Category talk:Benedictines

Use Caution for Early Benedictines

Please document that an Early Medieval monk or nun was actually Benedictine before characterizing them as such. Older historical sources (the Brittanica, the Catholic Encyclopedia) tended to assume that all early religious were Benedictine without seeking any further documentation.

Many early monasteries followed local rules, rather than the rule of St. Benedict, only adopting the Benedictine Rule as a result of monastic reform movements, such as that of Charlemagne. Thus the fact that a monastery was Benedictine in the 11th century does not provide evidence that it was Benedictine in the 8th. --SteveMcCluskey 20:32, 22 September 2006 (UTC)