The Benedictine Medal has a respectable, if not a great antiquity, and its origins — as is the case with other things Benedictine — are obscured by the mists which are inseparable from antiquity. Those origins have recently been investigated by diligent students, and certain new facts have come to light as a result of this investigation. It is the purpose of this article to set forth the present state of the enquiry in as clear and succinct a manner as possible.
The Benedictine medal is essentially a cross, but a cross accompanied by certain letters which give the medal at first sight a cabalistic appearance. In the eighteenth century (1741-2), when the medal received papal approbation and privilege, it was enacted that it should bear a representation of St Benedict; but the earliest medals had no such representation. They varied much in shape and design, while agreeing in the essential elements, the cross and the letters. What is the origin of these elements and how have they come to be associated with St Benedict ?
So far as regards the cross, the answer to our two questions is comparatively easy. We do not need to seek out origins here, for devotion to the cross as the instrument of Our Lord's redemptive sacrifice is as old as Christianity itself, and is not specifically Benedictine. It does not appear that the Benedictines played any special part in the propagation of this devotion, or in the popularisation of representations of the cross, except in so far as they maintained and propagated the essential Christian faith and Christian piety: a large proviso, as we freely admit. Still it does not seem that we need, for our purpose, to embark upon a general history of devotion to the cross among Benedictines, or that we should be justified in deriving the cross of the Benedictine medal from such devotion alone. Why then is the cross thus associated with St Benedict ? The answer to this, our second question, is also not far to seek. We have only to go to the story of St Benedict's life, as told by St Gregory in his Dialogues, to find that the cross played a conspicuous part in his life and a part which is entirely in accord with its function in the medal. For the cross of the medal, as the inscriptions show, has the precise character of a weapon for use in the Christian's regular conflict with the devil and his temptations. Now St Benedict is depicted, in St Gregory's memorable narratives, as making just such a use of the sign of the cross in the many conflicts with Satan which those narratives describe. In fact the " Cross versus the Devil," which is the motif 'of the medal, is a motif also of St Benedict's life as told by St Gregory. We may certainly say that the designer of the medal, whoever he was, seized justly an essential trait of the traditional story. *
But such a conclusion does not carry our enquiry very far. It shows, if we may so express it, the permanent possibility of such a medal, but tells us nothing of the time and circumstances of its emergence. Nor does it really explain the special differentia of St Benedict's cross—the inscriptions which accompany it. It is very natural that a cross should become associated with representations of St Benedict; but whence came these sentences ? Now the first literary reference to the medal is in a Latin tract of the year 1664, and that tract, while disclaiming all knowledge of the medal's origin, refers to it as extant in 1647. All evidence of its existence at an earlier date is lacking, but there is evidence for the existence of its elements, in a state of solution, and it is this evidence which Dr Cornell has brought to light and which we wish to set out here. It looks as though we are allowed to watch the evolution of the medal in its earliest stages. Let us now set down these stages in order, so far as they have been discovered.
The famous ducal library of Wolfenbuttel possesses among its manuscript treasures (Helm. 20 35*) a Biblia Pauperum (pictorial instruction for the illiterate) of the fourteenth century and of South German provenance. On its first page are sixteen Latin verses, crude " leonines," of a kind specially popular in the twelfth century. The verses contain (1) an exhortation to fidelity in the monastic state, (2) the monk's repudiation of the devil and choice of the cross, (3) some description of the monstrous figure which represents the allurements of the world. For the verses are illustrated by a remarkable allegorical picture in this manner. The ' poem ' begins with the line Vir bone dispone quod stes in religione. and breaks off after verse 4 to admit the picture, which is as follows : On the left is a tonsured monk, in religious habit, labelled 'Religio'. He is armed with a cross on a long shaft-something like a very plain processional cross — which he holds in his right hand and under his right arm, and which he is pointing like a lance at the figure which faces him. That figure, on the right hand of the picture, is labelled " Figura mundi" and is what the Germans call a " Siebenlasterweib " (seven-vices-woman), a grotesque female form representing the Seven Deadly Sins. She has a chalice in her right hand and is offering it to the monk. The three Latin verses which this scene illustrates especially are nn. 5, 6 and 7, and they are as follows:
5. Sunt mala que libas, ipsa venena bibas
6. Vade retro sathana, nunquam suade michi vana
7. Crux sacra sit michi lux, non draco sit michi dux
These, it will be noticed, are precisely the three verses employed in the Benedictine medal. In the miniature, verse 5 is written under the shaft of the cross and along its length. (Note the feminine form " ipsa," which is evidently addressed to the temptress.) Verses 6 and 7 come immediately under the left hand of the monk, which is extended towards the other figure.
