ON BLESSED BENINCASA, EIGHTH ABBOT OF CAVA.
In the Year of Christ 1194.
CommentaryBenincasa, Abbot of Cava in Italy (B.)
[1] Cava is a city on the borders of Campania and the Picentine territory, named from its situation, as Leander says in his description of Campania, roughly halfway between Salerno and Nocera. Near Cava there is a most ancient, spacious, and wealthy monastery The monastery of Cava called Cava. We shall treat of its foundation in the life of St. Alferius. The first four abbots are venerated with proper offices and Mass: Its holy abbots St. Alferius on April 12; St. Leo on July 12; St. Peter on March 4; St. Constabilis on February 17. For the feasts of many others, a Mass of the Most Holy Trinity is celebrated -- namely, of Blessed Simeon, the fifth abbot, on November 16; of Blessed Falco, the sixth, on June 5; of Blessed Marinus, the seventh, on December 15; of Blessed Benincasa, the eighth, on this day; of Blessed Peter II, the ninth, on May 14; of Blessed Balsamus, the tenth, on November 24; of Blessed Leonard, the eleventh, on August 18; and so forth.
[2] The feast of Blessed Benincasa Hugo Menardus, Benedictus Dorganius, and Arnold Wion record the feast of Blessed Benincasa on January 10 in their monastic Martyrology, in these words: "At the monastery of the Holy Trinity of Cava, the deposition of Blessed Benincasa, Abbot." Wion and Dorganius add: "distinguished by the glory of miracles." He was elected abbot of that monastery on the first of February 1171, and governed it until the fourth day before the Ides of January 1194, when he departed this life, his age and was buried in the sacred crypt with the other holy Fathers.
[3] The monastery of Monreale in Sicily This blessed man sent from the monastery of Cava one hundred monks under Father Theobald to Sicily, to the most famous monastery of Monreale, which King William II, surnamed the Good, had in the year of our Lord 1174 constructed and endowed at marvelous expense, and had entrusted to be organized according to the rule of the Cavensian congregation and devoted to divine worship and regular observance. Theobald himself was the first abbot of that monastery, and his successor was Abbot and Archbishop William, and after them several other Cavensian monks held the same office and governance in succession. These details were sent to us at Naples from the records of the monastery of Cava by our Antonius Beatillus. Fazellus reports corresponding information in his Sicilian Affairs, decade 1, book 8, writing among other things that it is to be preferred above all temples not only of Italy but of the entire world for that type of construction, etc. He treats the same matter in decade 2, book 7, where he records that William, its second abbot, was made Archbishop by the authority of Lucius III (who held office from the year 1181 to November 25, 1185). There Fazellus also cites a diploma of various donations made to that monastery in the year 1176.