RB 1980: The Rule of St. Benedict in Latin and English with Notes

RB 1980, The Rule of St. Benedict in Latin and English with Notes, edited by Timothy Fry and published by Liturgical Press in 1981, is a scholarly critical edition of Benedict's sixth century monastic rule, presenting the Latin text alongside an English translation and extensive interpretive notes, including chapters 2 and 3, which set out the abbot's authority and the requirement to summon the whole community, including its youngest members, before an important decision. Its strength is that critical apparatus, letting a reader check the Latin original against the translation and against notes situating each chapter within its historical monastic context, rather than relying on a translation alone. Its limit is that the edition presents and explains the Rule's text rather than the fourteen centuries of monastic practice that followed from it, so a claim about how a specific community actually lived under the Rule in a given period needs a historical source on that community rather than the Rule's text alone.