he time of St.
Dunstan. In these we find no mention of the rule of Saint Benedict; nor
in Bede. The charter of king Ethelbald which mentions the Black monks,
is a manifest forgery. Even that name was not known before the
institution of the Camaldulenses, in 1020, and the Carthusians, who
distinguished themselves by white habits. Dom Mege, in his commentary on
the rule of St. Benedict, shows that the first Benedictins wore white,
not black. John of Glastenbury, and others, published by Hearne, who
call the apostles of the English Black Monks, are too modern, unless
they produce some ancient vouchers. The monastery of Evesham adopted the
rule of Saint Benedict, in 709. St. Bennet Biscop and St. Wilfrid both
improved the monastic order in the houses which they founded, from the
rule of St. Benedict, at least borrowing some constitutions from it. The
devastations of the Danes scarce left a convent of monks standing in
England, except those of Glastenbury and Abingdon, which was their state
in the days of king Alfred, as Leland observes. St. Dunstan, St. Oswald,
and St. Ethelwold, restored the monasteries, and propagated exceedingly
the monastic state. St. Oswald had professed the order of Saint Benedict
in France, in the monastery of Fleury; and, together with the aforesaid
two bishops, he established the same in a great measure in England. St.
Dunstan published a uniform rule for the monasteries of this nation,
entitled, Regularis Concordiae Anglicae Nationis, extant in Reyner, and
Spelman, (in Spicilegio ad Eadmerum, p. 145,) in which he adopts, in a
great measure, the rule of St. Benedict, joining with it many ancient
monastic customs. Even after the Norman conquest, the synod of London,
under Lanfranc, in 1075, says the regulations of monks were drawn from
the rule of St. Bennet and the ancient custom of regular places, as
Baronius takes notice, which seems to imply former distinct institutes.
From that time down to the dissolution, all the cathedral priories,
except that of Carlisle, and most of the rich abbeys in England, were
held by monks of the Benedictin order. See Dr. Brown Willis, in his
separate histories of Cathedral Priories, Mitred Abbeys, &c.

ST. MAXIMILIAN, M.

HE was the son of Victor, a Christian soldier in Numidia. According to
the law which obliged the sons of soldiers to serve in the army at the
age of twenty-one years, his measure was taken, that he might be
enrolled in the troops, and he was found