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

Christian communities. 28 In terms of content, regular texts also include purely pragmatic
elements that are not normally necessary in normative texts. These were intended to provide
a tangible guide regarding the day-to-day activities of various aspects of a monastic
community and might include issues such as canonical hours, sleeping arrangements, what
type of clothes are appropriate and what type of food a monk should eat.
Notwithstanding function, it is generally in their form that monastic rules find their
most obvious description. One of the clearest features of their diachronic evolution is that the
length of a monastic rule becomes progressively longer with each generation, culminating in
the fourth and fifth generations of de Vogüé with lengthy rules such as that of Benedict, with
its seventy-three chapters. This increase in textual length witnessed naturally a concomitant
increase in content, and whilst earlier texts are likely to occupy themselves with basic
practical matters, later ones are additionally much more pragmatic in their content, dealing
with far more daily and down-to-earth addenda of monastic life. For example, chapter nine
of the Common Rule, which concerns those monks who are charged with looking after the
flocks of a monastery, and chapter thirteen of the Rule of Isidore, which deals with the topic
of a monk “qui nocturno delusus phantasmate fuerit”. These are topics not touched upon by
other monastic rules. This is no doubt reflective of the establishment of monastic centres and
the growth of the monastic movement as a whole, since the genre was no longer aimed solely
at relatively small groups of ascetics, but also at larger communities that necessitated such
organisational management.
28 Monastic rules are not just features of Christian monasticism, but also find a counterpart in the form
of Buddhist monastic rules (Boisvert 1992). Islam, on the other hand, forbids ascetic practices: the
Qur‟an. 57:27 states, “[...] We sent Jesus, son of Mary: We gave him the Gospel and put compassion
and mercy into the hearts of his followers. But monasticism was something they invented- We did not
ordain it for them – only to seek God‘s pleasure, and even so, they did not observe it properly”.
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