Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

Once bishop of Arles, Caesarius reconfigured his own experiences and filtered the
normative texts he knew in order to establish his own form of dedicated life for women.
This would be at once complementary to the spiritual work of preaching in the bishopric
and based on his perceptions of the capabilities of religious women. 167 Caesarius made it
plain at the beginning of the Regula that he had undertaken research and adapted
elements for his nuns: ‘And, because many things in monasteries of women seem to
differ from the customs of monks, we have chosen a few things from among many,
according to which the elder religious can live under the rule with the younger, and strive
to carry out spiritually what they see to be especially adapted for their sex’. 168
The most notable feature of the rule is its insistence on claustration, of which
Caesarius was an early advocate. Although Caesarius had already expressed his desire
that nuns should not leave their homes in Vereor, in the Regula the provision for cloister
moved from being one among many considerations (only appearing in the third chapter
of the letter) to being the primary one, so important that it was included in the two
chapters of the praefatio. Cloister became an absolute requirement: ‘she must never, up
to the time of her death, go out of the monastery, nor into the basilica, where there is a
door’. 169 The aim was total separation from the world: ‘to renounce the world and enter
the holy fold to escape the jaws of the spiritual wolves’. 170 The ‘spiritual wolves’
represented a number of threats, not least the physical surroundings of the monastery,
which was now inside the walls. Arles was a wealthy city, with commercial and cultural
distractions for those open to them, even if they were of an increasingly Christian
character. 171 Gregory of Tours relates the story of the ‘great weight of people’ attending
167
For Caesarius’ episcopal career and pastoral work, see the essential study by Klingshirn, Caesarius.
168
RV 2.
169
RV 2.
170
RV 2.
171
For a superb summary of all aspects of late antique Arles, see J. Guyon and M. Heijmans (eds.), D’un
monde à l’autre: Naissance d’une Chrétienté en Provence, IVe – VIe siècle (Arles, 2002). For more
detailed studies of particular issues, see F. Benoît Les cimetières suburbains d’Arles; M. Heijmans and C.
Sintès, ‘L’évolution de la topographie de l’Arles antique’; M. Heijmans, ‘La topographie de la ville
d’Arles’; S.T. Loseby, ‘Arles in Late Antiquity: Gallula Roma Arelas and Urbs Genesii’ in N. Christie and
S.T. Loseby (eds.) Towns in Transition: Urban Evolution in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
(Aldershot, 1996), 45-69.
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