute spread to other lands nunneries arose on all sides, and nowhere were the Benedictine nuns more numerous or more remarkable than in England, from Saxon times to the Reformation. A strong type of womanhood is revealed in the correspondence of St Boniface with various Saxon Benedictine nuns, some in England and some who accompanied him to the continent and there established great convents. In the early times the Benedictine nuns were not strictly enclosed, and could, when occasion called for it, freely go out of their convent walls to perform any special work: on the other hand, they did not resemble the modern active congregations of women, whose ordinary work lies outside the convent. It has to be said that in the course of the middle ages, especially the later middle ages, grave disorders arose in many convents; and this doubtless led, in the reform movements initiated by the councils of Constance and Basel, and later of Trent, to the introduction of strict enclosure in Benedictine convents, which now is the almost universal practice. At the present day there are of Black Benedictine nuns 262 convents with 7000 nuns, the large majority being directly subject to the diocesan bishops; if the Cistercians and others be included, there are 387 convents with nearly 11,000 nuns. In England there are a dozen Benedictine nunneries.

Authorities—The chief general authority for Benedictine history up to the middle of the 12th century is Mabillon’s Annales, in 6 vols. folio; for the later period no such general work exists, but the various countries, congregations or even abbeys have to be taken separately. Montalembert’s Monks of the West gives the early history very fully; the later history, to the beginning of the 18th century, may be found in Helyot, Hist. des ordres religieux, v. and vi. (1792). A useful sketch, with references to the best literature, is in Max Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen (1896), i. §§ 17-28; see also the article “Benedictinerorden” in Wetzer u. Welter, Kirchenlexicon (2nd ed.), and “Benedikt von Nursia und der Benediktinerorden,” in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie (3rd ed.). For England see Ethelred Taunton, English Black Monks (1897); and for the modern history (19th century) the series entitled “Succisa Virescit” in the Downside Review, 1880 onwards, by J.G. Dolan. On the inner spirit and working of the institute see F.A. Gasquet, Sketch of Monastic Constitutional History (being the preface to the 2nd ed., 1895, of the trans. of Montalembert) and English Monastic Life (1904); and Newman’s two essays on the Benedictines, among the Historical Sketches. On Benedictine nuns much will be found in the above-mentioned authorities, and also in Lina Eckenstein, Woman in Monasticism (1896). On Benedictines and the Arts see F.H. Kraus, Geschichte der christlichen Kunst (Freiburg-i-B., 1896-1897).

(E. C. B.)

BENEDICTION (Lat. benedictio, from benedicere, to bless), generally, the utterance of a blessing or of a devout wish for the prosperity and happiness of a person or enterprise. In the usage of the Catholic Church, both East and West, though the benediction as defined above has its place as between one Christian and another, it has also a special place in the sacramental system in virtue of the special powers of blessing vested in the priesthood. Sacerdotal benedictions are not indeed sacraments—means of grace ordained by Christ himself,—but sacramentals (sacramenta minora) ordained by the authority of the Church and exercised by the priests, as the plenipotentiaries of God, in virtue of the powers conferred on them at their ordination; “that whatever they bless may be blessed, and whatever they consecrate may be consecrated.” The power to bless in this ecclesiastical sense is reserved to priests alone; the blessing of the paschal candle on Holy Saturday by the deacon being the one exception that proves the rule, for he uses for the purpose grains of incense previously blessed by the priest at the altar. But though by some the benediction has thus been brought into connexion with the supreme means of grace, the sacrifice of the Mass, the blessing does not in itself confer grace and does not act on its recipients ex opere operato. It must not be supposed, however, that the Catholic idea of a sacerdotal blessing has anything of the vague character associated with a benediction by Protestants. Both by Catholics and by Protestants blessings may be applied to things inanimate as well as animate; but while in the reformed Churches this involves no more than an appeal to God for a special blessing, or a solemn “setting apart” of persons or objects for sacred purposes, in the Catholic idea it implies a special power, conferred by God, of the priests over the invisible forces of evil. It thus stands in the closest relation to the rite of exorcism, of which it is the complement.

According to Catholic doctrine, the Fall involved the subjection, not only of man, but of all things animate and inanimate, to the influence of evil spirits; in support of which St Paul’s epistles to the Romans (viii.) and to Timothy (1 Tim. iv. 4-5) are quoted. This belief is, of course, not specifically Christian; it has been held at all times and everywhere by men of the most various races and creeds; and, if there be any validity in the contention that that is true which has been held semper, ubique, et ab omnibus, no fact is better established. In general it may be said, then, that whereas exorcism is practised in order to cast out devils already in possession, benediction is the formula by which they are prevented from entering in. Protestants have condemned these formulae as so much magic, and in this modern science tends to agree with them; but to orthodox Protestants at least Catholics have a perfect right to reply that, in taking this line, they are but repeating the accusation brought by the Pharisees against Christ, viz. that he cast out devils “by Beelzebub, prince of the devils.”

