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

were built (“constructa sunt monasteria”). In his time, however, he says that slaves,
shepherds and small children were forced to be tonsured and called monks in false name, in
order that the monasteries did not remain empty. Valerius was not the only writer to make
such claims. The first two chapters of the Common Rule testify to the authors‟ perceptions of
contemporary malpractice, centred specifically on the notion of independent monasteries that
cater for the whims of their founder, the very essence of heresy: “inde surrexit haeresis et
schisma et grandis per monasteria controuersia. Et inde dicta haeresis eo quod unusquisque
suo quod placuerit arbitrio eligat et quod eligerit sanctum sibi hoc putet et uerbis
mendacibus defendat”. 58
It is possible that a fear of independent monasteries, in the north-west of the
peninsula, at least, was bolstered by Priscillianism (d'Alès 1936; Blázquez 1991), a heresy
that had been particularly strong in this area of the peninsula, even in the sixth century, and
whose practice was linked with asceticism, and in particular with unsupervised and isolated
communities and church-villas (Bowes 2001). In short, although some of the scenes present
a rather bleak picture, writers such as Valerius nevertheless reveal that monasticism was very
much a feature of religious life in Visigothic Iberia, and even if the content of the monastic
rules cannot be applied to all cases, they are important sources of evidence for what their
authors wished to be the case.
2.5 Daily Monastic Life: The Opus Dei
“Primum incumbere orationi nocte ac die et praefinitarum horarum obseruare
mensuram; nec uacare ullatenus aut torpere a spiritualibus quemquam operum exercitiis
58 Common Rule 1. The author is perhaps referring here to the Greek etymon, αἳξεζηο, „choice‟.
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