especially on Sunday, to religious reading ; and from six to seven hours to manual labor in doors or in the field, or, instead of this, to the training of children, who were committed to the cloister by their parents {oUatiy Here was a starting point for the afterward celebrated cloister schools, and for that attention to literary pursuits, which, though entirely foreign to the uneducated Benedict and his immediate successors, afterward became one of the chief ornaments of his order, and in many cloisters took the place of manual labor. In other respects the mode of life was to be simple, with- out extreme rigor, and confined to strictly necessary things. Clothing consisted of a tunic with a black cowl (whence the name : Black Friars) ; the material to be determined by the climate and season. On the two weekly fast days, and from the middle of September to Easter, one meal was to sufiice for the day. Each monk is allowed daily a pound of bread and pulse, and, according to the Italian custom, half a flagon {hemina) of wine ; though he is advised to abstain from the wine, if he can do so without injury to his health. Flesh is permitted only to the weak and sick,^ who were to be treated with special care. During the meal some edifying piece was read, and silence enjoined. The individual monk knows no personal property, not even his simple dress as such ; and the fruits of his labor go into the common treasury. He should avoid all contact with the world, as dangerous to the soul, and therefore every cloister should be so arranged, as to be able to carry on even the arts and trades necessary for supplying its tation of Ps. cxix. 164: "Seven times a day do I praise tliee," and v. 62: "At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee." The Psalter was the liturgy and hymn book of the convent. It was so divided among the seven services of the day, that the whole psalter should be chanted once a week. - Cap. 59 : " Si quis forte de nobilibus offert filium suum Deo in monasterio, si ipse puer minori setate est, parentes ejus faciant petitionem," etc. ^ Cap. 40 : " Carnium quadrupedum ab omnibus abstinetur comestio, proster omnino debiles et segrotos." Even birds are excluded, which were at that time only delicacies for princes and nobles, as Mabillon shows from the contemporary testi- mony of Gregory of Tours. 224 THIBD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. wants.' Hospitality and other works of love are especially commended. The penalties for transgression of the rule are, first, private admonition, then exclusion from the fellowship of prayer, next exclusion from fraternal intercourse, and finally expulsion from the cloister, after which, however, restoration is possible, even to the third time. § 45. The Benedictines. Cassiodorus. Benedict had no presentiment of the vast historical impor- tance, which this rule, originally designed simply for the