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IV At this point, before turning to the pactualism of the Alta Reconquista, there needs to be considered one largely ignored feature of 'Fructuosan' instrument of the 7th century upon which the comparable diplomas of succeeding centuries throw considerable light. Both RComP and its various more or less closely related adaptations after 711 have been studied by Herwegen and later students in terms of strictly monachal acts, addressed by the subditi to their abbot and terminating with their subscriptions. But what provision did the system make for what would seem to be no less juridically necessary in a bilateral contract, the abbot's own promise to serve under the terms stipulated? Herwegen apparently assumed that such an abbatial commitment was implicit in his texts and therefore never sought to explain why the abbot's own name normally does not appear among the subscribants to what he saw as primarily a foundational charter. This is a difficulty that disappears once we perceive that, by the commencement of the 9th century at least, evidence survives to show that the 'Fructuosan' pactum from the very beginning actually consisted of not one, but two, distinct yet inseparably linked parts or subpacta: one the well-known covenant of the monks, the pactum monachorum; the other, the abbot's own declaration, a pactum abbatis or abbatiale. Taken together, both texts constitute what we may call the double, or, preferably, so as to avoid all confusion with double monasteries and double traditiones , the binary pactum. The principal characteristics of such a combined instrument can most readily be isolated in the early, exceptionally complete case of the Liébanese abbey of San Pedro y San Pablo de Naroba, one of the oldest known eastern centers of the transplanted Gallegan pactualism of the Alta Reconquista. The extant pactual preserved from this house was first drawn up in 818 and remained in use through the terms of three successive abbots down to ca. 825-35. An unusually large document of some 42.5 x 35 cms., it survives in a copy of the 12th century, so carefully made in a good Visigothic hand as to give the strong impression of being a faithful, almost [26] photographic, facsimile of the lost original. (93) What we have here in fact are not merely two but five associated texts, all unknown to Herwegen and first published in 1944 by Sánchez Albornoz and a year later by Pérez de Urbel. Of these only one, which stands first in the series, is the pactum monachorum by which the monks and nuns of this double community promise to observe the ascetic life under the abbot Argilegus; as might be expected in such an act only a century removed from those circulating in the monasteries of Visigothic Galicia, this follows relatively closely the language and provisions of RComP , although with certain highly informative adaptations and omissions. At the close of the monachal pactum the date "sub die pridie kalendas martias discurrente era DCCCLVI" is carefully recorded; but this is not followed, as might be expected, by the subscriptions of the religious. Instead, after a short space, there commences in the name of the abbot Argilegus a "confirmatio uel compromissio" by which the community's governor bestows upon it various of his properties. This is to all intents and purposes the abbatial counterpart to the self-submission of the monks, the pactum abbatis under which by implication Argilegus assumes office in accordance with the stipulations made in the monachal pactum; although undated it must have been drawn up at the same time as the latter. Then follows in the pergamino a third text, also without date but evidently issued simultaneously with its two predecessors, which takes the form of a donation made "in hunc pacto uel traditione" by the abbot's kinsman Sisbertus, who bestows upon Naroba and its religious onefourth of his landed properties and movables. This charter, although confirming other testimony to the familial character of the structure and primitive endowment of the abbey, is of secondary interest; more important is the fact that following its eschatocol we finally reach the subscriptions of the twelve monks and nuns who composed the subter notati of the pactum monachorum, each cast in the form "in hoc pacto manu mea.( Sig.) feci". This terminal list of names constitutes the bond that ties together the first and second pieces, the pacta or strictly subpacta , i.e., the two fundamental, inseparable parts of
