Benedict of Aniane, Saint

Benedict of Aniane, Saint,

c.750–821, French abbot who became a monastic adviser to Louis ILouis I
or Louis the Pious,
Fr. Louis le Pieux or Louis le Débonnaire, 778–840, emperor of the West (814–40), son and successor of Charlemagne. He was crowned king of Aquitaine in 781 and co-emperor with his father in 813.
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. He first founded (c.780) an austere monastic community at Aniane in Languedoc, based on Eastern asceticism. In 799, he founded a large monastery based on the more moderate Benedictine Rule (see Benedict, SaintBenedict, Saint
, d. c.547, Italian monk, called Benedict of Nursia, author of a rule for monks that became the basis of the Benedictine order, b. Norcia (E of Spoleto).
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). As the leading reformer of French monastic houses, he presided over a series of councils of abbots at Aachen (816–819) that centralized and imposed regulations on all Carolingian monasteries. This legislation was essential to the development of Benedictine dominance in Western monasticism. Feast: Feb. 11. See BenedictinesBenedictines,
religious order of the Roman Catholic Church, following the rule of St. Benedict [Lat. abbr.,=O.S.B.]. The first Benedictine monastery was at Monte Cassino, Italy, which came to be regarded as the symbolic center of Western monasticism. St.
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; monasticismmonasticism
, form of religious life, usually conducted in a community under a common rule. Monastic life is bound by ascetical practices expressed typically in the vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience, called the evangelical counsels.
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.