Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

CONCLUSION
Towards the end of the tenth century, the abbess Uta of the abbey of
Niedermünster in Regensburg decided to obtain a copy of the rule of St Benedict for her
community, by then following canonical norms. To ensure that the rule would be of the
fullest practical benefit to her nuns, it would be copied for a female audience: there would
be no risk of the canonesses of Niedermünster failing to engage with the rule as a result
of being addressed as if they were men. At the same time, Uta asked for a second rule to
be copied after that of Benedict: the Regula virginum of Caesarius of Arles, which might
have been known in the city of Regensburg since the late seventh century when the
missionaries Erhard and Emmeram arrived in the area, and from the foundation of the
community in the second half of the eighth century. Both texts, as we have seen earlier in
the current study, were to be used. However, the manuscript would not be a plain
utilitarian copy. The manuscript was and is beautifully and expensively illuminated in
gold: one need only examine the depiction of Caesarius giving his rule to the nuns of
Niedermünster (f. 65r.; the frontispiece to the current study) to see the value placed on
this copy of these rules.
As discussed in Chapter Three, the most probable context for the sudden need for
a new copy of the rule was that of a reconstitution of the community along more tightly
regulated norms. In the light of subsequent chapters, however, this is not so
straightforward a proposition as it seems. How stood the re-thinking of the early ninth
century now? The work of Benedict of Aniane had clearly not made a lasting impression
in terms of the ‘reform’ of communities according to Benedictine norms. Not only had
those around Niedermünster felt the need for fresh beginnings, but this tenth-century
correction would involve not only Benedictine but also Caesarian norms. One hundred
and fifty years after the Carolingian abbot’s obsessions with, as Semmler put it, ‘Una
regula – una consuetudo’, the always-unconvincing mirage of an empire united in its
adherence to a solely Benedictine ideal had faded. At Niedermünster, the ongoing
spiritual vitality of both Benedictine and Caesarian traditions is clear.
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