Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

choose from older texts to define the type of community they wanted, was linked to the
individuality of the foundations themselves. With the possible exception of Holy Cross,
the monastic houses that used the Regula virginum as a normative text did not replicate
all of the practices of St John.
In this regard, there are perhaps less significant differences between such houses
and those of the Columbanian ‘movement’ of the seventh century than previously
thought, whose foundations are often perceived to be part of an overarching master plan.
These foundations, such as that of Burgundofara, were still made within a matrix of
external interests; the difference between these houses and those of the sixth century lies
in the personnel involved. Where monasteries had previously served episcopal interests in
conjunction with those of women who desired to live dedicated lives, wider family
motivations and strategies were beginning to see the value of such institutions for
themselves. It is within these shifting currents of dedicated life that we must locate the
continuing use of the works of Caesarius, and such strands of transmission form the focus
of the following chapter.
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