Here then, in this fourteenth century miniature, we have the main elements of the Benedictine medal—the cross and the verses—in what we have called a state of solution. The monk that accompanies them is not depicted as a saint; he is generalised. The picture represents the conflict of the Cloister and the World.
In the state library at Munich (Clm. 8201) is a fifteenth century manuscript which belonged once to the abbey of Metten in Bavaria and is known as the Metten Bible. It is dated 1414. A miniature on folio 95 recto takes the development of our matter one stage further. The same two figures are depicted, but with this difference, that the monk now has a nimbus, so that he probably represents St Benedict. He holds the same long-shafted cross, but he is not now holding it quite so aggressively. Only three of the Latin verses are given, but they are the important three, i.e., those which are employed in the medal. They are now differently arranged. The verse associated with the cross and written now upon its shaft is verse 7 :
7. Crux sacra sit michi lux, non draco sit michi dux.
In his left hand the saint holds a scroll on which are written verses 5 and 6, in inverted order:
6. Vade retro sathana, nunquam suade michi vana.
5. Sunt mala que lib as, ipsa venena bibas.
It will be noticed that the pronoun is still " ipsa " and must be referred, as before, to the female figure representing the Seven Deadly Sins. The verse which speaks of the cross is now written on the shaft of the cross and so approximates to the position which its initials occupy in the medal. And the other two verses have got into their " right " order. So we are now definitely nearer to the Benedictine medal.
From the Metten Bible of 1414 to a small printed book, published in Latin at Salzburg in 1664, is a space of exactly two centuries and a half, and for all that period we have no further evidence. The two documents that we have mentioned already come from South Germany, and it is undoubtedly in South Germany, among the ancient Benedictine abbeys of that country, that the medal took its origin. Further research in the libraries of Bavaria and Austria (thinks Dr Cornell) may yet supply the missing links in the chain of development from the allegorical pictures of the Wolfenbuttel and Munich MSS. to the fully-developed medal that we find extant in 1664. For the Salzburg booklet is a short treatise on an existing medal, Effectus et virtutes Crucis sive Numismatis S Patriarchae Benedicti with an engraving of the medal.
In the same year (1664) a Tyrolese abbey published at Innsbruck a German leaflet of the same purport, also with a reproduction of the medal. Both these publications deal with the medal as with an object which has an established position, and their purpose is to make the medal more widely known and venerated. This they seem to have done very successfully. A French brochure, based chiefly upon the Salzburg tract, was published at Paris in 1668 and spread the vogue of the medal throughout that country. And in the next year (1669) there appeared an English booklet, which we believe to be a translation of the Paris book. We hope to reproduce it at the end of this article and shall not stop to describe it here. So that the years 1664-9 witnessed a considerable propaganda in favour of the medal.
Let us now ask questions of these first printed. What is the type of medal that they know? And what account do they give of origin of its origin?
(1) The answer to the first question is simple. The medal bears on one side the cross with the initial letters of the " Crux sacra " disposed upon it, and in the four spaces between the arms the letters C.S.P.B. (Crux Sancti Patris Benedicti). On the other side, the centre holds the monogram of the Holy Name, I.H.S., while round it are the initials of the other two verses : " Vade retro," etc. This is the earliest known form of the medal, and it may be seen still to-day on the beads of the Sisters of Charity, who have used it probably since the earliest years of their foundation. It is even suggested that it may have been given them by their founder, St Vincent de Paul himself.
(2) The answer to the second question is not so easy, because the author of the Salzburg tract expressly says that he knows nothing about the origin of the medal: " Originem ejus primam hactenus scire non licuit." And if he knew nothing of its origin, how can we hope to discover it ? He proposes, in fact, as his title indicates, to deal, not with the origins of the medal, but with its efficacy. This he does by narrating the story of certain witches of Straubingen in 1647, who confessed under examination that they had been baulked in their efforts to bewitch the cattle of a certain estate, not far from Metten, by the presence of inscribed medals in the owner's house. The medals were produced in court, but none could understand their mysterious lettering. Recourse was had to Metten, and a manuscript in the abbey library—the one we have described already—revealed the secret of the mysterious letters. The result was that the medal obtained a wide publicity, and that the pastoral folk throughout that country and beyond, in those days when witchcraft was very widely credited, sought to have for themselves so valuable a protection against the menace of sorcery.
