Manual Work and The Rule

In the 500's, manual work was considered fit only for servants and slaves. The landed nobility simply did not do manual labor. So for Benedict to assert that all the monks from their various backgrounds were equal and all must do physical work was to offend the sensibilities of the wealthy. "If conditions dictate that they labor in the fields (harvesting), they should not be grieved for they are truly monks when they must live by manual labor, as did our fathers and the apostles." (RB 48) Manual work grounds our existence in mundane reality, causing us to remain Humble (from the Latin, Humus for "earth").