The Pactual Tradition in Hispanic Monasticism - The Library of ...

Conde in [42] 1973, along with a richly informative commentary. (140) He however rejects (in my
judgment, quite mistakenly) my thesis of Salvan authorship, and also fails to recognize the Rule's
particular historical value as testimony to the vitality of the pactual tradition in the face of the powerful
wave of Carolingian Reform Benedictinism sweeping Europe in the 10th century. To be sure, the
Libellus consists mainly of extracts from RB and the Expositio of Smaragdus, but in certain key
chapters it retains from Galaico-Castilian pactualism a pactual reception ordo and the ancient Hispanic
horarium--proving it beyond question a product of the synthesis of indigenous and Carolingian
Benedictine elements that is the most striking characteristic of Castello-Riojan (and doubtless Galaico-
Portuguese) monasticism of the 10th century.
Above all, the Castilian-Riojan pacta themselves reflect this same admixture, which was, in a real
sense, no mere recalcitrant traditionalism, but a veritable expression of the Castilian creative genius.
They allow us to follow the transition in the 10th and 11th centuries from pure Gallegan contractualism
to the kind of quasi-Benedictine unilateralism which is found in the Burgalese Formula, and which
directly preceded the abandonment of the collective for the orthodox individual profession act. From
one 10th-century Castilian abbey there survives testimony of what must have been a fairly widespread
practice on the road to Cassinensian orthodoxy: San Juan de Tabladillo, presumably from its
foundation, but certainly by 924, was a true Benedictine house; yet in 931 it is found addressing a
collective promise of profession and obedience to its abbot Stefanus, couched in terms of the Burgalese
Formula. (141) There is, then, in liturgy, in customs, in profession acts, abundant reflection of the
synthesis of pactualism and Benedictinism that was long maintained in the eastern, as no doubt also in
the Galaico-Portuguese, territories of the old heterodox observance.
Where then at the moment does the debate over the pactual tradition in Hispanic monasticism stand? --
no idle wrangle, since its subject matter relates to central themes in the organization of Suevo-
Visigothic Galicia on the eve of the Muslim invasion, the rise and fall of pre-Benedictine peninsular
monachism, and the formation of the societies and structuring of Galicia, Portugal and historic Castile
in the centuries of the Alta Reconquista. With all due allowance for subsequent scholarship and the
urgency of further study in depth of the many issues involved, Herwegen's case for the specifically
Galaico-Portuguese genesis of the Hispanic pactual tradition remains unshaken by the doctrines of pan-
Visigothicism and proto-Castilianism. We are still confronted by the duality of an orthodox pre-
Benedictine, Visigothic monasticism, familiar to St Isidore of Seville and his contemporaries, and the
collective contractualism which was developed in the Galicia of the late 7th century and became the
[43] dominant observance in the two great, crucial zones of the Reconquista for three centuries after
711, Galicia-Portugal and Castile-Rioja. To recognize this, and to assess its significance for the
indigenous resistance to Benedictinism, is the indispensable preliminary to understanding the
conditions encountered by the Cluniacs in their penetration of central and western Iberia. It is no less a
key to the monastic policies pursued by the king-emperors Fernando I and Alfonso VI in their
transformation of the old Leonese-Castilian-Gallegan state into that imperial Hispania which incarnates
so many definitive changes in the religious as well as the secular life of the Luso-Hispanic peoples.