Nothing else is known of his life except that he was the author of a Historia Hierosolymitanae expeditionis, or Chronicon Hierosolymitanum de bello sacro, a work in twelve books, written between 1125 and 1150.
No one who has seen the spot will doubt that the Sacro Speco is indeed the cave wherein Benedict spent the three years of opening manhood in solitary prayer, contemplation and austerity.
In the treasury of the cathedral is a magnificent silver monstrance dating from 1553, and an octagonal bowl, the Sacro Catino, brought from Caesarea in 1101, which corresponds to the descriptions given of the Holy Grail, and was long regarded as an emerald of matchless value, but was found when broken at Paris, whither it had been carried by Napoleon I., to be only a remarkable piece of ancient glass.
Among the most important are the Sacro Monte (1486) at Varallo in Piedmont, and those at Guimiliau (1581), Plougastel (1602), St Thegonnec (1610), and Pleyben near Quimper (1670), in Brittany, all in good preservation.