Such is the account, in summary, of the Salzburg tract. If it does not reveal the origin of the medal, at least, by its introduction of Metten, it suggests to us, with our knowledge of the medal's antecedents, that Metten was probably its place of origin. How long did it exist before 1647 ? That we cannot say ; but it seems reasonable to suppose that its birth did not precede by many years this first recorded instance of its use. Medals are not particularly perishable things, but partake of the permanence of coins. If they often escape their owners, yet they turn up sooner or later in the hands of the antiquary or the cases of the museum. Now Dom Fournier asserts roundly, after much enquiry, that there exists no specimen of an earlier date than 1650, and he reports that the earliest dated medals are of the year 1682. In confirmation of his view we have the testimony of the doughty J.-B. Thiers, who devoted some pages to the medal in his Traite des Superstitions, published at Paris not very long after the appearance of the French tract of 1668.* In the course of his account of the medal he says that it was discovered in Germany and propagated " a few years ago " : "Les Benedictins d'Allemagne l'ont decouverte les premiers, et l'ont mise en vogue depuis quelques annees." That is important witness, and we feel justified, all things considered, in asserting that the Benedictine medal was first struck in the second quarter of the seventeenth century, and probably at Metten.
We have now set forth as much as is known at present regarding the early history of the Benedictine medal and have completed our task. The later history of the medal, how it received in 1741-2 full papal approbation and privilege, and how, in 1880, a new " centenary medal " with further privileges was authorised: these things do not now concern us. But we should like to complete our proper task by adding here, in appendix, a full reprint of the English tract of 1669, to which we have already referred. The Bodleian Library (Wood 893.3) possesses a copy of this rare old tract, of which there is another copy at Downside Abbey. It is a booklet of 12 pages (2 blanks) and measures 3 inches by 5. It is almost certainly translated from the French tract of 1668, of which the title was " Les Effets et Vertus de la Croix ou Medaille du Grand Patriarche Saint Benoist. Extrait de l'imprimé d'Allemagne." And it is highly probable that the translation was made by an English Benedictine. But the little tract has this further interest that it would appear to be now the most ancient representative of the original. No copy of its immediate exemplar, the French tract of 1668, has survived, and we know it only in the pages of J.-B. Thiers.
Nor does any copy of the ultimate original, the Salzburg tract of 1664, appear to be extant; at least Dom Four-nier failed to trace one. So that the English booklet of 1669 is now perhaps the oldest extant representative of the first printed treatise on the medal, from which it is separated by no more than five years. With these excuses offered for its reprinting here, we now subjoin its complete text.
The Brazen Serpent set up by Moses in the Desert, had not such efficacy against the bitings of venemous Beasts, as the Sacred Cross hath against the assaults of Devils and their dependents. And although the virtue thereof depends solely upon Christ Jesus ; yet surely we may not doubt but that God more particularly applyes it in regard of the merits of his Saints. This is most evidently seen in the Crosses or Medals of St Benedict; the effects whereof are so wonderful and so well known in Germany.
It is not a very easie matter to find out the first beginning of these Medals, but it is manifest, that St Benedict, and his Disciples, had the Cross evermore in singular honour and veneration. The chief furniture which this Holy Patriarch carryed with him into his Cave at Suhlake, was a Cross which may be seen remaining this day in St Scholasticds Monastery : and for a pledge of his affection to his Disciple St Maurus, he gave him when he sent him into France a parcel of the true Cross. If he drives away that importunating Black-bird, or rather that wicked Devil which tempts him to impurity : if he discovers the poyson which they present to him in a Cup to destroy him : if he expels the Spirit of Pride from the heart of one of his Religoius Monks : in a word, if he will dissipate the delusions of a fantastical conflagration, 'tis by means of the sign of the Cross.
