Community, Authority, Rule: Re-Thinking Normative Texts in Early Western Monasticism

Abstract

Focusing on concepts of community, authority and rule, this study re-thinks the traditional chronology and understanding of early western monastic rules. Beginning with the monastic programmes offered by early writers (Basil in Rufinus’ translation, Augustine, Jerome and Cassian), it questions the idea that the first western monastic rules emerged in the fifth century. It places the emergence of rules in the sixth century, highlighting the radical difference between their ideas of authority and community and those of the earlier texts whose words they often used, above all in the ‘abbatial turn’ that begins with the Rule of Benedict. Texts conventionally classified as early western rules for communal monasteries are re-identified as rules compiled in the seventh century for monasteries and satellite dependencies. Some are also interpreted as providing validation for the newer style of ‘Benedictine–Columbanian’ monasticism and use of the Rule of Benedict by means of a spurious early monastic provenance.

1. Introduction

The recent Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West (Beach and Cochelin 2020) presents us with a picture of the evolution of western monastic rules very much in tune with the assumptions of the last five decades or so. It places the emergence of rules in the fifth century, beginning around the time of the creation of the first western monasteries with the Rule of the Four Fathers, the Second Rule of the Fathers, the Rule of Macarius, the Third Rule of the Fathers and finally the Oriental Rule, though it is more equivocal about associating them with the famous island community of Lérins. In sixth century Gaul/Francia we find the Rules for monks and nuns of Bishop Cæsarius of Arles and also those of his next-but-one successor, Aurelian, along with some lesser-known texts. In Italy the Rule of the Master and the Rule of Benedict are presented as appearing at roughly the same time as the Gallic rules. While there is reference to the only attempt to change the traditional chronological order, the debate between Dunn (1990, 1992) and Vogüé (1992) over the priority of the Rule of Benedict and the Rule of the Master (Diem and Rapp 2020, p. 35), it omits a later addition to this literature (Dunn 2008); and while it raises the possibility that the latter rule may just possibly post-date the former rather than being its source (Diem and Rousseau 2020, p. 179; Diem and Rapp 2020, p. 35), it ultimately steps back, suggesting that both texts could have ‘independently revised a rule now lost’. At the end of the sequence comes the rule ascribed to Columbanus and two rules for nuns of the Columbanian congregation, one by Bishop Donatus of Besançon, the other anonymous, but now argued to be the work of Columbanus’ hagiographer Jonas of Bobbio (Diem 2021).

This overall chronology has gained wide acceptance: but how helpful is it—and, fundamentally, what understanding of monastic rules does it convey? A focus on shifting concepts of community, authority and rule in monastic writings between the late fourth and the seventh century suggests that it obscures areas of major significance: questions over the date of the emergence of the first western monastic rules; the radical difference between the views of community and authority expressed in the earliest western monastic programmes and in the rules composed in the sixth century; the emergence of rules composed for monastic dependencies; and the invention of monastic tradition supporting the diffusion of ‘Benedictine–Columbanian’ monasticism in the seventh century.

2. Community, Authority and Rule in Early Western Monastic Programmes

In order to examine the emergence and development of monastic rules, we need to place them in the context of the earliest western monastic writings that created or described programmes of communal monasticism. These are: Rufinus of Aquileia’s translation of a version of Basil of Cæsarea’s Asketikon; the Praeceptum of Augustine of Hippo; two letters written by Jerome of Stridon and his translation of texts originating in the Pachomian monasteries of Egypt; and the Institutes and Conferences of John Cassian.

2.1. Rufinus of Aquileia (344/5–411): The Latin Translation of Basil of Cæsarea (329–78)

In 397, Rufinus produced his Latin version of a now-lost Greek text, the first version of the Asketikon (the so-called Small Asketikon) of Basil of Cæsarea (329–78) (Silvas 2013; Zelzer 1986). In this text, framed as responses to questions, we can distinguish two major strands in Basil’s thought. The first (Q. 1, 1–2) is his well-known belief—based on the Gospel commandment (Matt 22: 36–9; Mark 12: 28–31) to love God with all your heart and soul and strength and then your neighbour as yourself (Silvas 2013, pp. 54–55)—that a religious community should serve others. The second, discussed here, is his vision of it as a place for the spiritual development of the individual.

