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

to their audience and, as demonstrated by the discussion surrounding the tumor, influenced
by contemporary literary and educational movements and as such are reflective of literary
developments of the time.
Literary histories, then, have not been kind to monastic rules. As one of the few
examples of a genre that was created by Christianity, rather than a pre-existing one that was
simply adapted by it, they perhaps deserve more recognition merely on this basis alone.
Their style and techniques are such that they have been employed purposefully by their
authors with the intended audience in mind and in this sense it would appear that even the
most uneducated listener would have been able to have some sort of discourse with them in
terms of literary reception. Recognition of this is concomitant with the acknowledgement
that they are very suited for a community centred on oral recitation and aural reception, as
was proposed in Chapter Three. The above review has been consciously brief, but
nevertheless demonstrates that the monastic rules have much to divulge to their investigators
regarding literary culture of the time, highlighting not only issues of continuity with the
classical past, but also features of synchrony, placing them firmly as products of their time
with much to reveal about the culture from which they came.
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