Lives of the Benedictine Saints: Benedict of Aniane
Richard Oliver, O.S.B.
Although we revere Saint Benedict of Nursia as the Patriarch of Western Monasticism, it is unlikely that he intended to found a religious order as we know one today. That distinction is generally accorded to the “Second Benedict,” Saint Benedict of Aniane (ca. 747– 821), who shaped Benedictine monasticism more than any other. His greatest concern was with regulations and monastic practice rather than with spirituality.
Born into a noble family of Visigoths in Aquitaine, southern France, and given the name Witiza, at a young age he entered service as a page in the Frankish court of Pippin the Younger (d. 768). Witiza served Pippin’s son at court and enlisted in Charlemagne’s Italian campaign (773). Near Pavia, he saw his brother, struggling in the flooded Ticino River, torn away by the current, never to reappear.
“The aim of [Benedict of
Aniane’s] reforms was
that through prayer, study,
meditation, and reading
the monks would pass
“from faith to sight,”
that understanding
would blossom into contemplative
love of God.”
The experience affected him greatly. His biographer, Ardo (Smaragdus; d. 843), recounts the tearful conversion that led Witzia in his twenties to leave the imperial court, renounce the world, and enter the Abbey of Saint-Seine near Dijon.
At Saint-Seine, Witiza was enamored of early monasticism’s extreme asceticism. He preferred the austere rules of Columbanus, Basil, and Pachomius. His ego-centric form of asceticism proved to be incompatible with common life, so he lived as an anchorite [recluse] among cenobites. Eventually, the abbot recommended the Rule of Benedict—that was nothing more than a rule “for beginners and weak persons” in Witiza’s mind. The more he came to know the Rule of Benedict, however, the more his appreciation of it grew. “This change of heart transformed him in the eyes of his brethren from a ridiculed misfit to an integrated member of the community, a process concluded by his promotion to cellarer” [the monastic official in charge of provisions] (Ardo, Vita, 2.6; tr. Allen Cabaniss). During this time, he fully assimilated the Rule, and the monks elected him abbot.
Benedict came to see that his zeal for perfectionism was not shared by his monks. He abandoned Saint-Seine in 779 and, with his father’s inheritance, established a community of like-minded monastics at Aniane near Montpellier in Languedoc (modern-day Occitanie) and became its abbot. He changed his name to Benedict about 780. His community adopted the Rule of Benedict, and numerous monasteries in western France and Germany joined in observing the new rule that Benedict had introduced at Aniane.
Daniel Villafruela/Wikimedia Commons
Saints Benoît. 17th century bas relief from the Church of Saint-Pierre Gignac (Hérault, France), representing Saint Benedict of Aniane and Saint Benedict of Nursia.
King Louis the Pious made Benedict his advisor on monastic affairs in the Kingdom of Aquitaine. In 814, after Louis succeeded his father as emperor, he installed Benedict as abbot of Marmoutier Abbey in Alsace. He entrusted Benedict with the coordination of practices and communication among the monasteries within his domains. Benedict had a wide knowledge of patristic literature; and Church leaders, such as Alcuin of York, sought his counsel. In the dogmatic controversy over Adoptionism, Benedict and Alcuin took the part of ortho-doxy, denouncing those who taught that Christ, in his human form, was not the true son of God but only adopted. A series of reform councils held at the imperial palace between 816 and 819 aimed at clarifying the hierarchies and orders within the Carolingian Church. “This was the time that Benedict of Aniane composed his most lasting legacies, the Codex regularum monasticarum et canonicarum and the Concordia regularum, works that aimed to celebrate the many varieties of monastic life that could exist under the overarching authority of the sixth-century Rule of Benedict” (Trzeciak and Kramer, “Tears for Fears: Alienation and Authority in the World of Benedict of Aniane,” Open Library of Humanities, 8).
Louis the Pious was generous in calculating the obligations of the monks but extremely cautious about allowing them any rights. Benedict secured—for some monasteries only—the right of free election of an abbot from within the monastic community. Even so, for each abbatial election permission had to be secured—and could be withheld. Benedict has been adversely criticized for his prohibition against educating externs in the monastic schools. He aimed thereby to strengthen the contemplative character of the monasteries. Although these new codes fell into disuse shortly after the deaths of Benedict and his patron, they did have lasting effects on Western monasticism, paving the way for the Cluniac Reform of the tenth century.
Benedict of Aniane died in 821. He never achieved the uniformity he intended because it depended on the unity of an empire that soon disintegrated, but he did elevate the idealism and uniform observance of Western monasticism. His feast day is celebrated on 11 February, the date of his death; or 12 February, the date of his burial.
Brother Richard Oliver, O.S.B., president emeritus of the Ameri-can Benedictine Academy, is the coordinator of Saint John’s Abbey church tours.
Article originally published in the Abbey Banner, Fall 2021