Basil represents life in community not just as a source of charity but as an active agent of spiritual development. As such, it is infinitely superior to the solitary life and his exposition of this superiority (Q. 3) has been described as ‘one of the most persuasive arguments for community life over solitary life ever mounted in Christian literature’ (Silvas 2013, pp. 76–77 and n. 30). Life in community encourages love for others and discourages self-interest and self-will; and it is easier for the individual to recognise his own faults and vices if there are others to reprove him. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are distributed among community members; life in community is more secure against the attacks of the devil coming from outside; and, crucially, it enables a training in humility impossible in the solitary life. Basil sees the community as ‘a kind of stadium in which progress is made through the exercise of virtue’ in which meditation on God’s commandments shines out more brightly and becomes clearer. For him, the community becomes a living example of the community of Acts 2:44: ‘All the believers were of one mind and held all things in common.’ (Silvas 2013, pp. 80–81). He also stresses (Q. 12) the need for mutual support: ‘Thus in every way we are not to do what is permitted us, but what builds up our neighbours, and to please not ourself but our neighbours for their upbuilding’ (Silvas 2013, pp. 114–15). Q. 16 and Q. 17 stress that there is an obligation to mutual reproof and correction, even for minor sins (Silvas 2013, pp. 122–25). Although community members are reminded that they have handed themselves over to the power of others on account of the Lord’s commandments, there is not a strongly delineated hierarchy of authority. There are references to ‘those in charge’ of distributing food (Q. 91) and supervising work (Q. 95) and (Q. 186) those ‘entrusted with the dispensing of goods’ (Silvas 2013, pp. 184–85, 186–87, 270–71). Confession is to be made to ‘those entrusted with the stewardship of the mysteries of God’ (Q. 21) and (Q. 200) the ‘stronger’, ‘who can carry the weaknesses of the weak’ (Silvas 2013, pp. 128–29, 286–87). The head of the community is referred to simply as ho proestos, translated by Rufinus as is qui praeest, the one who presides: this term is also applied to those in charge of food or work. And, although Q, 15 1–3 portrays is qui praeest as a ‘minister of Christ and steward of the mysteries of God’, his role is a nurturing one: he should be ‘as a nurse cherishing her children’ (I Thess 2:8) (Silvas 2013, pp. 120–21).

2.2. Augustine of Hippo (354–430): The Praeceptum

Although one suggestion (Leyser 2015) is that it was produced in the 420s, the generally accepted dating of Augustine’s Praeceptum to c. 397 would place it about the same time as Rufinus began work on his Latin version of the Basilian institutes. It is remarkable for its goal (Praeceptum I, 3) of creating a group united as ‘one soul and one heart’ (anima una et cor unum), a description based on that of the earliest Christians in Jerusalem in Acts 4: 32 (‘… the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul’) (Lawless 1987, p. 80). Praeceptum II, 8 exhorts community members to live in harmony and concord and to honour God in each other, as they have become his temples (Lawless 1987, pp. 82–83); Praeceptum IV, 6instructs them to mutually safeguard each other’s purity (Lawless 1987, pp. 90–91). This mutuality is also expressed in the relatively informal structure of the community described in Chapter V: individuals are placed in charge of clothing, storeroom, books and the care of the sick; but these are not posts with specific titles and appointees are instructed to serve the brethren without grumbling (Lawless 1987, pp. 96–97). While ultimate authority is vested in the community’s priest (presbyter) to whom questions beyond the authority or power of the superior (praepositus) are to be directed, the superior (also referred to once as ipse qui vobis praeest) is to be obeyed as a father—but also serves in love (caritas). (Praeceptum, VII). He is to regard himself as fortunate to exercise authority rather than as having coercive power: while he can impose discipline and instil fear, he should nevertheless strive to be loved rather than feared. This fine balance between authority and mutuality finds expression in the instruction that the community’s obedience to the superior is both a manifestation of compassion for self and also of compassion for the occupant of a higher and therefore spiritually more perilous position (Lawless 1987, pp. 100–3).

Around 401, in De opere monachorum, Augustine would strongly criticise monks who, citing Jesus’ instruction not to be anxious about food and clothing and claiming they must be free for prayer—which in their view amounted to work—lived off the offerings of the faithful. He thought that monks should work with their hands to create basic income, but with the proviso that they were entitled to support if some were unfit for manual labour or held office in the Church. (Caner 2002, pp. 117–20). But this does not seem to have the case in his own community of Thagaste, probably funded by annuities from donations given by community members to the church of Thagaste (Brown 2012, p. 169). The Praeceptum reflects a similar situation. It mentions work only briefly in Chapter V, 2 (Lawless 1987, pp. 94–95) and it is clear that it does not constitute the community’s economic foundation. Augustine instructs (Praeceptum I, 4) that on entry to the monastery those who had property should donate it so that it becomes the common property of the entire community (Lawless 1987, pp. 80–81). Occasional gifts of clothes or other items from relations (Praeceptum V, 3) also go into a common pool (Lawless 1987, pp. 94–95). The fundamental importance of donated income is reflected in Augustine’s instruction to donors not to boast of their contribution, while at the same time he warns those who had nothing to give not to see the community as a means to acquiring things they had not possessed in the outside world. Citing Acts 4:32—distribution was made to each as any had need—Augustine allowed the superior to give out different food and clothing on grounds of health (Praeceptum I and III): it is noticeable that in general he regards those from a poorer background as stronger (Lawless 1987, pp. 80–83, 84–87). Praeceptum V, 2 identifies the ability of individuals to overcome irritations at perceived unfair treatment in matters of food, clothes and bedding or the ability to work for the common good rather than for their own interests as a measure of their spiritual progress, as caritas increasingly comes to prevail in everything concerning the transitory necessities of life (Lawless 1987, pp. 94–95).

