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

parentibus, alius de germanis, alius de cognatis, alius de fratribus et consanguineis, et
idoneis, alius de diuitiis, alius de specie iuuentutis, alius de bello fortitudinis, alius de
perlustratione terrarum, alius de artificio, alius de sapientia, alius de assertionis eloquentia,
alius de taciturnitate, alius de humilitate, alius de charitate, alius de largitate munerum;
alius de castitate, alius de uirginitate, alius de paupertate, alius de abstinentia, alius de
orationum frequentia, alius de uigilantia, alius de obedientia, alius de abrenuntiatione
rerum, alius de legendo, alius de scribendo, alius de uoce modulationis”. 335
4.7.4 Hyperbaton:
Hyperbaton is a perhaps otherwise unexpected technique in the monastic rules, given
that the argument so far has been to promulgate the idea that the texts are to a large extent
reflective of spoken language. However, unlike hyperbaton in other writings, and despite
being atypical of the oral registers of any given language, the examples in the monastic rules
do not dislocate the overall sentence structure in as an extreme way as found in other texts.
The first sentence of Augustine‟s De ciuitate Dei, for example, bears witness to a type of
seriously extended hyperbaton that would be most out of place in the monastic rules, where
the two main verbs suscepi […]defendere are separated by one line, and the noun,
gloriosissimam ciuitatem Dei, separated by five lines. Recent research has suggested that
hyperbaton is primarily a stylistic device, and its use varies depending on author and literary
style of the work, with more frequent employment in works of an elevated register (Devine &
Stephens 2006: 602-604). Where hyperbaton is found in the monastic rules, it is normally in
the form of „pre-modifier‟ inversion (ibid.: 540-562): “in medio consistens dormitorio”; 336
335 Common Rule 13.
336 Rule of Fructuosus 3.
136