Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

century that is the only surviving early medieval exemplar of Benedict of Aniane’s Codex
Regularum. 1 Although the earliest, the manuscript was only discovered at the monastery
of St Maximin in Trier at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The Regula is at ff. 184v-192r. From an editor’s perspective, the Munich
recension is by far the most complete. It contains the first ‘draft’ of the rule (caps. 1-47),
the Recapitulatio (caps. 48-65), the ordo for prayer (caps. 66-70), the ordo for meals
(cap. 71) and the summary and conclusion (caps. 72-3). The only element contained in
any of the manuscripts that it does not also contain is the list of subscriptions of the other
bishops at the very end of the rule, although it does include that of Caesarius himself.
The detailed study of the Codex and Concordia regularum made by Pierre
Bonnerue in his edition of the latter has highlighted the strong possibility that Benedict of
Aniane had used a pre-existing collection of Arlesian texts, ‘un “Corpus arlésien”’,
comprising the rules for monks of Ferreolus and Aurelian, the rules for nuns of Caesarius
and Aurelian, the foundation charter of St John, the letter from Hormisdas, a funerary
ordo, and a letter from bishop John to the nuns of St Mary of Arles, to construct his
Codex regularum. 2 The relative completeness of the text may also suggest that Benedict
had had access to a copy of the rule preserved at, or close to, the monastery of St John
itself. Further evidence of the manuscript sources of Benedict’s collection of monastic
rules is found in the description of a ninth-century library catalogue from the monastery
of Fulda, which is itself no longer extant. This catalogue listed rules in the same order in
which they appear in Benedict of Aniane’s Codex regularum. 3 Two possibilities exist:
1 P. Bonnerue Benedicti Anianensis Concordia Regularum CCCM 168 (Turnhout, 1999), 179-192. Two
fifteenth-century copies of the Codex also exist. The first, Cologne, Historisches Archiv, ms. WF 231, was
made by a regular canon named Arnold Losen from Gaesdonck in 1466/7. He also made a series of
corrections (now barely legible) to the ninth-century manuscript: Bonnerue, Benedicti Anianensis
Concordia Regularum, 180. The second manuscript, Utrecht, Bibliotheek der Reijksuniversiteit, ms. 361,
dates to 1471, and is now only partially complete.
2 Bonnerue, Benedicti Anianensis Concordia Regularum, 92-3.
3 This catalogue is reconstructed by A. Mundó, ‘I “Corpora” e i “Codices regularum” nella tradizione
codicologica delle regole monastiche’ in Atti del 7o Congresso internazionale di studi sull’alto medioevo
(Spoleto, 1982) 477-520.
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