Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

canons had their own communities and needed to be mentioned separately, dedicated
women were all in one group. This suggests one of two alternative explanations. Either
there was only one – monastic – type of female institution, or at least for there to be so
few female canonical communities that they were not significant enough to mention, or
canonical life for women was perceived to have so few significant differences to its
monastic cousin that even communities which thought of themselves as following a
canonical ordo could safely be dealt with under one heading.
Moving north, similar formulations were employed at the council of Tours. There,
concerns were expressed over admitting large troops of men into monasteria
canonicorum, monachorum seu puellarum; again, there were perceived to be two distinct
types of male religious but only one for women. 37 The main interest of this council,
however, is in the wide variety of dedicated life and its issues under discussion. For
instance, one particularly contemporary concern is over the decline of use of the regula
beati Benedicti in communities of monks. 38 At the same time, Tours (alongside Arles)
also holds the most longstanding concerns in the case of dedicated women. Canon XXVII
notes that young widows should not be veiled until the depth of their faith [religio] and
conversion to the dedicated life can be proven. 39 The point here is not the reasons for
which such a decision was set down, but that the council still discusses the vocations of
widows in terms of a simple veiling and not the entry to a monastery. Here, women could
be dedicated to God without being enclosed in a community. This point is borne out by
the next canon, XXVIII, which states that dedicated virgins may not be veiled until they
are twenty-five, unless out of strong necessity (which remains unspecified). 40 The canons
37
Tours (813), can. XXXI.
38
Tours (813), can. XXV: Monasteria monachorum, in quibus olim regula beati Benedicti patris
conservabatur, sed nunc forte qualicumque neglegentia subrepente remissius ac dissolutius custoditur vel
certe penitus abolita neglegitur, bonum videtur ut ad pristinum revertantur statum…
39
Tours (813), can. XXVII: Ut iuvenes viduae cito nequaquam velentur, usque dum probetur illarum
religio, et bona ab eis nota sit conversatio…
40
Tours (813), can. XXVIII: Virginibus quoque sacrum velamen accipiendum decreta patrum interdicunt
ante XXV annos, nisi forte aliqua cogente necessitate, pro qua licitum est haec statute mutare, ut in
canonibus, si requiratur, inveniri poterit. This canon dates back to the Council of Carthage in 418. This
regulation came to the attention of the council via the canonical collection of Denis Exiguus (d. before
556), known as the Dionysiana. On this, see M. de Jong, ‘Charlemagne’s Church’, in Story (ed.),
Charlemagne: Empire and Society, 103-135, at 117-8. The same age limit was prescribed in the Admonitio
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