the full synallagmatic contract that is the legal basis of the new monastic society. The two undated remaining pieces of the Naroban pergamino must have been composed between 825 and 835, following Argilegus' death at some point in that decade. One of these, the fourth text of the entire pentad, is the pactum abbatiale of the second abbot, Arias, who calls himself Argilegus' cognatus and makes a "traditio uel confirmatio" to the house similar to that of his predecessor in 818. In this case, however, in addition to the cession of lands, there is also an explicit traditio of his person ("trado me et omnia mea ereditate") by the abbot to the monastery and the fratres. The subscriptions of the latter follow, thirteen in number, all masculine, and each following the formula "in hoc pacto manu mea ( Sig.) feci". Finally, no. 5 of the series contains a traditio of his person and goods by Arias' nephew Adefonsus, directed this time both to the monastery "et tibi tio et abbati meo Ariani". This text, validated in the words "in hoc pacto manu mea ( Sig. ) feci et coram testibus roborabi", continues with the subscriptions of four other religious, all masculine, and in each case except the last employing the same phrase, "in hoc pacto manu mea (Sig.) feci". [27] It is not necessary to relate here the specific history of the Naroban monastery to this group of pactual texts, the underlying Gallegan character of which in the 9th century is so strongly indicated by the relative fidelity of the pactum monachorum to RComP; but certain points of broad interest for the pactual tradition as a whole should be noted. One has to do with the procedure followed in the pactual monasteries after an abbot's demise. Herwegen thought that with each new abbot the monastic pactum, which he regarded as an Abtwahlinstrument as well as a Professformel , had to be drawn up anew. Here however we have proof that this was not necessarily so; it was in fact not the initial perpetual commitment of the monks to the ascetic life that required reformulation, but the assumption of office by one abbot succeeding another as the second of the contracting parties (in the case of Santos Pedro y Pablo, Arias after Argilegus). The subscriptions following the Arias privilegio, all different from those terminating the Argilegus triad, indicate that names already attached to the original binary pactum carried over without repetition into the regime of the next abbot, while those of conuersi admitted after the latter's succession were attached to his abbatial pactum, manifestly on the assumption that these monks, although committing themselves to precisely the same traditio and promises as in the foundational monachal pactum, should make their profession to the abbot ruling at the time. The four additional names placed "in hoc pacto" after the diploma of Adefonsus may also imply that in due course this nephew of Arias assumed the abbatiate, or conceivably they may have been added before Abbot Arias's death in the only space available. From the Naroban pentad, as from other cases presently to be cited, it is evident also that at least after 711 (and no doubt before) the pactual system was frequently associated with familially possessed or endowed monasterios propios where a dynastic abbatial succession based upon consanguinity within the founding clan was normal and maintained by the readiness of an abbot's kinsman to take over his office either from outside the community (as apparently with Arias), or from within the ranks of the abbey's monks (as possibly with Adefonsus). In neither case can there have been any free election by the religious; under such circumstances Herwegen's Abtwahlinstrument would have been no more than the legal expression of a predetermined choice. (94) Note should also be taken here of the early transformation of San Pedro y San Pablo from a double into a masculine community, possibly a sign of episcopal intervention. There are other conclusions to be drawn concerning the binary pactum, but before attempting to do so it will be useful to list all the examples discovered in a preliminary search, so as to make clear that the procedure at Naroba is typical of the pactual tradition in both Galicia-Portugal and Castile-Rioja. Certain of the entries that follow have long been known to students of Asturo-Leonese diplomatics; but their true nature has been concealed, either by later medieval copyists who inscribed the monastic and abbatial subpacta in the tumbos as successive, separately rubricked documents (despite their probably
Page 1 and 2: THE LIBRARY OF IBERIAN RESOURCES ON
Page 3 and 4: We shall commence by reviewing the
Page 5 and 6: most part repeating or amplifying p
Page 7 and 8: located not far from Seville at Fre
Page 9 and 10: questionable exegesis of the monast
Page 11 and 12: of pactualism into the Hispanic lit
Page 13 and 14: sub regula; and the governing and l
Page 15 and 16: eception, that survived among these
Page 17: suggested to him by his teacher Stu
Page 21 and 22: spontanea uoluntas ut eligerent sib
Page 23 and 24: texts themselves repeatedly affirm,
Page 25 and 26: Sisericus and his religious. No. 6,
Page 27 and 28: 7th-century world of Luso-Gallegan
Page 29 and 30: Here I would continue to defend aga
Page 31 and 32: Notes for Study One 1. Prudencio de
Page 33 and 34: (Hannover, 1886), 595. 20. On this
Page 35 and 36: passage; Bishko, Salvus of Albelda
Page 37 and 38: 82. Vita, cc. 3, 8, 14-15. 83. This
Page 39 and 40: Jusué (Madrid, 1912), 31-5 (nos. X
Page 41 and 42: de Azevedo, História de Portugal,

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