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

of points need to be made here. First, the use of an adjective such as plebeius by an author is
not immediately synonymous with a lower-register of language; the concept of Christian
humilitas and literary topos needs to be taken into account. Second, no text can ever be fully
representative of the spoken language for the simple fact that there exist so many standards of
speech; rather, in order to be understood a text must use features that are recognisable to all,
although not necessarily used by all. At best, then, a written text can illustrate features that
were perhaps common in spoken varieties or indicative of it, rather than be a true
representation (Allies 2009).
Importantly, it is not the case that the authors of the monastic rules were writing in a
language distanced from the classical norm because they did not know how to write in such a
style. As such, the monastic rules were purposefully written in a lower register not through
an inability to write in any other, but rather because of a choice to do so. This is an important
differentiation because, like many other early Christian writings, the monastic rules were
written to be understood by their audience. With regard to their language, then, it is
suggested that the monastic rules are reflective to a large extent of the language that was
expected to be spoken by their audience. This theme will become important in Chapter Six.
How, then, might both audience and author have viewed the language of the monastic
rules? It is probable that they were recognised by both parties to be in a language that was
not reflective of Classical Latin prose. Instead, they were written in a language of a relatively
low-register, meaning that they lacked many of the manipulated aspects of higher-register
literary Latin writing and were thus more in line with what might be expected from natural
Latin speech of the period. However, the context of the texts means that this would not have
199