2.3. Jerome of Stridon c. 347–420

Jerome had wide and varied experience of the ascetic life. lnitially, he had attempted to live as a hermit in the Syrian desert; and from the mid 380s until his death in 420, along with his patroness the Roman aristocrat Paula, he headed a double community of monks and nuns in Bethlehem. His Letter 22 addressed to Eustochium, Paula’s daughter, was composed in Rome before he settled in Bethlehem. Trading on his expertise on the east, one section sets out a description of Egyptian monasticism. He claims that three kinds of monks are to be found in Egypt: anchorites; remnuoth, in his opinion not real monks; and cenobites, assumed to be the Tabennisiot Pachomian communities of Upper Egypt. The last group is dealt with in approving detail. Each individual house is organised into groups of ten monks (decuria) under a decanus, in turn grouped under a praepositus or house master, who reports to an oeconomus or steward, responsible to the overall head of the community. Jerome notes that the first principle of the confederation is obedience to superiors. At the same time, he stresses the spiritual teaching and pastoral role of superiors and decani and the importance of mutual support. Individual members encourage each other by pointing to the exemplary behaviour of their fellows; the pater gives a daily exposition of a passage of scripture; while the decani encourage prayer during the night vigils observed in the cells (Fremantle [1893] 1999, pp. 37–38).

He gives a rather different picture of Pachomian organisation in 404, when shortly after Paula’s death, he translated from the Greek a number of texts emanating from a Tabennisiot monastery in Lower Egypt (Veilleux 1981, pp. 7–17, 141–95). Jerome’s preface (Veilleux 1981, pp. 141–44) outlines the existence of a more elaborate system of organisation than the one he described around twenty years earlier. Each monastery has fathers, stewards (dispensatores) weekly servers (hebdomadarii), ministers and a master (praepositus) of each house (the texts themselves also mention the existence of a secundus to the praepositus). He claims that there are thirty or forty houses in one monastery; that three or four houses are federated into a tribe and that they either go to work together or carry out weekly service of food together; and that crafts and trades are organised according to house, with their housemasters rendering a weekly account to the father. To an extent these and other discrepancies may reflect the passage of time and the possible influence of Lower Egyptian communities on the development of Pachomian monasticism. Jerome also exaggerates numbers (Veilleux 1981, pp. 142–43). However, the preface does not emphasise the references to the synaxis or other aspects of worship that we find in the texts themselves, nor does it stress the fundamental nature of the obedience to seniors that is constantly demonstrated; and it does not mention the housemaster’s role in giving spiritual instruction twice a week. Its focus on Pachomian organisation of work rather than spiritual training may have arisen from an alteration in financial circumstances: on Paula’s death Eustochium, who had taken over the headship of the female community, found herself deeply in debt (Whiting 2014). Jerome, who had earlier financed some of the building work at Bethlehem by selling family property was probably receptive to the notion of a monastery supported by the proceeds of its own labours: the preface claims his translation would offer Eustochium and the sisters a guide to conduct, while his own monastery would be able to follow the Egyptian example.

However, if obedience, mutual support and the spiritual goals of Pachomian monasticism are rather under-emphasised in Jerome’s 404 preface, the idea of the religious community as a space for spiritual development makes a strong re-appearance in Letter 125, a letter of advice he wrote in 411/2 to Rusticus, a young aristocrat from southern Gaul. Here, Jerome does not refer to any one community or group. He sets out in general terms the dangers of embarking without training on an eremitic life. In a community, Rusticus will be trained in spiritual values both by his superiors and by his fellow-monks:

… under the control of one father, you will have many companions; and these will teach you, one humility, another patience, a third silence, and the fourth meekness. You will do as others wish; you will eat what you are told to eat; you will wear what clothes are given you; you will perform the task allotted to you; you will obey one whom you do not like; you will come to bed tired out; you will go to sleep on your feet and you will be forced to rise before you have had sufficient rest…

(Fremantle [1893] 1999, p. 249)

2.4. John Cassian (c. 360–c. 435)

Cassian played a major role in shaping western monasticism through two works: the Institutes and the Conferences, dedicated to bishops and founders of monastic communities in south-eastern Gaul. De institutis coenobiorum et de octo principalium vitium remediis (Petschenig 1888; Pichery 1955, 1958, 1959) was possibly completed around 425; and his twenty-four Conlationes (Petschenig 1886; Guy 1965), purportedly verbatim records of spiritual instruction given to him and a companion by prominent ascetics of the Egyptian desert, were delivered in three sets between 425 and 428. Overall, he presents an idealised system, as well as a development of the writings of Evagrius of Pontus, whom he never mentions by name, although Evagrius is considered to be the greatest influence on his work.

