The Monastic Rules of Visigothic Iberia - eTheses Repository ...

0.1 Outline of thesis
Introduction
This thesis is concerned with the three surviving monastic rules that were written in
seventh-century Visigothic Iberia: the Rule of Isidore, the Rule of Fructuosus and the
Common Rule. It will investigate what they can reveal about issues of language-use and
literary culture amongst their intended audience. The thesis has three principal research aims.
First, to locate the monastic rules in their contemporary historical context and determine how
they might have been used; second, to investigate the position of the monastic rules in the
history of Latin literature and explore some of their literary techniques, including how these
techniques relate to their use; third, to investigate what help the monastic rules can offer in
contributing to debates on language change in the early medieval world and the relationship
between written and spoken registers in the period.
Chapter One introduces monastic rules more generally and discusses why the De
institutione uirginum et de contemptu mundi, written by Leander of Seville, should not be
counted as a monastic rule. Chapter Two continues to focus on the Visigothic monastic rules
and places them in their historical context. Chapter Three goes on to investigate what kind of
role monastic rules might have played in Visigothic monasteries and what their use might
reveal about questions of literacy and textual culture. Chapter Four investigates their literary
context, studying their literary technique, and wider heritage and influence of the monastic
rules. Finally, Chapters Five and Six investigate aspects of their language from a linguistic
perspective, looking at aspects of the language they were written in and attempts to elucidate
the relationship between the spoken language of the listeners and the written language of the
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