The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict, are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529 they are the oldest of all the religious orders in the Latin Church. The male religious are also sometimes called the Black Monks, especially in English speaking countries, after the colour of their habits. Not all Benedictines wear black, however, with some like the Olivetans wearing white. They were founded by Benedict of Nursia, a 6th-century Italian monk who laid the foundations of Benedictine monasticism through the formulation of his Rule. Benedict's sister, Scholastica, possibly his twin, also became a religious from an early age, but chose to live as a hermit. They retained a close relationship until her death.
The Abbey of Saint Gall is a dissolved abbey (747–1805) in a Catholic religious complex in the city of St. Gallen in Switzerland. The Carolingian-era monastery existed from 719, founded by Saint Othmar on the spot where Saint Gall had erected his hermitage. It became an independent principality between 9th and 13th centuries, and was for many centuries one of the chief Benedictine abbeys in Europe. The library of the Abbey is one of the oldest monastic libraries in the world.
Gall according to hagiographic tradition was a disciple and one of the traditional twelve companions of Columbanus on his mission from Ireland to the continent. However, he may have originally come from the border region between Lorraine and Alemannia and only met Columbanus at the monastery of Luxeuil in the Vosges. Gall is known as a representative of the Irish monastic tradition. The Abbey of Saint Gall in the city of Saint Gallen, Switzerland was built upon his original hermitage. Deicolus was the elder brother of Gall.
The Bridgettines, or Birgittines, formally known as the Order of the Most Holy Saviour, is a monastic religious order of the Catholic Church founded by Saint Birgitta in 1344 and approved by Pope Urban V in 1370. They follow the Rule of Saint Augustine. There are today several different branches of Bridgettines.
Einsiedeln Abbey is a Catholic monastery administered by the Benedictine Order in the village of Einsiedeln, Switzerland.
May 1 - Eastern Orthodox Church calendar - May 3
The Plan of Saint Gall is a medieval architectural drawing of a monastic compound dating from 820–830 AD. It depicts an entire Benedictine monastic compound, including church, houses, stables, kitchens, workshops, brewery, infirmary, and a special building for bloodletting. According to calculations based on the manuscript's tituli the complex was meant to house about 110 monks, 115 lay visitors, and 150 craftmen and agricultural workers.
The English Benedictine Congregation (EBC) is a congregation of autonomous abbatial and prioral monastic communities of Catholic Benedictine monks, nuns, and lay oblates. It is technically the oldest of the nineteen congregations affiliated to the Benedictine Confederation.
January 7 - Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar - January 9
Meinrad, OSB was a German Benedictine hermit and is revered as a Catholic and Orthodox saint. He is known as the "Martyr of Hospitality". His feast day is 21 January.
Fleury Abbey (Floriacum) in Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, Loiret, France, founded in about 640, is one of the most celebrated Benedictine monasteries of Western Europe, and possesses the relics of St. Benedict of Nursia. Its site on the banks of the Loire has always made it easily accessible from Orléans, a center of culture unbroken since Roman times. In 2010, the abbey had over forty monks led by the abbot Etienne Ricaud.
Conception Abbey, site of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, is a monastery of the Swiss-American Congregation of the Benedictine Confederation. The monastery, founded by the Swiss Engelberg Abbey in 1873 in northwest Missouri's Nodaway County, was raised to a conventual priory in 1876 and elevated to an abbey in 1881. In 2021 the community numbered fifty-eight monks who celebrate the Eucharist and Liturgy of the Hours daily and who staff and administer Conception Seminary College, The Printery House, and the Abbey Guest Center. Monks also serve as parish priests and hospital chaplains in the Diocese of Kansas City-Saint Joseph and other dioceses. There is also a large postal facility attached to The Printery House, operated by lay employees, which includes package shipping and delivery facilities.
The Vallombrosians are a monastic religious order in the Catholic Church. They are named after the location of their motherhouse founded in Vallombrosa, situated 30 km from Florence on the northwest slope of Monte Secchieta in the Pratomagno chain. They use the postnominal abbreviation OSBVall to distinguish themselves from other Benedictines, who generally use the abbreviation OSB.
St. Mang's Abbey, Füssen or Füssen Abbey was a Benedictine monastery in Füssen in Bavaria, Germany. It was founded in the 9th century, and dissolved during the post-Napoleonic secularisation of Bavaria.
Othmar, was a Medieval monk and priest. He served as the first abbot of the Abbey of St. Gall, a Benedictine monastery near where the city of St. Gallen, now in Switzerland, developed.
Rachilidis of Saint Gall, was a recluse, who lived some time in the 10th century, in Switzerland. She was the daughter of a noble family. She had various ailments, including an incurable skin disease.
The Princely Abbey of Kempten was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire for centuries until it was annexed to the Electorate of Bavaria in the course of the German mediatization in 1803.
Tokwon Abbey was a Benedictine monastery of the Congregation of Missionary Benedictines of Saint Ottilien, located near the town of Wonsan in what is now North Korea. Founded as a monastic mission in Seoul, the community transferred to Tokwon in the 1920s to take charge of the newly created Apostolic Vicariate of Wonsan. The persecution of Christians in North Korea since 1949—including the torture and murder of dozens of men and women religious—made any church activity in the abbacy impossible. However the Territorial Abbacy of Tokwon is formally still kept as one of the few remaining territorial abbeys within the Catholic Church.
Nortpert was abbot of the Abbey of Saint Gall from 1034 to 1072.
Engilbert II was a Benedictine monk and scribe of the abbey of Saint Gall. He served as abbot between 925 and 933.
