Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

Carloman. 118 Carloman was later to renounce his position of Mayor of the Palace in 747,
and set off for Rome to enter monastic life. Such piety formed an evident bond between
himself and Boniface.
The stated concern of the Concilium Germanicum was ‘how the law of God and
the religion of the Church can be recovered, which in days gone by were first squandered
then collapsed, and how the Christian people can attain the health of their souls and not
be lost through the deception of false priests.’ 119 To this end, the first decision of the
synod was to meet every year. All members of society would have their part to play in the
reinvigoration of a ‘correct’ Christianity driven by Boniface. As discussed at the
beginning of this chapter, for monks and nuns, this meant obeying their vows: those
guilty of fornication would do penitence on bread and water. 120
However, the single requirement repeated by all three councils, the Germanicum,
and those of Estinnes and Soissons, is that monks and nuns should be governed by the
rule of St. Benedict. For Boniface and Carloman in 742, this was a matter of self-
regulation: ‘both monks and nuns alike should arrange and live [according to] the rule of
saint Benedict, so that they may learn to govern their own lives’. 121 Clearly, as with the
Caesarian texts, the Regula sancti Benedicti was held to be of equal applicability for both
genders. At the council of Estinnes, the focus returned to the restoration of a way of life
for monks (who were probably intended to represent all dedicated religious) which had
been allowed to grow lax. 122 By the council of Soissons in 744, the emphasis had
returned to following the monastic way of life correctly: ‘Monks and nuns should persist
118
Boniface’s somewhat tentative letter to Pippin concerning a miscreant ‘servant of our church’ may
illustrate this: Epist. 107, MGH Epp. III, 393-4; tr. Emerton, The Letters of Saint Boniface, 180.
119
… quomodo lex Dei et aecclesiastica religio recuperetur, quae in diebus preteritorum principum
dissipata corruit, et qualiter populus Christianus ad salutem animae pervenire possit et per falsos
sacerdotes deceptus non pereat. Prologue, MGH Conc. II:I, 2.
120
Conc. Germ, 6.
121
Conc. Germ, 7: Et ut monachi et ancillae Dei monasteriales iuxta regulam sancti Benedicti ordinare et
vivere, vitam propriam gubernare student.
122
Conc. Lift., 1. Abbates et monachi receperunt sancti patris Benedicti regulam ad restaurandam normam
regularis vitae.
202