Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

subscriptions of Caesarius and of the other bishops. The community in Regensburg had
clearly obtained a copy of an exemplar which was close to the original. 25
The text itself also illustrates that the Regula was intended to be used. References
to buildings and the layout of St John have been excised; there is no mention of the
basilica in Arles which the nuns there were forbidden to enter; the nuns taking their turn
at cooking were, in Regensburg, not permitted the extra measure of wine enjoyed by their
counterparts in sixth-century Arles. 26 In addition, the fact that the text of the Regula
virginum refers to that of the Regula Benedicti Vt supra demonstrates that the two rules
were intended to be cross-referenced. 27
The most recent manuscript to contain the Regula virginum is Berlin, Königliche
Bibliothek, ms. Phillippici 1696, dating to the thirteenth century. It is a composite
manuscript, of which the parts have differing origins. Each of the five definable sections
is, according to the catalogue, of approximately the same date, but they differ in size and
writing area and it therefore seems probable that they were produced in different
scriptoria. The first section contains extracts of the homilies on the Book of Ecclesiastes
and of the Allegories on the Old and New Testaments of Hugh of St Victor (d. 1142); the
second, a wide range of the writings of Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153), Augustine of
Hippo, Roman poetry including Ovid and Juvenal, and extracts of classical prose writings
including those of Seneca and Aristotle; the third, Augustine’s De libero arbitrio; the
fourth, the Regula virginum; and lastly, an eleventh-century miracle collection from the
monastery of Sainte-Trinité in Fécamp. 28
The portions of the Regula included in this manuscript bear close similarities to
those in the Bamberg recension. It contains the main body of the rule (caps. 1-47), the
Recapitulatio (caps. 48-65), the ordo ieiuniorum (cap. 67), the ordo convivii (cap. 71) and
25
For a persuasive stemma of the Regula virginum manuscripts, see de Vogüé, Oeuvres pour les moniales,
161-2.
26
RV caps. 45, 14.
27
De Vogüé, Oeuvres pour les moniales, 133.
28
V. Rose and F. Schillman (eds.) Verzeichniss der Lateinischen Handschriften der Königlichen Bibliothek
zu Berlin I (Hildesheim, 1976) 126-130.
135