With this divine instrument St Maurus and St Placidus wrought all their Miracles invoking at the same time, the name of their Holy Father Benedict, though he was then living,* and his devotion to the Cross was spread abroad, throughout the whole Order proportionably to its extent and dilation, witness Rabanus Maurus in his age, who left to posterity such variety of ingenious Crosses : and perhaps it proceeds from the examples of St Maurus, and St Placidus, that an occasion was taken to joyn the invocation of St Benedict with the sign of the Cross and even to grave upon Medals his name, in manner of a Cross. This practice was abolished, and the very memory thereof would have been totally lost and extinguished, had not a miraculous discovery of these Medals been made in these latter times in Germany, after the manner here ensuing.
In the year 1647, a diligent inquest being made after Witches and Sorcerers in Bavaria, and several of them having been executed in the Town of Straubingen: some amongst the rest, averred to the judges in their Interrogatories and Examinations, That their charms and enchantments could work no effect upon the Persons or Cattle of the Castle of Naur emberg, neighbouring upon the Abbey of Metten, of St Benedict's Order ; by reason of certain Sacred Medals, which were then in certain places by them discovered.*
And the said Medals being accordingly found, no one (no not the Witches themselves) could explicate the meaning of the Characters engraved upon them, till such time as they light upon an antient Manuscript in the Library of the said Abbey, which perfectly cleared the difficulty.
A relation of all this was made to the Duke of Bavaria, who being desirous to inform himself exactly of all the particulars, caus'd the aforesaid Medals and Manuscripts to be brought to Ingolstad, and from thence to Monachium: and having compar'd one with the other, it was concluded, That the said Medals might profitably be made use of, without the least suspition of Error, or danger of Superstition : Of all which, he caus'd a Verbal Process (as they term it) to be drawn up.
As concerning the Characters, engraven upon these Medals ; each Letter betokens a Word : And behold the Figure with the Interpretation.
In one of the Faces of the Cross, where you see these Letters, C.S.S.M.L.N.D.S.M.D. you must read,
Crux Sacra Sit Mihi Lux.
Non Draco Sit Mihi Dux.
Which sounds somewhat after this sense in our Language,
O Sacred Cross, be thou my light.
Satan, avoid out of my sight.
The four Letters standing in the four Corners, to wit, C.S.P.B. signifie these words,
Crux Sancti Patris Benedicti.
The Cross of the Holy Father Benedict.
In the other, these two Verses are traced,
Vade retro Satana, nunquam suade mihi vana ;
Sunt mala quae lihat, ipse venena bibat.
Avaunt foul Fiend, vain are thy tempting charms ;
The Cross shall ward me from thy poysonous harms.
The Fame of this discovery being nois'd abroad in the Countrey; every devout person was desirous to have some of these Medals: whereupon many were made according to the model of them which were thus found; Which being bless'd by the Religious of the Order, have produc'd wonderful effects, principally against all sorts of Charms and Witchcrafts; as they have happily experienced, who have made use of them for themselves, or for their Cattle bewitched, by dipping them in the water which they gave them to drink.
And surely no one can doubt but that the use of such Sacred things is very profitable, when accompanied with true Faith in God, and devout Veneration towards the Holy Cross, and the Glorious St Benedict, both whose wonders are otherwise so well known. And by the sensible effects, which this devout practise dayly produces, we may judge of the invisible effects which it operates in the Souls of them, who use it with the requisite dispositions.
In a former article we endeavoured to set out the early history of the Benedictine medal, so far as that history has been discovered; we now propose to attempt the easier task of recording its later history and of indicating the privileges which belong to it. If we were compelled before to rely upon probable inferences and were unable to reach an absolutely certain conclusion, we are now in better case, for we can cite precise documents and appeal to unquestioned facts.
We saw previously that the first Benedictine medal was probably struck about the year 1640, and that a considerable propaganda in favour of the medal was set afoot in the year 1664. This propaganda began with a Latin booklet published at Strasburg in 1664 an^ was carried further by French and English publications in the same decade. By the year 1670 the Benedictine medal in its primitive form—of which we gave a reproduction—was fully launched upon the world.
