Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

appended their signatures to the Regula virginum. Nonetheless, Caesarius must have
desired their approval of the rule as a safeguard against it being disregarded by future
bishops of Arles. A particular name of note in this list is that of Firminus of Uzès. This is
the most obvious way in which knowledge of the Regula virginum spread to Uzès, in
time for Ferreolus to make use of it in his rule. Firminus died in 563, Ferreolus in 581;
awareness of Firminus’ interests and literary activities would have still been strong in
Ferreolus’ day. 14
In terms of the Regula virginum, then, the manuscript lacks chapters 1-43 of the
rule itself and the ordo psallendi from the recapitulatio. While it may be tempting to see
in this latter omission a deliberate decision not to use Caesarius’ instructions for prayer,
definitive conclusions are impossible to draw due to the generally incomplete state of the
text. Where quiring and a study of the manuscript’s mise-en-page might have been
informative on the omission of this ordo, Morin makes no mention of these subjects and,
regrettably, the manuscript is now lost. The manuscript also contained most of the letter
Vereor (approximately the final ten percent was missing), and a text now known as the
Constitutum of Caesaria II (see below, 169). Clearly the incomplete status of the
manuscript does not permit conclusions to be drawn on the contents of the manuscript as
a whole. The fact that some of each text is missing may suggest that they were only
bound together after each had circulated separately, becoming damaged in the process.
However, the selection of texts which survived into the twentieth century may indicate a
conscious effort at preserving and circulating a Caesarian collection on the part of a later
compiler: the works formed one volume at least from the eighteenth century, as an ex
libris at the start of the volume makes clear: Ex libris fratris Nicolai Brunat, religiosi
Sancti Martini Augustodunensis. 15 Although Teridius’ circulation of the Regula virginum
from Arles to Autun seems a strong possibility, it is not possible to put forward any
firmer conclusions as to the previous pattern of circulation of any of the individual texts
which remained in the manuscript in the 1930s. It would be particularly interesting to
know whether Teridius himself sent all of the Caesarian texts in the manuscript to Autun
14 Regula Ferreoli: PL 66, 959-976; V. Desprez, ‘La ‘Regula Ferrioli’. Texte critique’, Revue Mabillon 60
(1982), 117-48.
15 CGM vol. XXXVII, 495-6.
132