BENEDICT of Aniane, St (c. 750–821), abbot. After serving under Pepin and his son, Charlemagne, he became a monk at St-Seine, near Dijon, prob. in 774. In 779 he founded on his own property at Aniane in Languedoc a monastery which became the centre of an extended reform of all the French monastic houses. His systematization of the Benedictine Rule received official approval at the Synods of Aachen of 816 and 817.

His collection of early monastic Rules (known as the Codex Regularum monasticarum et canonicarum) is our most important single source of texts of this type. His Concordia Regularum was designed to show the essential accord of all these Rules with the Benedictine Rule; around each chapter of the latter it placed analogous texts from other Rules to produce a harmonized digest. Benedict was also responsible for a major dogmatic compilation (the Munimenta fidei) and, it is now widely thought, for the Hucusque. From c. 795 he took a vigorous part in opposing the teaching of the Adoptianist Felix of Urgel. His personal life was one of severe asceticism. Feast day, 11 Feb.

His writings are in J. P. Migne, PL 103. 393–1440, with Life by his disciple and friend, Ardo, cols. 335–84; crit. ed. of the Life by G. Waitz in MGH, Scriptores, 15 (pt. 1; 1887), pp. 198–220; Eng. tr. by A. Cabaniss (Ilfracombe, Devon, 1979). Relevant decrees of the Synods of Aachen and related texts ed. J. Semmler in K. Hallinger, OSB (ed.), Corpus Consuetudinum Monasticarum, 1 (Siegburg, 1963), pp. 423–561; the ‘Modus Penitentiarum’ ascribed to Benedict, ibid., pp. 563–82. Crit. edn. of the Concordia Regularum, with full introd., by P. Bonnerue (CCCM 168 and 168A; 1999). Contents of the Munimenta fidei described, with edn. of sections attributable to Benedict, by J. Leclercq, OSB, Analecta Monastica, 1st set. (Studia Anselmiana, 20; 1948), pp. 21–74. J. Narberhaus, Benedikt von Aniane (Beiträge zur Geschichte des alten Mönchtums und des Benediktinerordens, 16; 1930); W. Williams, ‘St Benedict of Aniane’, Downside Review, 54 (1936), pp. 357–74; S. Dulcy, La Règle de Saint Benoît d’Aniane et la réforme monastique à l’époque carolingienne (Montpellier thesis; Nîmes, 1935); P. Schmitz, OSB, ‘L’Influence de Saint Benoît’, in Il monachesimo nell’alto medioevo e la formazione della civiltà occidentale (Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 4; 1957), pp. 401–15. J. Semmler, ‘Die Beschlüsse des Aachener Konzils im Jahre 816’, ZKG 74 (1963), pp. 15–82. P. Schmitz, OSB, in DHGE 8 (1935), cols. 177–88, s.v. ‘Benoît d’Aniane’, with bibl. E. von Severus, OSB, in TRE 5 (1980), pp. 535–8; J. Semmler in L.Th.K. (3rd edn.), 2 (1994) cols. 200 f., both s.v. ‘Benedikt von Aniane’.Life by Ardo Smaragdus: P.L., 103, 353-84.

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 According to Ardo, Benedict’s biographer, he was the son of a Visigoth, Aigulf, Count of Maguelonne (Magalonensis comes). Originally given the Gothic name Witiza, he was educated at the Frankish court of Pippin the Younger, and entered the royal service as a page. He served at the court of Charlemagne and took part in his Italian campaign of 773, where he almost drowned in the Ticino River near Pavia while attempting to save his brother. The experience led him to act on a resolve which had been slowly forming in him, to renounce the world and live the monastic life. He later left the court and was received into the monastery of Saint Sequanus, the Abbey of Saint-Seine.[5]
At Saint-Seine, Benedict was made cellarer and then elected abbot, but realizing the monks would never conform to his strict practices he left and returned to his father’s estates in Languedoc, where he built a hermitage.[6] Around 780, he founded a monastic community based on Eastern asceticism at Aniane in Languedoc. This community did not develop as he had intended. In 782, he founded another monastery based on Benedictine Rule, at the same location. His success there gave him considerable influence, which he used to found and reform a number of other monasteries, eventually becoming the effective abbot of all the monasteries of Charlemagne’s empire.[7]
In 781 Louis the Pious became King of Aquitaine and asked Benedict to reform the monasteries in his territory. Later, as Emperor, he entrusted him with the coordination of practices and communication among the monasteries within his domains.[6] He had a wide knowledge of patristic literature, and churchmen such as Alcuin sought his counsel.
In 814, Louis, now Emperor, had Benedict found a monastery on the river Inde near the court at Aachen. The monastery was at first called the “Monastery of the Redeemer on the Inde”, but came to be known as Kornelimünster Abbey.[8]
He was the head of a council of abbots which in 817 at Aachen created a code of regulations, or “Codex regularum”, which would be binding on all their houses.[5] Benedict sought to restore the primitive strictness of the monastic observance wherever it had been relaxed or exchanged for the less exacting canonical life. Shortly thereafter, he compiled a “Concordia regularum”. Sections of the Benedictine rule (except ix-xvi) are given in their order, with parallel passages from the other rules included in the Liber regularum, so as to show the agreement of principles and thus to enhance the respect due to the Benedictine. He was primarily an ecclesiastic, who zealously placed his considerable theological learning at the service of orthodoxy and the cause of Benedictine monasticism.[9] Although these new codes fell into disuse shortly after the deaths of Benedict and his patron, Emperor Louis the Pious, they did have lasting effects on Western monasticism.
Benedict died at Kornelimünster Abbey on February 11, 821, in the monastery Louis had built for him to serve as the base for Benedict’s supervisory work. He was buried the next day on February 12, hence why some list his feast day as the 11th[10] and some the 12th
 

