Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

the greater part of the conclusion and summary (caps. 71-3), but omits the list of
subscriptions found in the Tours recension (cap.73). 29 It is perhaps likely that this list
would have seemed less important as time went on. At the end of the six folios of the
Regula virginum (ff. 142r-149r), a note in a fourteenth-century hand states that ‘Iste liber
est domus vallis profunde et fuit datus eidem a domo [...] in manu domni [sic] david
prioris vallis profunde’. 30 Clearly, the manuscript did not originate at the female
monastery of Vauparfond, close to Paris, but was given to it; de Vogüé posits another
female house in the same region. 31 The only other fact of provenance known is that by
the seventeenth century, it belonged to the Jesuit Collège de Clermont in Paris. 32
In sum, therefore, the extant manuscripts demonstrate that knowledge of
Caesarius’ writings for religious women survived until the ninth century and beyond; that
centres of this knowledge were the monastery of St John itself and possibly also Holy
Cross in Poitiers; and that the Regula virginum continued to be seen as a relevant, useful
document into the eleventh century. Although it is an observation that takes us outside
the parameters of this study, the existence of two manuscripts from this period may also
suggest that the monastic works of Caesarius enjoyed a resurgence of popularity during
the reforms in the tenth century, a period when many female houses were given over to
male communities. It remains to enquire into other sources for evidence of the circulation
of the Regula virginum.
External evidence for the use and circulation of the Regula virginum
The use of the Regula virginum is not solely attested to by its circulation in
manuscript form. Other sources illuminate its appearance in passing. Following the late
sixth-century traditions of Columbanus, the rule appears to have been used in one of the
29
De Vogüé, Oeuvres pour les moniales, 134-5.
30
‘This book belongs to the house of Vauparfond and was given into the hands of lord David, the prior of
Vauparfond, from the house of ….’.
31
De Vogüé, Oeuvres pour les moniales, 135. Vauparfond had been founded in the ninth century by
Richild, wife of Charles the Bald: see Cottineau, II, cols. 2200-1.
32
De Vogüé, Oeuvres pour les moniales, 135.
136