Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

other abbess. 122 Florentius, writing about the dead abbess, seems to reflect the views of
the community at this point more than any other. Rusticula is cast as a wise and loving
mother: ‘This was her constant effort, her constant intent, that none of her flock should be
afflicted with needless sadness or burdened with excessive labours or grow weary, but
she, with a fervent spirit, would still herd them all to rest... They had all come to know
her compassion for them, for she would count their sorrows as her own, suffering with
their afflictions and reviving as they recovered.’ Rusticula also fulfilled her spiritual and
educational responsibilities: ‘I cannot express how she corrected them with such sweet
words and pious charity that she did not punish them like a mistress but with a mother’s
loving kindness instructed them with beneficial advice.’ 123 Ultimately, Florentius
acknowledges that the vita forms part of a grieving process for the nuns: ‘But why
prolong this? For the more you count up all you have lost, virgins of Christ, though we
speak to commemorate such a handmaid of God with praising lips, the more your sorrow
overcomes you.’ 124
Beyond this valuable insight into the emotional life of the monastery, the
description of Rusticula’s death and funeral also furnishes concrete information on
procedures at St John. The body of the abbess was taken from the monastery to be buried
in the basilica of St Mary, as discussed in the Rule and also in the Constitutum of
Caesaria II. 125 Yet again, however, the eventual fate of Rusticula’s remains would not
have found any basis in the texts composed by Caesarius. Her body was ultimately
moved to the cathedral of St Trophime (where some relics may still be seen), and her
head was retained by the monastery. 126 Neither does the Regula make mention of the
male ‘servants of the monastery’ who were present at the obsequies. In one case, ‘one of
the monastery’s elderly servants loudly bewailed the loss of his eyesight’, a second
122 Krusch suggests that the dating of the vita is inconsistent, which is one of the reasons for his belief that
the text is a later forgery. Riché argues that the text concurs with other known events, ‘La Vita S.
Rusticulae’, 375.
123 Vita Rusticulae 22, trans. SWDA 133.
124 Vita Rusticulae 24, trans. SWDA 135.
125 RV 70.
126 J-M. Besse et al, Abbayes et prieurés de l'ancienne France: recueil historique des archevêchés, évêchés,
abbayes et prieurés de France (Paris, 1905-1943) II, 77.
98