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

different in much of their form and content, earlier writings nevertheless satisfied much of the
same purpose, and were the forerunners of the later monastic rules.
It is therefore necessary to envisage two different types of ascetic preceptive writings:
(a) normative, that is, a text that contained teaching or moral exempla about living as an
ascetic; (b) regular, that is a monastic rule that contained teaching about living as a monk.
Within this framework, what distinguishes a regular text from a normative one? Di
Berardino (1996: 498) stated that “il genere letterario è molto fluido, non è sempre facile dire
se un testo è una regola oppure no”. At a very basic level, a monastic rule is normally
described very generally as something like an “ensemble des normes régissant le
fonctionement des instituts religieux” (Le Tourneau 2005: 536), or “el documento
constitucional de una orden religiosa” (Gribomont 1998: 1879). For de Vogüé, at least, “les
règles monastiques anciennes (400-700) forment un ensemble compact et relativement
homogène, mais difficile à definer et à delimiter. On entend par là tout écrit latine destiné à
un groupe de moins ou de moniales et présentant un certain caractère legislatif” (1985: 11).
Immediately distinctive is that the regular texts are monastic texts; that is, they are
designed for use within a cenobitic community that is under the legislative control of an
abbot or abbess. Normative literature, despite being ascetic, could equally well apply to life
outside an organised community, such as for virgins who remained living at home or solitary
hermits. In addition to this must be the assertion that monastic rules are specifically Christian
texts; that is that they find no classical pagan counterpart and arose purely from the needs of
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