Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

this will move into focus in the next chapter, it is vital to keep it in mind equally when
considering the transfer of written texts between communities.
Circulation of the other texts: the ‘Caesarian booklet’
While it is informative about the vicissitudes of early medieval female religious
life, the study of the manuscripts of the Regula virginum is not itself an untrodden path.
The same cannot be said of Caesarius’ letter Vereor, addressed to his sister Caesaria in
c.508. The second part of this chapter breaks new ground in offering a detailed study of
the transmission of this letter. This is of fundamental importance to the study of early
medieval female religious life in two areas. Firstly, it raises questions of gender and
authority. Morin notes the existence of three manuscript copies of the letter on which his
edition was based (in Vatican, Reg. Lat. ms. 140; Toulouse, Bibl. Munic., ms. 162;
Tours, Bibl. Munic., ms. 617). 47 De Vogüé, realising that Caesarius’ Sermo ad quosdam
germanos was in fact the same text but addressed to a male reading audience, was able
thereby to add a further three (Paris, BN, ms. Lat. 12238; Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana
ms. C 79 Sup; Grenoble, Bibl. Munic., ms. 306). 48 The simultaneous circulation of a
female and a male version of an identical text is evidently of great interest and
importance for the study of both masculine and feminine religious life, and the
implications that the existence of such variants possess for the way in which early
medieval monasticism is seen will be discussed in greater detail thoughout this chapter.
The second and perhaps more important point of interest concerning the
circulation of the letter Vereor, and one which neither of its editors seem to have noticed
or appreciated, is the manuscript context in which it appears to have been circulated. In
two of the ‘female recension’ manuscripts, Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, ms. Reg. Lat.
140 and Toulouse, Bibl. Munic., ms. 162, the same collection of texts, in the same order,
is found. The following consideration of these manuscripts will argue that the letter
47 G. Morin (ed.) Sancti Caesarii episcopi Arelatensis Opera omnia II (Maredsous, 1937-42), 134.
48 De Vogüé, Oeuvres pour les moniales, 285-6.
141