We derive what we know of Benedict’s life from the hagiography of the Saint written by Pope St. Gregory the Great who defines Benedict as “the finest teacher of the ascetical life” (Madigan 3.51).
Surely Benedict birth place was Nursia (northeast of Rome) around 480, when the West Roman Empire was in decline causing social, economic and educational nor structural system’s changes. Another historical fact we know is that Benedict studied liberal arts in Rome (Madigan 3.51).
Benedict reacted to the decadence of the city and social environment becoming a hermit at Subiaco for three years (Madigan 3.51). After attracting other to his monastic solitude, he founded the Monastery of Monte Cassino, on the hills above Rome and gained the fame of being a holy man (Madigan 3.51).
Benedict wrote the Rule with the intent to regulate the life of his Monks, as it was common in the 6th century for Monasteries to have their own rules, a sort of organization through internal norms, referring to traditional monastic life and theological observance (Madigan 3.52).
Benedict imagined the Monks life embedded in prayers and work (ora et labora) (mainly agricultural jobs) and, the people who sponsored Monastery, believed that their sins, no matter how grave, would be forgiven and repaired by the ascetic life of penance and the prayers dedication of the Monks (Madigan 3.53).
The Rule that, for its clear organized minimalist norms, was later adopted by other Monasteries and persists today, was written in 73 chapters with the key virtue of Obedience to the Abbot seen as a paternal figure, referring to God the Father (Rosenwein 1.7). Of these 73 chapters, 13 regulate worshipping, 29 discipline and penance rules, 10 describe internal organization (Rosenwein 1.7). For Benedict the Monks are at the service of the Lord and, in order to fulfill this, they have to mortify the body, detach from worldly desires and—obey to the authority of the Abbot (Rosenwein 1.7).
He distinguishes between the cenobites, anchorites, hermits and gyrovagues, considering the classical monastic life of obedience, of the cenobites as the desired model for the kingdom of God.
The Rule contains norms of discipline and penal code, plus internal administration and regulation. We can relate Benedict view of life on Earth requiring the cultivation of human virtue to the writings of Augustine in the “City of God” (Rosenwein 1.7). Some of these virtues in the Rule translate into obedience, prayer, fasting, humility, brotherhood, penance, night offices chanting Psalms, with the Bible representing the constant guideline. This in particular created the need for school, books and manuscript’s work (Madigan 3.54). Monastic life was not only hermitically dislocated, but often embedded in the social contest, regulating education and functioning as intercessory prayer for the lay people and the death; the monastery could receive for instance the “Oblate” from nobles, and some could function as refuge for pilgrims or rudimental hospitals (Madigan 3.54-3.55). The strong intellectual development in monastic life didn’t stop at Theology but embraced hard sciences from math to medicine (Rosenwein 1.7)