For the next seventy years there is nothing further to report. The medal spread widely and its design suffered many alterations of detail. We do not propose to attempt any description of the many varieties of the medal—some of them noteworthy examples of the engraver's craft—which now became current, but we must mention one development which effected an important change in the original design. On the first medals, as we have seen, there was no representation of St Benedict, the reverse holding for its centre-piece the monogram of the Holy Name. But before the end of the seventeenth century, this monogram was displaced in favour of an image of the Saint, and such an image—very variously conceived—now becomes the ampleforth journal a regular, though not universal, element in the Benedictine medal. In the oldest medals of this type the Saint holds in his hand a broken cup—the poisoned cup of the Dialogues— with the symbolic serpent rising from it: a design, we may note, which is in admirable accord with the spirit of the medal and with its antecedents. But this design did not persevere, and in later medals we find the Saint deprived of the envenomed cup and given such other emblems as cross, or crozier, or book. At his feet appears the raven with the poisoned loaf. In the latest medal of all—the centenary medal—the poisoned cup re-appears, but not in the Saint's hand. We mention these few variants, but make no attempt to give a full account of the matter. The one point which we wish to emphasize is that an image of the Saint became very early a part of the normal Benedictine medal. That development was spontaneous and natural; it soon became fixed in one class of medal by definite enactment, as we shall now proceed to relate.
For the first century of so of its existence the Benedictine medal enjoyed no specially privileged position. It was a Benedictine product, propagated by Benedictines, and could claim no ecumenical status. It received the ordinary ritual blessing given to medals in general, and, if its special efficacy was extolled, yet it could claim for itself no special ecclesiastical privileges. Its career, if we may so put it, was an unofficial one, successful and beneficent enough, but lacking any general recognition. But with the end of that first century all this was changed, and the medal acquired emphatic ecclesiastical recognition under the auspices of no less a person than the learned Pope Benedict XIV. It happened in this way.
About the year 1740, Dom Benno Lobl, abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Brevnov in Bohemia**, zealous for the honour of St Benedict and dissatisfied with the existing status of the medal, approached the Holy See and petitioned for its full recognition.
His petition was entirely successful. The Pope by a Brief of March 12th, 1742, in which is incorporated a Decree of the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences for j December 23 rd of the previous year, gave the medal the fullest I approval and enriched it with indulgences. The Decree of the Sacred Congregation embodies a description of the medal, or medal-cross, and specifies that one side shall bear an image of St Benedict and the other the cross with the traditional letters, of which it gives a full explanation. It proceeds then to give a formula of blessing comprising an exorcism, a series of versicles and responses, and two prayers. This formula, thus established, subsequently took its due place in the Roman Ritual, and until the year 1895, when a special form of blessing was appointed for the Miraculous Medal, the Benedictine medal had in this respect a unique privilege. In the beginning the use of this form of blessing, with all that it entailed, was restricted to the original grantee and his subjects; but it was subsequently extended by specific grants to every Congregation restricted to the original grantee and his subjects; but it was subsequently extended by specific grants to every Congregation of the Order.
The Decree proceeds, after establishing this formula of blessing, to enumerate the indulgences granted to those who devoutly wear the medal so blessed. These indulgences are too many and various to be enumerated here. It must suffice to say that they comprise fourteen plenary indulgences—to be gained on the greater feasts—and an indefinite number of indulgences for shorter periods. The indulgences, it may be noted, are not granted for the mere wearing of the blessed medals, but require the performance of certain specified works of piety and charity, and the frequentation of the sacraments.
Here then, in this Brief of Pope Benedict XIV, is what we may well call the charter of the Benedictine medal. After such definite approval the position of the medal was secure, and its status thoroughly official and recognized. Abbot Benno Lobl was properly proud of his achievement and proceeded to publish a book on the history and value of the medal, entitled Disquishlo sacra numismatica^ de origine, quidditate^ virtute, pioque usu Numismatum seu Crucularum S. Benedicti Abbatis (Vienna, 1743). The monk of Salzburg who composed the Latin tract of 1664 had confined himself to an account of the nature of the medal and of its efficacy, declaring that nothing could be discovered regarding its origin. For this declaration Abbot Benno takes him severely to task and for himself pronounces in favour of a miraculous origin. In support of this contention he adduces the following story from the life of Pope Leo IX, who was Pope from 1049 to 1054. We shall give the narrative as it is given by Abbot Guéranger.
This holy Pontiff was born in the year 1002. His name was Bruno, and during his childhood he was put under the care of Berthold, Bishop of Toul. Being on a visit to some relations at the castle of Eginsheim, he was sleeping one night —it was between Saturday and Sunday—in the room which had been allotted to him. During his sleep, a frightful toad came and crept on his face. It put one of its forefeet on his ear and the other under his chin, and then, violently pressing his face, began to suck his flesh. The pressure and pain awoke Bruno. Alarmed at the danger to which he was exposed he immediately rose from his bed, and with his hand knocked away from his ear the horrid reptile, which the moonlight enabled him to see. He immediately began to scream with fright, and several servants were soon in his room with lights; but the venomous reptile had disappeared. They searched for it in every corner of the room, but to no purpose, so that they were inclined to look upon the whole matter as a mere imagination of the boy. Be this as it may, the consequences were cruel realities, for Bruno immediately felt his face, throat and breast begin to be inflamed, and he was soon reduced to an extremely dangerous state.
