18 From these norms and axioms which it has pleased Us to cull from the Benedictine law, there can be easily discerned and appreciated the prudence of the monastic rule, its opportuneness, its wonderful harmony and suitability to human nature, as also its significance and supreme importance. During a dark and turbulent age, when agriculture, honorable crafts, the study of the fine arts profane and divine were little esteemed and shamefully neglected by nearly all, there arose in Benedictine monasteries an almost countless multitude of farmers, craftsmen and learned people who did their utmost to conserve the memorials of ancient learning and brought back nations both old and new - often at war with each other - to peace, harmony and earnest work. From renascent barbarism, from destruction and ruin they happily led them back to benign influence human and Christian, to patient labor, to the light of truth, to a civilization renewed in wisdom and charity.
Source: Fulgens Radiatur (Vatican.va)