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

Iberian Peninsula is of interest because of the prolonged presence of non-Benedictine forms
of monasticism in a period normally characterised by its adoption. The reasons behind this
situation have been discussed elsewhere, 42 though it would last until at least the eleventh
century and reforms such as those brought in under the Council of Coyanza in 1050, which
promoted the use of the Rule of Benedict, and the Council of Burgos in 1080, when the
Hispanic rite was replaced by the Roman one (Mattoso 2003: 578). It prompts the question,
then: what kind of monasticism was there instead. 43 This is a question that concerns not only
modern scholars; even Charlemagne had posed the question of how monastic life was ordered
before Benedict. 44
2.2 The Visigothic Monastic Rules
In total, there are three remaining monastic rules left from Visigothic Iberia (Gil
1994): the Rule of Isidore of Seville; the Rule of Fructuosus of Braga; the Common Rule. 45
The De institutione uirginum of Leander of Seville was dismissed as a monastic rule in
Chapter One. The Rule of Isidore of Seville was written at the start of the seventh century
(Mullins 1940). Its eponymous author is the best-known protagonist of Visigothic literary
42 The problem was first discussed fully by Plaine (1900), and later by Linage Conde (1973), who
advised a distinction between the marca Hispanica and the rest of the peninsula: “[hay una] distinciόn
ineludible entre la Marca Hispanica, de la que sí puede predicarse una benedictinizaciόn en el siglo
IX, y el resto más tardío” (ibid.: 86).
43 For comparative purposes, the analysis of the Rule of Benedict found in Dunn (2000: 114-130) is
useful.
44 Capitula tractanda cum comitibus episcopis et abbatisibus 12.
45 All three are available in the PL. A Spanish translation and critical Latin edition of all three can be
found in Ruiz & Melia (1971). The Rule of Fructuosus and the Common Rule have previously been
translated into English by Barlow (1969), whilst the Rule of Isidore is available in Allies (forthcoming
2010).
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