Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

demonstrate that a demand equal to that of the Regula virginum existed for shorter, more
ideologically-based texts that could have a wider range of applications. In turn this
suggests a wider range of social contexts for the use of such texts than simply an enclosed
monastery. One of the most important issues raised by this study is that of the
relationships between texts, gender and authority, and one of its most important
conclusions that women and men were guided by the texts written for women. Clearly, at
an overarching level, the use of the same texts by both men and women does not need
restating. The ultimate authority for all dedicated religious (and, indeed, for all the
peoples of Francia, at least in theory) was of course the Bible. Similarly, the writings of
the fathers of the early Church had a comparably wide applicability: Augustine and
Cassian’s writings for male religious were both used by Caesarius in the Regula
virginum, to use but the most obvious example. This makes the historiographical
oversight, that writings for women could in turn have a general applicability, all the more
surprising.
The fresh approach to Vereor, and the other letters written by the family of the
Caesarii illustrated by this thesis, has profound implications for the way in which the
literature of spiritual guidance is studied. In particular, it emphasises the importance of
giving equal weight to the circulation and use of texts which are not monastic rules.
Positivist readings of the links between monastic rules as the framework within which all
dedicated life – including within monasteries themselves – took place have been shown
to be unsustainable. Instead, it has become apparent that a much fuller and more nuanced
understanding of dedicated religious life in the early middle ages can be gained from
giving equal weight to all of the texts available to dedicated religious. The women and
men discussed in this thesis relied not only on regulae to guide them but also on the
interpretation of those rules by letter, and by orally transmitted advice. For women, in
particular, who did not live in monastic communities, such letters described a way of
living spiritually and chastely, but did not prescribe a precise way of doing so in practical
terms.
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