Still there were as yet no irrevocable vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience exacted of the novice. After a year of probation he promised, before God and the Saints, to keep the Rule under pain of damnation, and he was then admitted with imposing religious ceremonies. His worldly garments were, however, preserved, to be returned to him in case of expulsion, to which he was liable if incorrigibly disobedient. If he left the monastery, or if he was ejected, he could return twice, but after the third admission, if he again abandoned the order, he was no longer eligible.[233] Voluntary submission was thus the corner-stone of discipline, and there was nothing indelible in the engagement which bound the monk to his brethren. Contemporary with St. Benedict was St. Cæsarius of Arles, whose Rule has been transmitted to us by his nephew, St. Tetradius. It is very short, but is more rigid than that of Benedict, inasmuch as it requires from the applicant the condition of remaining for life in the convent, nor will it permit his assumption of the habit until he shall have executed a deed bestowing all his property either on his relatives or on the establishment of his choice, thus insuring the rule of poverty, and depriving him of all inducement to retire.[234] The Rule of St. Benedict, however, overcame all rivalry, and was at length universally adopted; Charlemagne, indeed, inquired in 811 whether there could be any monks except those who professed obedience to it.[235] Under it were founded the innumerable monasteries which sprang up in every part of Europe, and were everywhere the pioneers of civilization; which exercised a more potent influence in extending Christianity over the Heathen than all other agencies combined; which carried the useful arts into barbarous regions, and preserved to modern times whatever of classic culture has remained to us. If they were equally efficient in extending the authority of the Roman curia, and in breaking down the independence of local and national churches, it is not to be rashly assumed that even that result was a misfortune, when the anarchical tendencies of the Middle Ages were to be neutralized principally by the humanizing force of religion, and consolidation was requisite to carry the church through the wilderness. Until the thirteenth century the Benedictines were practically without rivals, and their numbers and holiness may be estimated by the fact that in the fifteenth century one of their historians computed that the order had furnished fifty-five thousand five hundred and five blessed members to the calendar of saints.[236]