iiO MEDIEVAL CIVILIZATION and Gaul. But the life that was led in these cloisters was not that of the anchorites of the Thebaici At the beginning of the sixth century Benedict, a noble Italian (480-543), after living some years as a solitary in a grotto among the rocks, made his home on Monte Cassino, near Naples. In this place were a temple and a, wood dedicated to Apollo. Benedict converted the peasants of the vicinity and induced them to destroy the sanctuary. In its place he built two chapels and a great monastery. Benedict, now become abbot of a large congregation, prepared a long rule for his monks. According to the rule the monks were to renounce the world, family relations, and property; they were to have nothing as their own, not even "the tablets and the stylus with which they wrote." They wore the robe of rough woollen cloth and the hood of the peas- ants. They had to submit without murmuring to every command of the abbot. "Hear, O my son/' says St Benedict in the preamble to the rulet "listen to the precepts of the master; fear not to receive the warning of a good father and to accomplish it, to the end that the task of obedience may bring you to that from which disobedience and idleness have separated you." He himself calls the cloister "a school of divine servi- tude." In this St. Benedict does little else than imitate the example of the monks of the East. But he differed from them in the mode of using the time: instead of contemplation and the practice of asceticism he re- quires manual labor, "Idleness/' says he, "is the enemy of the soul." As a consequence, the whole life of the monk from hour to hour is regulated for him. Every day he must work with his hands for seven