Contrary to the assertion that his output is ‘remarkably confused in drift and implication’ (Diem and Rousseau 2020, p. 170), Cassian created a scheme of authentic monastic life as spiritual progression—not necessarily a linear process—with anchoritic life at its apogee. (Driver 2002; Demacopoulos 2007, pp. 107–26). Both Institutes (e.g., 2.9) and Conferences (e.g., Preface) affirm the latter’s superiority, while its use of hermits to teach a potentially communal audience underlines their greater ascetic advancement (Demacopoulos 2007, pp. 121–22). Nevertheless, Conference 18. 5 traces the origins of the cenobites to the apostolic era, while Conference 19. 10–12 deals with the spiritual dangers besetting those who live as solitaries without proper initial training. The Institutes strenuously promote the idea of monastic formation in the cenobium, teaching that Egyptian monks were not permitted to direct their own lives or those of others until they had renounced their possessions, undergone probation, demonstrated obedience, and submitted to the discipline of manual work in order to forget their previous lives and become perfect in the virtue of humility. Book Four, On the training of renunciants (beginners) places monks from the moment of their admission to the cenobium under the authority of a senior (a more spiritually advanced monk) to learn humility and obedience (Institutes 4. 7–8). They are to conceal none of their thoughts from him and will thus be protected from the attacks of demons; they are to be obedient to him in everything, even to the extent of attempting to carry out impossible orders (Institutes 4. 9–10). Cassian’s ideal of communal life depended on the monk’s acquisition of humility and obedience, combining with the practice of disclosure of thoughts to a senior to produce a gradual acquisition of what he terms discretio, a development of Evagrius of Pontus’ diákrisis, or discernment. Cassian follows Evagrius’ identification of eight logismoi, the principal vices or temptations, although slightly altering their relationship. While he does not deny the link between demons and vices, a major component of Evagrian teaching, Cassian trains the focus of discretio on the internal origins of passions and vices. In his ideal cenobium, discernment of a monk’s thoughts by a senior possessed of the insight into spiritual needs and the ability to foster spiritual growth is the key to the gradual acquisition of discretio, then puritatis cordis, purity of heart (Rich 2007, pp. 75–122).

Authority within the community is rooted in this system of spiritual development in which everyone owes obedience to a spiritually advanced senior. Seniores are entrusted with the guest house and novices; a senior is put in charge of ten monks who have completed their years’ probation in order to train them in obedience and control of the passions (Institutes 4. 7–9) At the head of the community is an abba, whose authority derives from his spiritual achievement: there is no rule as such, except the rule of obedience to one’s senior and the traditions of the Fathers (Institutes 2.3). Cassian is critical of those who have set themselves up as superiors without any training in established traditions, instead relying on their own judgment: founders who have not subjected themselves to monastic training to acquire humility and obedience are guilty of the sin of pride, which afflicts the intelligible part of the soul, its highest level (Conference 4. 20.1.) The same vice afflicts those who do not strip themselves of possessions before either entering or founding communities. He explains that money is not accepted from those admitted to the monastery, because donors will be reluctant to consider themselves equal to poor brothers, will be unable to learn humility or submit to discipline and leave the community, even attempting to reclaim their donation (Institutes 4. 3–4).

2.5. Differences—And Similarities

While there are areas of common ground between these authors there are also differences. In the Institutes, Cassian set himself up as a purveyor of authentic Egyptian tradition and of the customs of eastern monasticism in general: he distanced himself from Basil and Jerome by pointing to what he claimed to be his own authentic experience, when, earlier in his life, he had lived among the Desert Fathers (Institutes, Preface 8). His criticism of those who have set themselves up as superiors without training has been interpreted as a critique of contemporary Gallic monasticism, as has his insistence on total disappropriation before entry to the monastery and his stigmatising of the pride of individuals who hoard money to enable them to create their own communities. (Goodrich 2007). However, the idea that monks should support themselves by manual labour may have been a minority one at this stage. While ‘Messalian’ monks—who claimed that the obligation to continuous prayer exempted them from work—were the object of censure (Caner 2002), in Gaul the venerated bishop Martin of Tours seems to have expected the church to provide for monasteries, perhaps through an arrangement similar to Augustine’s (Goodrich 2007, pp. 172–73), while Jerome’s Against Vigilantius (Fremantle [1893] 1999, p. 422) suggests that some groups in the Holy Land benefitted from the offerings of pilgrims. As we have seen, Paula—and to a lesser extent Jerome—initially funded their joint community.

Differences in emphasis also reflect different theological foundations: Cassian, while deploying what is essentially Evagrian teaching, represents the community as an initial training ground, with possible progress to anchoritism. Basil and Pachomius focus on spiritual progress within the community itself. Yet in terms of the internal community dynamics, we can see shared assumptions. All three view the community as a safe locus of the spiritual development and progression of the individual. All stress the mutual support of members of the community. All emphasise the spiritual role of seniors as well as that of community heads. Formal stratification is lacking, except perhaps in Jerome’s preface to his version of the Pachomian texts. However, he may be overemphasizing organisation of work and exaggerating numbers: his letter to Rusticus paints a monk learning from his fellows as well as obeying the head of the community. Augustine’s Praeceptum seems initially to lay less emphasis than the others on spiritual progress, instead reflecting his experience of like-minded individuals coming together in a group as ‘one soul and heart’. However he does add—following Verheijen’s view of the manuscript evidence for the original text (Verheijen 1967, vol. 1)—the phrase in Deum, not just ‘in’ God but ‘tending towards’ or ‘seeking’ God, an expression reflecting Neoplatonist or Plotinian conceptions of the ascent of the soul towards the One. And while there is no particular emphasis on the role of seniors, the Praeceptum does embody the conceptions of mutual support and the nurturing role of the superior that we find in the other writings.

