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

elationship between an elder and junior monk, or of an oblate that had grown up in the
monastery. In addition, references to homosexual practices between monks are relatively
frequent in the monastic rules, and this was a situation echoed throughout many early
medieval monasteries (Boswell 1984: 169-206). The use of the word paruulus, however,
presumably intended to refer to those who were not yet adolescenti, is more concerning and
could imply something sexually more sinister. Indeed, the sexual abuse of children had been
a feature even of the earliest Egyptian monasticism (Schroeder 2009). The point here,
however, is not that the abuse of children merited punishment, but rather that Fructuosus
demands a comparatively harsher punishment than does Isidore, who also talks of older
monks attempting sexual advances towards paruuli. However, in his monastic rule this crime
is treated as being equal to theft, punishment and scorning a superior and merited
excommunication.
The pastoral role of a monastery was similarly subject to variation. Isidore, for
example, is very explicit in his warning that a monk must not be ejected from a monastery,
“ne forte qui poterat per diuturna tempora paenitudinem emendari, dum proicitur ore diaboli
deuoretur”. 154 The Common Rule, on the other hand, advises that those monks who do not
reform their bad behaviour are simply to be expelled from the monastery. 155 Similarly,
Isidore makes it relatively simple to join a monastery, requiring only a three month period as
a postulant, to be spent in the service of hospitality. 156 The Rule of Fructuosus and the
Common Rule, however, make it decidedly more difficult. The Rule of Fructuosus demands
154 Rule of Isidore 16.
155 Common Rule 14, “Quod is in malo perseuerans perdurauerit et prona uoluntate paenitentiam
agere noluerit [...] in conlatione deductus exuatur monasterii uestibus et induatur quibus olim
adduxerat saecularibus; et cum confusionis nota a monasterio expellatur ut ceteri emendentur, dum
fortasse solus tali correptione ille delinquens corrigitur”.
156 Rule of Isidore 4.
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