Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

‘sanctimoniales…quae se canonicas vocant’. 49 The clause suggests that although these
women already live according to a monastic rule, their particular way of life merits
further admonitiunculas being produced by order of the council. While the basic nature of
their lifestyle remained the same as those nuns who were not canonicas, they lived out
their vocations in a somewhat different manner. A further clause suggests one of the
differences. Canon sixty-one decrees that nuns (sanctimoniales) should not eat, drink or
hold meetings with men of whatever kind in their own houses (in propriis
mansionibus). 50 Clearly the basic ethos behind this statement can easily be traced back to
Caesarius’ warnings that men should not be permitted to enter the monastery of St John,
and if they are, must be met in the salutatorium with two or three other nuns in
attendance. 51 The difference lies in the fact that according to this clause, nuns who
followed a monastic rule were also living in their own houses. Does this indicate,
however, that such women were still in their own family households, and living
according to a monastic rule? Probably not; presumably the presence of men would be
much harder to control. This clause therefore appears to suggest a different form of
community in which women lived in their own houses but within the defined space of a
religious community: canonesses.
The fifth and final council, that of Mainz, took a similarly pluralistic view of the
dedicated women in its purview. It is particularly interesting in its breakdown on
recommendations by category: successive clauses deal with canonical life (De vita
canonicorum), clerical life (De vita clericorum), monastic life (De vita monachorum,
which is defined as being lived secundum doctrinam sanctae regulae Benedicti), and
‘holy virgins’ (De sacris virginibus). 52 This last clause, dealing with dedicated women, is
intended to apply to two distinct types of nuns (sanctimoniales). The first, those who
49 Chalons-sur-Saône (813), can. LIII: Libuit namque huic sacro conventui quasdam admonitiunculas
breviter eis sanctimonialibus scribere, quae se canonicas vocant, quoniam hae, quae sub monasticae
regulae norma degunt, totius vitae suae ordinem in eadem, quam profitentur, regula scriptum habent.
50 Chalons-sur-Saône (813) can. LXI: Non debere sanctimoniales in propriis mansionibus cum aliquibus
masculis, clericis sive laicis, consanguineis sive extraneis, bibere sive comedere, sed, si quando id
agendum est, in auditorio agatur; et ubi auditorium deest fiat. Et cum nullo masculo eis colloquium habere
liceat nisi in auditorio et ibi coram testibus.
51 RV 36, 38.
52 Mainz (813), cans. IX, X, XI, and XIII.
226