Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

ejection of their familial status. Perhaps more importantly, the Recapitulatio also
replaced the previous blanket rule of one year as a postulant with an indeterminate period
to be spent in the salutatorium. 202 This clearly passes the responsibility of determining
when or if each new entrant could enter the monastery formally to the abbess. It is in
effect an admission that the abbess’ judgement could be more important than a written
rule in deciding what was best for the community.
The power of the abbess within the monastery is perhaps best attested to by one of
the last chapters of the Recapitulatio:
... if at any time any abbess should try to change or to relax something
of the essence of this rule, and , either because of kinship, or for any
kind of circumstance, should desire to be subject to and to be within
the household of the bishop of this city, under the inspiration of God,
and with our permission, resist on this occasion with reverence and
with dignity... Any abbess and prioress who might try to do anything
contrary to the spirit of the rule should know that they will have to plead
their guilt in my presence before the tribunal of Christ. 203
Caesarius’ emphasis on the ‘essence’ or ‘spirit’ of the rule, perhaps encompassing
the ideas of claustration, common life and the lack of secrecy, is pivotal. This passage
contains a tacit acknowledgement that the abbess would have to make minor changes to
the rule as circumstances within the monastery changed; that the abbess, more
importantly, was the only person in a position to do so. It also acknowledges that future
abbesses might not share the same allegiance to the monastery’s founder as did the first
two. The two Caesarias were unique in that their relationship with Caesarius and their
abbacies during the writing of the rule enabled them to influence it in a major way.
202 RV 58.
203 RV 64.
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