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

4.12 Conclusions
This chapter has attempted to answer various questions. This has included attempting
to place the monastic rules in the proper context of their literary history, and also
investigating the types of literary techniques utilised by their authors. The answer to the first
question is that first and foremost the monastic rules are examples of technical literature,
perhaps a peculiarly Christian genre, but one that has literary antecedents throughout Latin
(and, indeed, Greek) literature. In common with many technical texts, they are written in a
lower register of language than much Classical prose, meaning that their language often has
more in common stylistically with the spoken language. However, this is not to say that they
do not have higher pretensions, and some of the literary techniques employed are ones that
can be found in more formal, higher register texts of all periods. Nevertheless, the literary
techniques employed are normally restricted to those that were suitable for the audience:
phonologically pleasing or else word-play on a typically superficial level.
In this sense, they are texts that possess both style and literary technique and are,
moreover, perfectly suited to their audience. There would be little point in writing a school
science textbook, for example, in Shakespearian English because it would likely alienate
most of its audience and, worse, fail in its educational aim. Similarly, there was no point in
Isidore writing his monastic rule in a metrical imitation of Virgilian prose, regardless of his
capabilities to do so or not, because it would fail in its aim of instructing most of its audience.
If their posthumous judgement can be ascertained from their absence from modern scholarly
inquiry, then it seems to be an unfair judgement seeing as the texts were only „doing their
job‟ and, it can be supposed, succeeding in it. Not only is this judgement unfair, but it is also
unfounded: the monastic rules might not be, for most tastes, august Classical Latin, but they
are certainly not without their literary merits. They are rich in techniques that would appeal
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