What they also have in common is that they do not write in terms of regula as a monastic rule in its later sense. Rufinus’ own Preface to what we now know as Basilii regula, which is framed as a series of responses to questions, presents it as ‘institutes for monks which he [i.e., Basil] handed down as a kind of sacred case-law to monks who questioned him’ (Silvas 2013, pp. 46–7). Augustine calls his work (Praeceptum, VIII, 2) a libellus, or ‘little book’ (Lawless 1987, pp. 102–3). Cassian’s prefaces to his Conferences refer to his instituta coenobiorum (Conferences 11–16, Preface) or institutions (Conferences 19. 1; 20 1. 1 and 2. 2). Jerome’s preamble to his version of the Pachomian texts does not use the word ‘rule’, while the oldest and most complete manuscript (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm. 28118, ff. 28–36) of his Latin rendering divides the text into four separate headings Praecepta; Praecepta et Instituta; Praecepta atque Iudicia; Praecepta ac Leges. Even these may have been Jerome’s creation: none appear in the surviving sections of the original Coptic text (though we have to acknowledge that he was translating from a later Greek version). All are subsumed are under the page heading of regula by the ninth-century scribe. But in this earlier era regula/rule was still used in a more general sense. In Cassian, it can appear in relation to specifics, for example the liturgical norms of the monasteries of Palestine and Mesopotamia (Institutes 3. 1); or in the wider sense of the traditions of the Egyptian and Palestinian monks (Institutes Preface 8); or the ‘general rule’ of what might be possible in terms of psalm-singing (Institutes 1. 2, 4). In Rufinus’ version of Basil it appears in contexts ranging from dietary norms in Q. 9.3 (Silvas 2013, pp. 98–99) to Scriptural commandments in Q. 1.93 (Silvas 2013, pp. 72–73).

3. Rethinking the ‘Rules of the Fathers’

In the 1980s, Adalbert de Vogüé produced an edition of three monastic rules which he identified as having been composed between 400–10 and 426–8 at the island monastery of Lérins off the south-eastern coast of Gaul (Vogüé 1982, vol. 1). The first, the brief Rule of the Four Fathers takes the form of a synod held by Serapion, Macarius, Paphnutius and ‘another Macarius’, identifying itself as a regula from the outset:

While we were sitting together seeking knowledge from a most beneficial deliberation, we asked our Lord that he bestow on us the Holy Spirit, who might instruct us how we ought to determine the manner and rule of life of the brothers (qui nos instrueret qualiter fratrem conversationem vel regulam vitae ordinare possumus).

(Franklin et al. 1982, pp. 16–17)

According to de Vogüé, the four Egyptian names—all familiar from the pages of Cassian or the Historia Monachorum in Aegypto—mask the identities of the two founders of Lérins, Honoratus (Macarius) and Caprasius (Paphnutius) along with that of Bishop Leontius of Fréjus (Serapion) who had helped to install them on the islands (Vogüé 1982, vol. 1, pp. 91–155). He argued that a second even shorter rule, the Statuta patrum (which he designated the Second Rule of the Fathers) was likely to have been produced after the death of Honoratus in the period 426–8, under the leadership of Maximus (Vogüé 1982, vol. 1, pp. 214–15, 247–72). He associated a third rule, the Regula Macarii, with Porcarius, head of Lérins at the end of the fifth century (Vogüé 1982, vol. 1, pp. 339–47). A Third Rule of the Fathers, heavily dependent on the Regula Macarii, was linked to a church council held at Clermont in the Auvergne in 535; and a fifth related rule, the Regula Orientalis, was represented as a production of the Jura monastery of Condat for Agaune (Vogüé 1982, vol. 2, pp. 499–530, 410–54).

