recian, which contained a pound and a half, or eighteen
ounces. Calmet looks upon Lancelot's opinion as most probable. He
shows from the clear tradition of Benedictin writers and monuments,
that St. Benedict's hemina contained three glasses or draughts. See
Calmet, (in c. 40, Reg. t. 2, p. 62.) But St. Benedict allows and
commends a total abstinence from wine. The portion of bread allowed
by this holy patriarch to each monk, was a pound and a half, or
eighteen ounces a day, as it is explained by the famous council held
at Aix-la-Chapelle in the reign of Charlemagne.

The holy rule of St. Benedict, which the great Cosmus of Medicis,
and other wise legislators read frequently, in order to learn the
maxims of perfect government, has been explained by a great number
of learned and pious commentators, of whom Calmet gives a list, (t.
1. p. 1.) The principal among the moderns are Haeften, prior of
Affligem, in twelve books of monastic disquisitions, &c. Steingelt,
abbot of Anhusen, gave a judicious abridgment of this work. Dom.
Menard has written upon this rule in his Comments on the Concord of
Rules of St. Benedict of Anian. Dom. Mege's Commentaires sur le Rege
de St. Benoit, in 4to. printed at Paris in 1687, have been much
blamed by his brethren for laxity. Dom. Martenne published with more
applause his Commentarius in Regulam S. Benedicti, in 4to., in 1690.
Son edition de la Regle est la plus exacte qu'on nous a donne; et
son Commentaire egalement judicieux et scavant. Il ne parle pas de
celui de Dom. Mege, qui avoit parut trois ans avant le sien;
parceque ses sentiments relaches ses confreres, de sorte qu'en
plusiers monasteres reformes de cet ordre on ne le met pas entre les
mains des jeunes religieux Voyez le Cerf, Bibl. des Ecr. de la
Congr. de St. Maur, p. 348. Hist. Literaria Ord. St. Bened. t. 3, p.
21. Dom. Calmet printed in 1734, in two volumes, in 4to.,
Commentaire Literal Historique et Moral sur la Regle de St. Benoit,
a work which, both for edification and erudition, is far superior to
all the former, and is the masterpiece of this laborious writer,
though not entirely exempt from little slips of memory, as when St.
Cuthbert is called in it the founder of the monastery of
Lindisfarne, (p. 18, t. 1.) The chief modern ascetical treatise on
this subject is, La Regle de St. Beno