Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

The reforming activities of Benedict of Aniane were not a point of rupture for the
traditions of female religious life. Indeed, the present study has revealed the considerable
scope for a new evaluation of his career, and more generally of the drives toward
spiritual rejuvenation, in the context of religious life in the ninth century. For women in
monasteries, there was no sudden abandonment of older monastic traditions in favour of
the Benedictine rule; for those whose dedication was lived out less formally, repeated
exhortations by successive church councils did not herald a general move into fewer,
larger monasteries. And indeed, how could they? One of the themes of this study has
been the centrality of family concerns to both religious dedication and monastic
foundation. Religious institutions fulfilled a multiplicity of functions in early medieval
society: not only were they the practical contexts in which to spend a life of dedication,
but by means of this central purpose were also a way in which aristocratic families
strengthened and demonstrated their presence and authority in the landscape; the
founders of such monasteries also strove to ensure that future generations would
commemorate them and intercede for them in prayer. The juxtaposition of such
awareness with legislative-based studies on the Carolingian reforms sheds new light on
the realities of trying to impose large-scale change on a landscape in which different
groups of people had divergent priorities.
Issues such as this bring us sharply up against the different purposes and
personnel involved in making foundations, and indeed simple commitments to follow a
life dedicated to God, in our period. From a cast of characters including bishops, kings,
queens, aristocratic land-holders, rebellious and acquiescent daughters, sisters, wives and
widows, no single paradigm of either motivation or practical process stands out.
Caesarius of Arles’ foundation of St John has been deconstructed to show how it fulfilled
the purposes and desires, not only of Caesarius himself, but also of his sister Caesaria.
The issues of foundation and reform form the essential backdrop to this study’s
main focus on the transmission and use of the writings for dedicated women of Caesarius
of Arles. The study of Caesarius’ manuscripts has offered a unique perspective on the
audiences and use of his writings for dedicated women. In and of themselves, they
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