We might reasonably feel uncomfortable with the idea of a monastic rule of life, regula vitae, at this early date. In addition, there have been criticisms of de Vogüé’s arguments. While accepting de Vogüé’s location of the rules at Lérins, Weiss (2009) argued that they must have been introduced later than he had suggested. Jacques Biarne criticised de Vogüé’s attempts to identify the authors of the rules as the heads of Lérins (Biarne 2013); Alain Dubreucq rejected de Vogüé’s identification of the Regula Orientalis (Dubreucq 2009, pp. 199–200). Initially, I followed de Vogüe’s chronology (Dunn 2003), but later re-thought, offering an alternative dating and genesis for the rules (Dunn 2008). Nevertheless, de Vogüé’s conclusions have been accepted by many. They are privileged, in a preface by de Vogüé himself, in the English translation of the Lives of the Jura Fathers (Vivian et al. 1999, pp. 13–15). More cautiously, the Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West (Diem and Rousseau 2020, p. 175) characterises the collective Rules of the Fathers as ‘today tentatively ascribed to Lérins, the first outpost of eastern monasticism in Gaul’. But the translation (DelCogliano 2025b, pp. 230–45) of the Rule of the Four Fathers, the Second Rule of the Fathers and the Rule of Macarius in The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings affirms their Lérinian origins. Agamben (2013, pp. 73–76) follows de Vogüé’s identifications (as he follows his chronology of early monastic rules in general) remarking on the tension between orality and writing to be found in the earliest two and the Third Rule. Peter Brown makes brief reference to the Rule of the Four Fathers’ emphasis on work, while at the same time characterising Lérins as a monastery based on donations and slave labour (Brown 2012, pp. 411–33).

Chapter 10 the Rule of the Four Fathers prescribes work for six hours a day, from the third to the ninth hour, while reading or meditation is restricted to the period between the first and third hours, six days a week (Franklin et al. 1982, pp. 24–25). Chapter 5 of the Second Rule of the Fathers even allows meditation to be omitted if some common task needs to be done (Franklin et al. 1982, pp. 34–35). While Chapter 11 of the Rule of the Four Fathers notes that the superior should take into account the different physical capabilities of the brethren this is not a class-based decision as in Augustine’s Praeceptum and slackers—the ‘weak in spirit’—are given extra tasks (Franklin et al. 1982, pp. 26–27). Monastic income may be supplemented by donations from richer recruits. Chapter 7 (Franklin et al. 1982, pp. 20–21) notes that a wealthier man should sell all and give to the poor before entry, though he may donate some of the proceeds to the monastery: but there is no getting away from the centrality of work in these rules.

This does not match with what we know of Lérins, a centre of Chritistian otium, learning and contemplation (Egetenmeyr 2023). In his Formulae, Eucherius, one of Lérins’ early residents and author of De contemptu mundi and De laude eremi, depicts labor in the sense of spiritual rather than physical effort. The Epistula ad monachos traditionally ascribed to Valerian of Cimiez (the dedicatee of De contemptu mundi) interprets the Pauline statement that those who do not work should not eat (2 Thess 3: 10) in a purely spiritual sense (Dulaey 2009, pp. 63–82; Weiss 2009, pp. 130–31). It is possible that manual work played some part in the ascetic training of the monks of Lérins: sermon 38 in the ‘Eusebius Gallicanus’ collection taught monks that the sole use of physical labour was to produce spiritual fruits (Bailey 2010, p. 120)—but we are not sure whether it was addressed specifically to the monks of Lérins (Bailey 2010, p. 106). We have no evidence of the slaves alleged by Brown. The Lives of fifth-century community heads Honoratus (DelCogliano 2025a) and Hilary (Jacob 1995) present a model in which the monastery is essentially supported by donations.

It is hard to understand why there would be any need for Lérins to produce pseudonymous texts; it is difficult to imagine its first leader, Honoratus, the future bishop of Arles, hiding behind an assumed name. Its spiritual guide was Cassian, who dedicated the second set of Conferences to Honoratus and Eucherius. Even if Lérins had been established on different economic principles from those Cassian advocated after its foundation, it came to exemplify his teachings on spiritual growth and community. Archaeological evidence indicates the initial existence of both community and separate ‘hermit’ dwellings, though the latter fell into disuse in the late fifth century (Codou 2018, p. 111). Several homilies in the ‘Eusebius Gallicanus’ sermon collection are ascribed to Faustus, the community’s head from 432 to the mid 450s (Bailey 2010, pp. 124–26). In them, we see Cassian’s spiritual guidance in practice. The ‘desert’ (eremum, here the island monastery) is no safe haven but the centre of a battle against sin and the devil; monks must struggle to achieve purity of heart, without which fasts and vigils are of no value; community is clearly the best place for the monk to train: virtues can be learned by example (Glorie 1970, pp. 469, 525, 529, 487, 499). Harmony and consensus and a programme of support were fundamental to community cohesion (Bailey 2010, p. 125). There is no good reason for associating the ‘Rules of the Fathers’ with Lérins and an alternative context for their emergence is explored below.

In subsequent years, de Vogüé continued to uphold his thesis, claiming that the Monita attributed to Porcarius, abbot of Lérins in the late fifth century, which advocate constant prayer (and so by implication minimise or eliminate work) could not have been addressed to his own monastic community (Vogüé 2003, pp. 395–36). He also attempted to point to the use of regula as monastic rule in the fifth century as an anticipation of the Regula magistri and Regula Benedicti (Vogüé 2003, pp. 432–36). But there is no clear indication that regula had taken on the firm meaning of monastic rule at this stage. The way of life of the monasteries described in the Lives of the Fathers of Jura, composed early in the sixth century, appears to have depended on Cassian (Dubreucq 2009, pp. 200–2) rather than the lost rule hypothesised by Martine (1968). Reliance on Cassian and Basil and other early monastic writers continued into the sixth century and beyond, spreading westwards to Ireland with the introduction of Christianity. Amra Choluimb Chille, the elegy for the Irish monastic leader Columba of Iona (d. 597), refers to his knowledge of the ‘judgments of Basil’ and the ‘books that Cassian loved’ (Clancy and Márkus 1995, pp. 96–115).

