Benedictine Order

The Benedictine Order is a Roman Catholic religious order founded by St. Benedict of Nursia (?480-?547), who around 540 established the first Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino in the mountains of southern Italy some 100 kms southeast of Rome. The Benedictine Order is a monastic order which follows the Rule of its founder, as set out in his Regula Monachorum (Rule for Monks). (The pattern of life embodied in the Rule of St. Benedict has not only been adopted by a number of other religious orders, but has provided the basis for the Rule of all the other Western Christian monastic orders.) There are Benedictine nuns as well as Benedictine monks.

The liqueur Benedictine is so called because it is made according to a secret formula developed in the early sixteenth century by the monks at the Benedictine monastery at Fécamp in France.

Ampleforth College, the English Roman Catholic public school in North Yorkshire, is a Benedictine foundation.