Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

either the list from Fulda is evidence of a copy of Clm 28118, or vice versa, or both
manuscripts derived from the same (lost) exemplar. 4
In any case, the number of Arlesian texts used by Benedict suggests at the very
least that they had been well-preserved. The inclusion in the Codex of non-normative
documents such as the foundation charter and the letter from Hormisdas – essential to the
monastery of St John’s independence – must suggest that Benedict (and/or the compiler
at Fulda) had made wholesale use of a collection that had been maintained by the
monastery of St John itself. However, this is a more complex proposition than it appears.
In common with other monastic houses of the time, the community of St John in Arles
was attacked by Arab raiders in 732, who appear to have had such an impact on the
community that it was only in 883, under archbishop Rostagnus, that the relics of
Caesarius himself could be rehoused and the community re-established. 5 What happened
to the community’s scriptorium and archives during the latter half of the eighth and early
part of the ninth century? Although no evidence exists for this period of the community’s
history, it is possible that the nuns moved inland to a different, safer monastery, almost
certainly taking the precious records and guarantees of the monastery’s independence
with them. 6
The next oldest manuscript of the Regula virginum is Tours, Bibl. Munic., ms.
617, dating from the late tenth or eleventh century. Study of this manuscript is now
reliant on the work of Dom Germain Morin, since it was lost during the Second World
War. The earliest modern mention of the manuscript was in 1717, when Martène noted its
existence in the library of the monastery of St Martin in Autun, after a visit there in
1709. 7 The manuscript was subsequently moved to the Bibliothèque Municipale in Tours.
4 Bonnerue, Benedicti Anianensis Concordia Regularum, 92-3.
5 For more on Rostagnus’ restoration of Caesarius’ tomb and its inscriptions, see J. Guyon and M.
Heijmans (eds.), D’un monde à l’autre: Naissance d’une Chrétienté en Provence, IVe – VIe siècle (Arles,
2002), 221.
6 Although not a reliable guide to the monastery’s holdings in the seventh and eighth centuries, by the
thirteenth century the monastery possessed many estates near Arles itself, in the area around Vaison, and
near Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateaux: see J.-P. Poly, La Provence et la Société Feodale (Paris, 1976), at 82.
7 E. Martène and U. Durand, Thesaurus novus anecdotorum, vol. I (Paris, 1717), col. 3-4, note B; cited in
de Vogüé, Oeuvres pour les moniales, 139.
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