4. The Rules of Cæsarius of Arles (d. 542) and Aurelian of Arles (d. 551)

In the sixth century we see texts beginning identify themselves as rules and also transforming the idea of the community as locus of the spiritual perfection of its members. The earliest example of this trend is the Rule for Virgins composed by Bishop Cæsarius between 508 and 534 for his female monastic foundation, St John in the city of Arles (Vogüé and Courreau 1988). The nunnery was Cæsarius’ personal project, combining female monasticism with intercessory prayer: according to the authors of the Life of Cæsarius, he was divinely inspired to protect the church of Arles ‘not only with countless troops of clergy but with choirs of virgins’ (Klingshirn 1994, p. 22). The rule’s ad hoc appearance is the result of having been composed in successive sections as Cæsarius reacted to problems and endeavoured to better shape and ensure the survival of his grand design. Although Chapter 2 contains the term regulariter vivant, ‘that they may live according to rule’, it is possible that Cæsarius did not even think in terms of a regula at the outset, writing in his prologue that he aimed to set down spiritual and holy directives secundum statuta antiquorum patrum (following what the venerable fathers have decided). But regula as rule appears frequently in the rule’s later sections. The head of community, designated throughout by a variety of terms—mater, abbatissa and (once) prior—is represented in Chapter 27 as a person with multiple responsibilities: not just for the health of souls but also for the resources of the monastery and has the duty of offering friendship to those who call on her and answering letters from the faithful. As head of a community that would come to house around two hundred nuns, she is assisted not only by a praeposita (second-in-command, prioress), but also a primiceria and a formaria, whose respective functions seem to be pastoral and educational (another nun may be in charge of books); a regestoria, who controls access to the boxes or chests where clothing may be stored; a lanipendia in charge of the wool which the nuns make into cloth; a cellararia, responsible for food stores and a canavaria, mistress of the wine-cellar. There are also two posticiariae, portresses or doorkeepers, essential to the strict enclosure prescribed by Cæsarius. The stratification and formalization of community organization is underlined by the way in which the sisters in charge of the cellar, wine-cellar, clothing, books, the door to the nunnery and the wool-store are to accept their keys on the Gospel (Chapter 32).

Cæsarius’ allusions to older monastic writings in the first part of the rule are ’light and sporadic’ (Vogüé and Courreau 1988, p. 47), but he goes on to echo parts of Augustine’s Praeceptum. Its injunction to be of one heart and soul seeking God (assuming this is what Augustine wrote in the first place) is replaced in Chapter 20 by the more formulaic ‘one heart and soul in the Lord’. Although it has been suggested that the rule reflects Cæsarius’ concern to promote Augustinian teaching on grace as he did when he convened the Council of Orange in 529 (Diem 2021, pp. 278–97), his selections from the Praeceptum do not include its reference to grace (Praeceptum VIII, 1). What does survive are its practical prescriptions—for example, on disposal of property, the timetabling of reading, singing of psalms, behaviour in the presence of men (now re-framed in the context of enclosure) and on quarrelling and bad behaviour. Cæsarius preserves its instructions on wearing unobtrusive clothing while extending its exemptions from fasting. He goes over his earlier prescriptions in Chapters 48–65: Chapters 55 and 56 suggest that there had been a persistent disregard for rules about clothing and headdresses, signalling a degree of socially generated friction on a different level from anything envisaged by Augustine (see also Chapter 35). The rule’s announcement that once a nun has entered the monastery she will only be released by death (Chapter 2), combines with a subsequent imposition of enclosure (Chapter 59) to suggest a less committed or controllable intake than that of the earlier communities created by female ascetics such as Paula: Chapter 26 deplores insults, theft and physical violence. The evolution of some female communities since their time may be glimpsed in things the nuns are not allowed to do: accept girls as pupils (Chapter 7); prepare banquets (Chapter 53); take in laundry or sewing (Chapter 60); act as godmothers (Chapter 11). On one hand, Cæsarius sought to avoid social entanglements: but the instruction (Chapter 38) that the abbess is not to go to the salutatorium or parlour, the interface between convent and outer world, without an escort of two or three nuns as befitting her dignity (Chapter 38), is both symbolic of her position in the community and also of Cæsarius’ desire to suggest her community’s importance in the city of Arles. There is no indication of the mutual support and spiritual development indicated in Cassian or the Lérins sermons: by chapters 36–47, the nuns are referred to as ‘holy souls’, the rule is the ‘holy rule’ and the community the ‘holy congregation’. Chapter 58 modifies the conditions for admission, removing earlier mention of tests and the process of being entrusted to the supervision of a senior for up to a year, depending on the superior’s judgment of progress (Chapter 4): admission now depends on willingness to observe the rule, which is read to the postulant several times in the salutatorium.

