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

(d) monasticism implies a cenobitic community that lives under the guidance of a
monastic rule (or rules) and under the authority of an abbot or abbess, interpreted as “the
superior of an independent monastery [...] in which he exercises full spiritual and temporal
power within the limits drawn by law and monastic regulations” (Derwich 2000: 6; see also
Salmon 1967; Veilleux 1968; Merton 1968). The legislative position of the abbot is a
defining feature of monasticism. Within cenobitic communities, the position of the abbas
was typically a figure of authority and prestige, but not one who held any legislative
authority; instead, his power was wielded more through orthopraxis than orthodoxy. The
differences between a coenobion and a monasterium were always hazy in ancient writers,
often being used interchangeably in the earliest periods. However, in the same way that there
exists a difference between the Anglo-Saxon minster and monastery (Blair 2005: 80-83; on
the use of the words monasterium, ecclesia and coenobium in Bede in particular, see Cubitt
2005), these two terms must be seen as representing different phenomena and a monastery
can be called such only when there is both an abbot who possesses legislative authority and a
monastic rule or rules by which the monastery was run.
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