The Rule of Saint Benedict, chapter 55, On the clothing and footwear of the brethren

The Rule of Saint Benedict, chapter fifty five, On the Clothing and Footwear of the Brethren, is Benedict of Nursia's own sixth century monastic rule, composed around 530, prescribing the habit monks were to wear including the scapular worn for manual labor. As the founding legislative text of Western Christian monasticism in the founder's own words, it is the direct and authoritative primary source for what the Benedictine tradition itself originally prescribed. Its limit is that it is a normative rule rather than a historical description of how closely any given monastery followed it at any later date, so a claim about actual monastic dress in a specific later period or house is better supported by evidence from that period than by the rule's own prescription alone.