How to Be a Good Monk, or Living by the Rule

Blog series Medieval manuscripts

Author Elena Lichmanova, Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts

Aren’t rules made to be broken? This question rang true for St Benedict of Nursia (d. 547), the founder of the Benedictine monastic order, and the author of one of the earliest Western monastic Rules. To earn a greater reward in the afterlife it is best not to drink, said the saint. But if you can't abstain from wine, stick to just half a bottle per day...especially if you are sick!

This encouraging advice comes from Chapter 40 of the Rule written by St Benedict c. 530 as a collection of instructions for monks who lived under the direction of an abbot. The Rule regulated every aspect of a monk’s daily life, from how much wine to drink to when to speak to your brethren. Chapter 42 states that no one should talk after Compline (evening prayer) while Chapter 38 encourages silence during the reading of the Scripture at meal times. The readings of the Bible or texts of liturgy were taken very seriously: according to Chapter 45, if one makes a mistake while reciting a Psalm and does not repent, they should be subjected to severe punishment.

The British Library holds a beautifully illuminated 10th-century copy of the Rule (Harley MS 5431), which is on display alongside the Hatton Codex, the oldest surviving full copy of the Rule (Bodleian Library), in a new exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich. The exhibition Living by the Rule: Contemporary Meets Medieval explores life in a medieval monastery, regulated to precision and yet full of bends and turns that accommodated a versatile human reality. It places an exciting array of medieval objects in dialogue with contemporary artworks—and comments in the process on the ever-complex relationships of people with rules.

Monastic communities that followed the Rule of St Benedict, called the Benedictines, were some of the most influential religious centres in Britain during the medieval period. The Rule arrived to Britain with St Augustine (d. between 604 and 609), a prior of a Benedictine monastery in Rome sent by Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604) to convert the isles to Christianity. St Augustine settled in Canterbury, where he established the seat of the archbishop and founded the first English benedictine monastery of St Peter and St Paul, afterwards known as St Augustine's Abbey.

Canterbury was later to become an influential hub of monastic book culture, and it is from Canterbury that a manuscript with an extraordinary image of St Benedict originates. The Eadui Psalter (Arundel MS 155), written and possibly illuminated by Eadwig (or ‘Eadui’) Basan, a monk of Christ Church Canterbury, shows St Benedict as a holy authority. The title S[AN]C[TU]S BENEDICTUS PATER MONACHORUM (‘St Benedict, the father of the monks’) is written on his halo, but the idea is clearly expressed in the image itself. The solemn figure of St Benedict, larger than the group of ten monks next to him, fills half of the illumination. The monks’ dynamic bodies, moving in adoration towards the saint, present a stark contrast to the statuesque, almost divine-like, figure of St Benedict, with the words TIMOR DEI (‘Fear of God’) inscribed around his forehead. Nine of the monks present a text of the Rule to the saint while the tenth prostrates himself below, offering to St Benedict a Psalter — presumably the Eadui Psalter itself. This is a rare self-portrait of a Benedictine community that also comments on the role of the book in monastic culture: it is portrayed as a work of piety and devotion, made in line with teachings of the monks’ spiritual father.

The Psalter was crucial to monastic life. Days were structured around Psalm readings as the Rule instructed monks to read all 150 Psalms every week as an essential spiritual labour. St Benedict taught that monks should meet for prayer eight times a day at specific hours, constituting the Divine Office, and each hour had its own sequence of Psalms. All parts of the Divine Office combined might have occupied up to fourteen hours a day.

The Gorleston Psalter (Add MS 49622), made for an East-Anglican nobleman and later owned by Norwich Cathedral Priory, another prominent English Benedictine house, visualises the daily labour of praying and singing. The illuminated initial ‘C’ of the word Cantate (Sing) that begins Psalm 97, responds to the first verse, ‘Sing to the Lord a new song’, by showing clerics singing Psalms at a lectern. Paired with the Annunciation to the Shepherds above, the singing clerics are compared to the angel announcing Christ’s birth and conceived as messengers of the Word of God on earth.

We are delighted that the Gorleston Psalter, the Eadui Psalter, and the British Library’s Rule of St Benedict are on display at the exhibition Living by the Rule: Contemporary Meets Medieval, which is open until 4 October 2026.

You can also explore the manuscripts in this blogpost through our newly available Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue.