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

lexical expansions, restrictions and neologisms). With regards to the Bible, Burton (2000), in
his study on the Latinity of the Old Latin Gospels, noted similar features as those listed in
Chapter Five. Of course, biblical texts were written in a Latinity representative of a period a
few centuries before the monastic rules. However, the evidence suggests that deponent verbs
and synthetic passive forms, for example, were still in use. With regards to the deponent
verbs in particular, Burton noted that: “it is still difficult to regard the survival and continuing
productivity of the deponential system as wholly artificial” (ibid.: 182).
It is impossible to know exactly which texts were read in a monastery. However,
many likely contenders display similar levels of Latinity as the monastic rules. To take an
example at random, many of the texts written by Valerius of Bierzo seem to have been
destined for a monastic audience. For example, he writes in his De monachis perfectis: “Iam
dudum animis nostris insedit, dilectissimi fratres, monachorum singularis uitae propositum
declarare, atque omnium meritorum praeconia recensere quo et ipsi maiore studio in melius
crescant et aliis forma sint et exemplum”. The Latinity of Valerius‟ writings have been
studied elsewhere, and the results demonstrate a language system that is very similar to those
of the monastic rules (Puerto 2005). Of course, this is just one author out of many possible,
but the point should be clear that many texts would present to a Visigothic listener or reader
similar linguistic contexts.
The practice of the liturgy, meanwhile, is a difficult issue to study, if only because it
can never be absolutely certain which texts were used. 585 However, the topic deserves
585 Thus Díaz y Díaz (1980: 61), “The Visigothic liturgy [...] developed in its various non-Biblical
sections with great freedom all through the seventh century, and beyond”.
289