For two months did his afflicted parents sit by his bedside, expecting every day to be his last. But at length, God, who destined him to become the pillar of His Church, put an end to their anxiety by restoring him to health. For eight davs he had been speechless, when on a sudden, whilst perfectly awake, he saw a shining ladder which seemed to go from his bed, and then passing through the window of his room reached up to heaven. A venerable old man, clothed in the monastic habit, and encircled with a brilliant light, descended by this ladder. He held in his right hand a cross, which was fastened to the end of a long staff. Coming close up to the sick man, he put his left hand on the ladder, and with his right placed the cross which he was carrying on Bruno's face, and afterwards on the other parts which were inflamed. This touch caused the venom to issue through an opening which was then and there formed near the ear. The old man then departed by the same way by which he had come, leaving the sick man with the certainty of his recovery.
Bruno lost no time in calling his attendant, Adalberon, who was a cleric: he made him sit on his bed, and related to him the joyful visit which he had just received. The sadness which had overwhelmed the family was changed into an extreme joy, and in a few days the wound was healed and Bruno restored to perfect health. Ever after he loved to recount this miraculous event, and the Archdeacon Wibert, to whom we are indebted for this history, assures us that the Pontiff was convinced that the venerable old man who had cured him by the touch of the holy cross was the glorious Patriarch, St Benedict.>>
Such is the story of St Leo and the toad, upon which we would venture to make these comments : First, that the narrative is reasonably good evidence for the association of a cross with St Benedict, an association which we have already seen reason for rinding natural and almost inevitable. Secondly, that the cross of the vision is just such a cross, i.e. a cross fastened to a long shaft, as we have encountered in the Wolfenbiittel and Metten miniatures. Thirdly, that there is nothing in the vision of St Leo regarding the letters of the medal-cross or those other letters which surround it. This last point is really the decisive one. In default of any allusion to this characteristic and even essential element of the medal-cross, we cannot follow Abbot Benno in placing the medal's origin in the early eleventh century and in regarding that origin as miraculous. Indeed we must go further and convict Abbot Benno of a little pious fraud in the matter. There is no mention of the letters in the record of St Leo's vision, nor is the identification of the heavenly visitant with St Benedict entirely conclusive. Yet Abbot Benno prefaces his book with an engraving entitled "Apparition of our Holy Father, St Benedict," and represents the Saint with the verses on the shaft of his cross and on his scroll, exactly as he has them in the Metten miniature. That was to add to the evidence of his authority, and to add the very point which he had to prove. So our conclusion is that the vision of St Leo has a place, if at all, only among the remoter antecedents of the Benedictine medal, and that it certainly offers no foundation for ascribing to the medal a miraculous origin.
However, we must not quarrel with Abbot Benno or lament his enthusiastic zeal, for he did yeoman service in the cause of the medal and we have all benefited through his energetic advocacy. After this time, until the year 1880, there is no further development to record in what we may call the constitutional history of the medal. As for its iconographical history, that we must leave to others, for we cannot embark in these pages on a review of the multitudinous varieties of medal, or medal-cross, which were struck during that century and a half. Suffice it to say that the primitive medal continued on its course in circles unaffected by the legislation of 1741—1742. Alongside it went the official and privileged medal, established by the Decree of 1741, the " ordinary medal" as it has been styled, itself in varying forms; for within the limits set by the Decree there was room for ample variation, and designers took full advantage of this freedom. These two main types of medal multiplied themselves in many forms, until the year 1880, when a third medal, of an absolutely fixed design and with added privileges, came to join itself to them. This is the well-known " centenary medal," a medal which bids fair to supersede all others, and its origin is as follows.
The year 1880 was celebrated by all Benedictines, and by the Abbey of Monte Cassino in particular, as the fourteenth centenary of St Benedict's birth. To commemorate that event by a lasting memorial a new Benedictine medal was designed by the monks of Beuron, struck by the Abbey of Monte Cassino and enriched by Pope Pius IX with special indulgences—over and above those granted to the " ordinary medal." Let us cite the Decree by which the Pope established the centenary medal.
