Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

The question that presents itself is that of the origin of the Caesarian material. Did
abbess Uta request the rule from another monastery, perhaps inspired by its earlier
association with the Benedictine rule in Benedict of Aniane’s ‘reform documents’, or was
there a pre-existing knowledge of the text in Bavaria? 19 One possible conduit that Morin
identified lies in the missionary activities of Erhard and Emmeram in the seventh century.
Both men came from Gaul; Emmeram (d.c. 715), most notably, came from the Poitiers
region, where knowledge of Caesarius’ rule was strong. 20 Indeed, Emmeram’s vita, by
Arbeo, bishop of Freising (764-783), claims that its subject was the bishop of Poitiers,
which would place him in the ideal position for gaining knowledge of the monastic rules
in his diocese. 21 However, Wood suggests that this might have been a rhetorical device
with the aim of increasing Emmeram’s episcopal credentials. 22 There is unfortunately no
other evidence for Emmeram’s life to confirm or disprove the details given in his vita.
Despite its high quality illumination, this was a manuscript for practical use. The
text differs in several places from that of the other copies of the Regula virginum; it was
not merely a collector’s item of antiquarian interest to accompany the Regula Benedicti.
The present manuscript contains all of the ‘original’ rule (caps. 1-47) and the
recapitulatio (caps. 48-65). In common with the Munich and Berlin manuscripts, it
includes a table of contents at the beginning of the ‘original’ rule, but of particular
interest, it is the only manuscript to have a second such table at the beginning of the
Recapitulatio. 23 These were instructions intended to be referred to. Not only does this
demonstrate the currency of the rule within the community, it also alerts us to the fact
that originally the manuscript also contained most of Caesarius’ ordines on prayer and
eating. 24 In sum, this recension of the rule contained all of its elements apart from two
chapters of the ordines and the final three concluding chapters, which included the
19
One of the extant manuscripts of the Institutio Sanctimonialium was almost certainly known at the
community at Niedermünster: see below, Chapter Five, at 246-7.
20
Morin, ‘Problèmes’, 10. Erhard was buried at Niedermünster, which he founded; Emmeram was the
martyred bishop of Regensburg.
21
Arbeo of Freising, Vita Emmerammus, AASS Sept VI, 474-84.
22
I. Wood The Missionary Life: Saints and the Evangelisation of Europe, 400-1050 (Harlow, 2001), at 151.
23
This table of contents is reproduced in de Vogüé, Oeuvres pour les moniales, 130-1.
24
De Vogüé, Oeuvres pour les moniales, 130-2.
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