Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

his apparently personal letter of guidance, Vereor, to the elder Caesaria, his wider
responsibilities for overseeing the lifestyles of dedicated women throughout the diocese
of Arles must have been in his mind. And indeed, as this study has suggested, Caesarius
himself would very quickly use parts of this letter in his rule for monks. Not only was the
monastery of St John itself involved in producing copies of Caesarius’ texts to send out,
the sheer volume of Caesarius’ writings – in particular his sermons – quite simply meant
that each of his texts benefited from the high visibility of the others. By contrast, the
abbess Caesaria had no other works (as far as we know) to spread knowledge of her
authority in matters monastic. Of course, the issue of gender remains when we turn to
consider the preservation of texts. To what extent were writings circulated between
women’s religious establishments lost, when those establishments, often in existence only
for the lifetime of their foundress, ceased to function? Such short pieces of writing as
exist here, in the shape of Caesaria’s Dicta and Constitutum, may represent only a small
proportion of the texts available to dedicated women.
Dicta
De Vogüé ascribes these three ‘Sayings’ to Caesaria II. They all concern
meditation on the word of God. In the first, Caesarius is held up as an example of the
practice; in the second, meditation is presented as a barrier against evil thoughts; the third
recommends meditation as a means of preserving a pure heart. 146 They survive due to the
collating activities of Benedict of Aniane, who illustrated chapter 19 of the Regula
Benedicti with them in his Concordia regularum. They are accompanied by Caesarius’
sermon 152, which Benedict attributes to Augustine. As such, the Dicta survive in two
manuscripts, Orléans, Bibl. Munic., ms. 233, dating from the ninth century, and
Vendôme, Bibl. Munic., ms. 60, from the eleventh century. Benedict may have taken the
writings from the same ‘Corpus arlésien’ that Bonnerue suggests he used for the other
Caesarian texts contained in the Codex regularum. The sheer volume of material
emanating from Arles, all constructed around similar themes and largely based on ideas
expressed in the Regula virginum, may have rendered the inclusion of these writings –
146 De Vogüé, Oeuvres pour les moniales, 443.
168