FROM the CATHOIC ENCYCLOPEDIA:

St. Benedict of Aniane
Born about 745-750; died at Cornelimünster, 11 February, 821. Benedict, originally known as Witiza, son of the Goth, Aigulf, Count of Maguelone in Southern France, was educated at the Frankish court of Pepin, and entered the royal service. He took part in the Italian campaign of Charlemagne (773), after which he left his royal master to enter the religious life, and was received into the monastery of St. Sequanus (Saint-Seine). He gave himself most zealously to practices of asceticism, and learned to value the Rule of St. Benedict as the best foundation for the monastic life. Returning home in 779, he established on his own land near the little river of Aniane a new monastic settlement, which soon developed into a great monastery, under the name of Aniane, and became the model and centre of the monastic reform in France, introduced by Louis the Pious. The emperor's chief adviser was Benedict, and the general adoption of the Rule of St. Benedict in the monasteries of the Empire was the most important step towards the reform. Benedict took a prominent part in the synods held in Aachen in 816 and 817, the results of which were embodied in the important prescriptions for the restoration of monastic discipline, dated 10 July, 817; he was the enthusiastic leader of these assemblies, and he himself reformed many monasteries on the lines laid down in the ordinances promulgated there. In order to have him in the vicinity of his royal residence, Louis had founded on the Inde, a stream near Aachen, the Abbey of Cornelimünster, which was to be an exemplar for all other abbeys, and to be under the guidance of Benedict. In the dogmatic controversy over Adoptionism, under the leadership of Felix of Urgel, Benedict took the part of orthodoxy. To promote the monastic reforms, he compiled a collection of monastic rules. A pupil of his, the monk Ardo, wrote a biography of the great abbot.

Sources
For Benedict's writings, see Codex regularum monasticarum et canonicarum in P.L., CIII, 393-702; Concordia regularum, loc. cit; Letters, loc. cit., 703-1380. Other treatises (loc. cit., 1381 sqq.) ascribed to him are probably not authentic. ARDO SMARAGDUS, Life, op. cit., CIII, 353 sqq.; Mon. Germ. Hist.: Script., XV, I, 200-220; Acta SS., Feb., II, 606 sqq.; NICOLAI, Der hl. Benedict, Gründer von Aniane und Cornelimünster (Cologne, 1865); PAULINIER, S. Benoit d'Aniane et la fondation du monastere de ce nom (Montpellier, 1871); FOSS, Benedikt von Aniane (Berlin, 1884); PUCKERT, Aniane und Gellone (Leipzig, 1899); HAUCK, Kirchengesch. Deutschlands (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1900), II, 57

Ardo Smaragdus (died March 843 AD) was a hagiographer. He entered the monastery of Aniane in Hérault as a boy, probably as an oblate,[2] and was brought up by Benedict of Aniane. He was ordained a priest and made head of the monastery school.[3]

In 794, he accompanied Benedict to the Council of Frankfurt. and in 814, he replaced Benedict as abbot after the latter joined the imperial court at Aix-la-Chapelle.[3]

Smaragdus wrote a life of Benedict in 822, one of the most reliable hagiological productions of that period. He himself was honored as a saint at his monastery after his death.[3]