PIUS IX POPE
For a Lasting Memorial.
Whereas the solemn centenary in honour of St Benedict is to be celebrated in the coming year 1880, whereas also the Crypt in the Arch-Abbey of Monte Cassino, founded by the holy Patriarch himself, and subject to no diocese of our Roman province, and wherein is the tomb of the same St Benedict and of his sister St Scholastica, and whereas the Tower also in which the Saint himself dwelt in his life on earth, are both being restored, by means of the offerings of the faithful from all countries of the world; our beloved son, Nicholaus d'Orgemont, Abbot Ordinary of Monte Cassino, has, after wholesome counsel, caused the holy and ancient medal of St Benedict to be restruck, in order to perpetuate the memory of that solemnity, and of the piety of the faithful, N and has likewise earnestly besought us to enrich the same with new indulgences. Wishing with all our heart to comply with these requests, walking in the footsteps of our predecessors, as a pledge of our special love towards the above-named Arch-Abbey, which, to use the words of our predecessor Benedict XIII. of happy memory, " has been consecrated by the daily indwelling of its founder even till his death, and also by the promulgation by him of his Rule, by the splendour of his miracles, in a word, ennobled by being the resting-place of his sacred body, and, as fountain-head of the whole Order, has ever been held in great honour and esteem by all, and especially by the Roman Pontiffs our predecessors," trusting in the mercy of Almighty God, and relying on the authority of his blessed Apostles SS. Peter and Paul, to each and all of the faithful of Christ, of both sexes, who shall wear that holy medal given to them by the Abbot Ordinary of Monte Cassino for the time being, or by any priest whom he shall please to delegate for this purpose, to such as these, by the tenor of these present letters, we give and grant, besides the indulgences already granted, power and permission freely and lawfully to gain each and all the indulgences, plenary as well as partial, conceded by this Holy See to those visiting the above-named holy places, to wit, the Basilica and Cathedral Church, the Crypt, and Tower of St Benedict, on condition that they visit some church, or public oratory, and there earnestly pray for the conversion of sinners, and moreover accomplish in the Lord those works of piety usually enjoined. This decree shall hold good, notwithstanding whatsoever may be done contrary to its tenor. For present and future times these letters shall be of effect. We wish, moreover, that to written copies of these presents, or even to printed copies, signed by our public notary, and sealed by the seal of some ecclesiastical dignity, the same weight be given, in all its absoluteness, which would be given to these presents, were they brought forth and shown. Given at Rome, at St Peter's, under the ring of the Fisherman, on the 31st day of August 1877, in the thirty-second year of our Pontificate.
This centenary medal, thus established, is the property of the monks of Monte Cassino and can be struck by others only with their authority and in exact accordance with the typical design. The abbot of Monte Cassino, in a circular letter to all the abbots of the Order, granted to them all the faculty of blessing and distributing the new medals, with power to subdelegate the faculty to their priests. At the same time he asked the abbots to let him know the numbers of their monks, so that he might send for each, gratis, a bronze copy of the new medal. For the rest, if more medals were required, they could be supplied at prices varying according to size and material.
The extra indulgences granted to the wearers of the centenary medal are indicated in general terms in the Decree. They comprise about eleven plenary and many partial indulgences. By a further Decree of February 27th, 1907, Pope Pius X granted the plenary indulgence toties quoties for the feast of All Souls.
We have now ended our survey of the history of the Benedictine medal. To all appearance it is the centenary medal, with its richer privileges, which seems destined to become the standard Benedictine medal, ousting in its victorious career both the " ordinary medal" of the eighteenth century and the primitive medal of the seventeenth. But to some of our readers, no doubt, it will seem a pity that the earlier medals, with their simple beauty of design, should altogether perish from amongst us. Is there, we venture to ask, any sufficient reason why they should ? After all, the Benedictine medal should not be conceived only in terms of indulgences or as a purgatorial instrument. Strictly speaking those things are supplementary to its main purpose. As the history and design of the medal well show, that purpose is that it should be a weapon for use in the difficult warfare of this present time. Following the example of St Benedict and with his intercession, we set ourselves to overcome all the trials and temptations of life in the power of the sign of the Cross.