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

that Florentina is also frequently referred to as the sole addressee should not cause concern; it
was one thing to dedicate a work to someone, and quite another to wish to see it read
elsewhere. On the other hand, the contents of the epistle are distinctly very personal in their
nature and Leander as a bishop may not have wished to have seen its contents too widely
disseminated.
Overall, the presence of an epistle should not in itself cause too much of a problem.
Moreover, it would be oxymoronic to recognise the difficulties of defining a monastic rule
and then to remove certain texts on the basis that they do not fit a prescribed definition.
However, the problem comes from the fact that the epistle marks the De institutione uirginum
out very much as a piece of personal correspondence, and it is difficult to see that Leander
actually intended his piece to be put to use within a monastic setting as a monastic rule.
Instead, it seems far more likely that he set out to write a theological treatise for his sister but
used the structure of a monastic rule to do so.
1.4.3 Pragmatism
A second issue is one of the pragmatism of the text, namely the fact that the main
body of the piece, which constitutes thirty-one individual chapters instructing a nun on how
to live, are not as practical as other similar works. Whilst the Rule of Donatus, written over a
century later for a community of nuns, contains chapter headings such as „How the old and
infirm are to be governed‟, „Concerning women who hide things in their beds‟ and „How
suppliers and other men may enter the monastery‟, the De institutione uirginum boasts
chapter headings such as „Ut carnaliter non debeat legere Uetus Testamentum‟ and „Qualiter
uita fugiatur priuata‟. There do exist some more practical chapter headings, such as „De usu
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