Straight Answers: Brother Cadfael — Franciscan or Benedictine?

By Fr. William Saunders
^{HERALD Columnist}

This past week, the Washington Post’s TV Week magazine (Aug. 17-23) featured an article on the actor, Derek Jacobi. I have always enjoyed Jacobi’s public television performances as the emperor Claudius in the series "1, Claudius" and especially as the medieval sleuth Brother Cadfael in Cadfael. However, the writer said that Brother Cadfael was a Franciscan. I think he was a Benedictine. I have been arguing with several Brother Cadfael fans over this issue. Can you help? — A reader in Winchester

I also am a great fan of the Cadfael series, and noted that the Post article indicated that Brother Cadfael was a Franciscan. This statement is erroneous. Brother Cadfael was a Benedictine.

(I must admit that I have not read any of Ellis Peter’s 20 Cadfael stories, and I do not know how accurately she incorporates historical fact into them, I base my conclusion on the evidence found in the PBS series.)

Brother Cadfael is a monk of the Abbey of Shrewsbery, England. He was a former crusader, fighting in the siege of Jerusalem (1099). If we suppose that Cadfael was about 20 years of age when he became a crusader, he would have been born around 1079. After his crusading adventures, he returned to England, entered the monastery, and took vows as a religious broker. In the most recent episodes, we found Brother Cadfael and the Abbey of Shrewsbery embroiled in the politics surrounding the accession to the throne of King Stephen. The only king of England named "Stephen" ruled between 1134 - 1154, and his reign was a time of civil war and feudal anarchy.

Since St. Francis of Assisi was not born until 1181 and did not found the Franciscans until 1209, Brother Cadfael could not have been a Franciscan. Frankly, he probably would not have lived long enough to be a Franciscan.

Instead, Brother Cadfael was a Benedictine monk. St. Benedict (480-547) founded his monastic community about the year 525 and built the great monastery at Monte Cassino, south of Rome. He wrote his Rule community life between 530 and 540 which provided direction for the formation, government and administration of the monastery and the spiritual and daily life of the monks. The monk’s day was divided between prayer, labor, and study. Each Benedictine monastery was to be an autonomous, self-contained community under the direction of an elected abbot. Moreover, each monk remained attached to a particular monastery taking a vow of stability, unless asked to do missionary work or found another monastery.

This community form of religious life was tenned "cenobitic" (from coenobium, meaning "community"). This form was distinguished from the earlier "hermitic" form, which was the lifestyle of hermits. The later fonn begun by St. Francis of Assisi is termed "mendicant"; adherents of this lifestyle lived in community but went into the world or public community begging for support and doing good works.

Pope St. Gregory the Great (d. 604), himself a Benedictine monk, sent St. Augustine (later known as "of Canterbury" to distinguish him from the more well known St. Augustine vho wrote The Confessions) with some 40 monks to evangelize the English in 596. He built the first Benedictine establishment in England at Canterbury on land given by King Ethelbert in 597.

From that time, the Benedictine monks continued to found monasteries throughout England, Wales, and Scotland, such as Peterborough (c. 650), Wearnmouth (674), and Jarrow (681), to name three of the earliest. The Benedictines became known for their educational prowess. Their monasteries housed flourishiring schools and libraries. They were also cultural centers. From these monasteries came great scholars, like St. Bede (d. 735) and great missionaries to northern Europe, like St. Boniface (d. 754). These monasteries would continue to flourish until King Henry VIII began his campaign to dissolve them and seize their property between 1535-40.

Nevertheless, Brother Cadfael reflects the life of a Benedictme much more than a Franciscan. Although the series may be fictitious, this medieval Sherlock Holmes does give us a glimpse of the monastic community of this time and the well-respected role the monks did play in the life of the people.

Fr. Saunders is dean of the Notre Dame Graduate School of Christendom College and pastor of Queen of Apostles Parish, both in Alexandria.

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