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

spread elsewhere in the peninsula following the repopulation of eastern areas (or even
„population‟ of no man‟s land border areas) after the Reconquest by the movement of monks
into those regions. This was a popular tactic not only in the Christianisation of the regions
but also as establishments for the military orders that were involved in the conflict. However,
Mundò (1957) radicalised the theory by suggesting that all Iberian monasticism prior to 711
was pactual, based on earlier references to a „pactum‘, such as that of the “pactum
uirginitatis” in the thirteenth canon of the Council of Elvira. He even ascribed one pactual
text to Isidore himself, and therefore saw the Galician version to be an adaption or
innovation, rather than an original. Finally, Pérez de Urbel (1963) adapted Mundò‟s theory
and proposed that not only was all Iberian monasticism pre-711 pactual, but that its sudden
appearance in the later middle ages in the central peninsula was due to the presence of
monastic refugees from the south fleeing the Muslim invasions.
Whatever its origins, pactualism appears to be both a confined and peripheral
phenomenon, existing in antiquity perhaps only in the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula
(Díaz 2001). In this sense it is one of the many factors that distinguish Visigothic practice
from other parts of Western Europe. It is also an important factor during the Middle Ages,
when the isolation of the peninsula under Muslim rule may have fostered the consolation of
pactualism, and it was important during the repopulation of Castile when there is evidence
that pactualism was exported to the newly conquered regions (MacKay 1977: 22-24). The
history of pactualism after the Visigothic period is an interesting story and may reveal
something about its status in early peninsular history. The Common Rule signifies the end of
autochthonous regular literature until the anonymous Libellus a regula sancti Benedicti
subtractus, composed in Rioja Alta in the ninth century and chronologically outside the scope
of this study. However, it is significant because during the repopulation of regions taken
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