There are, however, two elements of the monastic life that are crucial for Benedict. These are permanence and obedience. The first means that monks are not free to go from one monastery to another as they please. Each monk must remain for the rest of his life in the monastery that he has initially joined, unless ordered to go to another place. The commitment to permanence on the part of Benedictine monks proved one of the sources of the institution’s great stability in a time of chaos.