Though, however, the discomfiture of malignant spirits still plays an important part in the Catholic doctrine of benedictions, this has on the whole tended to become subordinated to other benefits. This is but natural; for, though the progress of knowledge has not disproved the existence of devils, it has greatly limited the supposed range of their activities. According to Father Patrick Morrisroe, dean and professor of liturgy at Maynooth, the efficacy of benedictions is fourfold: (1) the excitation of pious emotions and affections of the heart, and by their means the remission of venial sins and of the temporal punishments due for these; (2) freedom from the power of evil spirits; (3) preservation and restoration of bodily health; (4) various other benefits, temporal and spiritual. Benedictions, moreover, are twofold: (a) invocative, i.e. those invoking the divine benignity for persons and things without changing their condition, e.g. children or food; (b) constitutive, i.e. those which give to persons or things an indelible religious character, i.e. monks and nuns, or the furniture of the altar. The second of these brings the act of benediction into contact with the principle of consecration (q.v.); for by the formal blessing by the duly constituted authority persons, places and things are consecrated, i.e. reserved to sacred uses and preserved from the contaminating influence of evil spirits. Thus graveyards are consecrated, i.e. solemnly blessed in order that the powers of evil may not disturb the bodies of the faithful departed; thus, too, the blessing of bells gives them a special power against evil demons.

Though the giving of blessings as a sacerdotal function is proper to the whole order of priests, particular benedictions have, by ecclesiastical authority, been reserved for the bishops, who may, however, delegate some of them; i.e. the benediction of abbots, of priests at their ordination, of virgins taking the veil, of churches, cemeteries, oratories, and of all articles for use in connexion with the altar (chalices, patens, vestments, &c.), of military colours, of soldiers and of their arms. The holy oil is also blessed by bishops in the Roman Catholic Church; in the Greek Church, on the other hand, the oil for the chrism at baptism is blessed by the priest. To the pope alone is reserved the blessing of the pallium, the golden rose, the “Agnus-Dei” and royal swords; he alone, too, can issue blessings that involve some days’ indulgence. The ceremonies prescribed for the various benedictions are set forth in the Rituale Romanum (tit. viii.). In general it is laid down (cap. i.) that the priest, in benedictions outside the Mass, shall be vested in surplice and stole, and shall give the blessing standing and bare-headed. Certain prayers are said before each benediction, after which he sprinkles the person or thing to be blessed with holy water and, where prescribed, censes them. He is attended by a minister with a vase of holy water, an aspergillum and a copy of the Rituale or missal. In all benedictions the sign of the cross is made. In the blessing of the holy water (cap. ii.), the essential instrument of all benedictions, the object is dearly to establish its potency against evil spirits. First the “creature of salt” is exorcized, “that ... thou mayest be to all who take thee health of body and soul; that wherever thou art sprinkled every phantasy and wickedness and wile of diabolic deceit may flee and leave that place, and every unclean spirit”; a prayer to God for the blessing of the salt follows; then the “creature of water” is exorcized, “that thou mayest become exorcized water for the purpose of putting to flight every power of the enemy, that thou mayest avail to uproot and expel this enemy with all his apostate angels, by the virtue of the same our Lord Jesus Christ, &c.”; and again a prayer to God follows that the water may “become a creature in the service of His mysteries, for the driving out of demons, &c.” In the formulae of blessings that follow, the special efficacy against devils is implied by the aspersion with holy water; the benedictions themselves are usually merely invocative of the divine protection or assistance, though, e.g., in the form for blessing sick animals the priest prays that “all diabolic power in them may be destroyed, and that they may be ill no longer.” It is to be remarked that the “laying on of hands,” which in the Old and the New Testament alike is the usual “form” of blessing, is not used in liturgical benedictions, the priest being directed merely to extend his right hand towards the person to be blessed. The appendix de Benedictionibus to the Rituale Romanum contains formulae, often of much simple beauty, for blessing all manner of persons and things, from the congregation as a whole and sick men and women, to railways, ships, blast-furnaces, lime-kilns, articles of food, medicine and medical bandages and all manner of domestic animals.

The Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, commonly called simply “Benediction” (Fr. salut, Ger. Segen), is one of the most popular of the services of the Roman Catholic Church. It is usually held in the afternoon or evening, sometimes at the conclusion of Vespers, Compline or the Stations of the Cross, and consists in the singing of certain hymns and canticles, more particularly the O salutaris hostia and the Tantum ergo, before the host, which is exposed on the altar in a monstrance and surrounded by not less than ten lighted candles. Often litanies and hymns to the Virgin are added. At the conclusion the priest, his shoulders wrapped in the humeral veil, takes the monstrance and with it makes the sign of the cross over the kneeling congregation, whence the name Benediction. The service, the details of which vary in different countries, is of comparatively modern origin. Father Thurston traces it to a combination in the 16th and 17th centuries of customs that had their origin in the 13th, i.e. certain gild services in honour of the Blessed Virgin, and the growing habit, resulting naturally from the doctrine of transubstantiation, of ascribing a supreme virtue to the act of looking on the Holy Sacrament.