Cæsarius’ desire to create his intercessory community reflects the many difficulties which he and his diocese faced. During his long episcopate (pp. 502–42), Arles was initially controlled by the Homoian Visigoths; passed into Ostrogothic control after a Franco-Burgundian siege (in which the first nunnery buildings were destroyed) in 508; and in 536 it was ceded to the Franks. Cæsarius himself was accused three times of treason; tried; exiled; and defended himself against politically motivated accusations of unacceptable teachings on grace (Klingshirn 1994; Mathisen 2014). A former monk of Lérins, he appears to have deliberately moved away from its practice of monastic life, just as he abandoned the episcopal style of an earlier generation of Lérins-trained bishops (Bailey 2010, pp. 122–26). His preface to the Regula ad virgines indicates an eschatological frame of reference as he asks for the prayers of the nuns for his soul. In a sermon to the monks of Lérins, while apologising for his own less than satisfactory performance there (Klingshirn 1994, p. 12; Bailey 2010, p. 124) he went so far as to suggest that the community’s perfection meant that it had a duty of intercession for others:

… strive through your holy prayers to bring it about that when glory is given to you before the eternal judge because of your merits, at least the pardon of our sins may be granted to us… it is necessary that you repay the honour and love which you receive from everyone by your continuous prayers and spotless life …

(Mueller 1973, p. 210)

This bold statement suggests a personal break with the view of the monastery simply as a place for the spiritual perfection of community members.

Cæsarius is also credited with a more skeletal Rule for Monks, aimed at male monasteries already established in his diocese (Vogüé and Courreau 1994). These houses could have followed the traditions of Cassian and Lérins, to which he nods briefly in Chapter 19, in a fleeting reminiscence of one Faustus of Riez’s sermons to monks (Glorie 1970, p. 528). However, this is reinterpreted in the very different context of Cæsarius’ view of ascetic life as a battle and also in the general framework derived from his rule for nuns: entry is for life; everything is to be held in common; no personal possessions are permitted; bad behaviour is condemned and punished. Strict enclosure is not prescribed, but the rule notes that women are excluded from the monastery. That Cæsarius was not just legislating against lapses from acceptable standards but moving in a new direction is indicated by the application of the adjective ‘holy’ to the designation abbas. He ends the rule with a lengthy quotation from his letter Vereor, originally addressed to nuns, reminding them that they have achieved chastity and rejected gluttony and avarice and exhorting persistence in good life and works, another sign of a different view of the function of the monastic community. Like his Regula ad virgines, this rule deals with behaviour rather than thoughts.

Cæsarius’ work paved the way for a successor bishop, Aurelian (d. 551), to establish two communities in Arles. An aristocrat and not a monk, Aurelian took advantage of less turbulent political circumstances to create an association between the male house and the Frankish rulers Childebert and Ultragotha: a surviving diptych indicates that the monks prayed for Aurelian himself; for the rulers; and for deceased members of the community. (Bernard 2003). Aurelian compiled his own rules for monks and nuns, drawing heavily on both Cæsarius’ rules and departing conspicuously from earlier monastic models. (Migne 1866, cols. 385–406; Diem 2014, 2025). Abbot, abbess and their communities are all described as ‘holy’; monks as well as nuns are enclosed for life. Admission does not involve any period of probation, now depending simply on acceptance of all the provisions of the rule, along with disposal of property and in the case of male laymen, the symbolic depositing of their shorn hair in the monastery’s basilica.

5. The Rules of Ferreol and Tarn

Two rules thought to originate from south-eastern Francia stand on the same side of the sixth century watershed as those of Cæsarius and Aurelian and are designed for individual houses. The Regula Ferrioli/Regula Ferriolacensis attributed to Bishop Ferreol of Uzès (fl. 552–73) is thought to have been written for a monastic house associated with a shrine (Desprez 1982; Diem 2025; Holzherr 1961). Its contents indicate a community of upper class monks: it forbids the wearing of linen tunics (Chapter 31) or perfumed vestments (Chapter 32); it prohibits hunting (Chapter 34); and the abbot is forbidden to manumit the slaves who are the common property of the community (Chapter 36). Monks seemingly excused themselves from agricultural work, for which reading, copying manuscripts, looking after the fishponds, weaving nets or shoemaking could substitute (Chapter 28). It opens by stressing obedience, but does not reproduce Cassian’s teachings, instead placing envy, invidia, above vainglory and pride as the principal vice (Chapters 8 and 9) and it includes a high proportion of Biblical citations of which the majority are taken from a florilegium attributed to Augustine (Diem 2025, pp. 227–28). While stating that no monk should be ignorant of letters and that they should read every day until the third hour (Chapters 19 and 26), the rule shows little or no trace of earlier monastic writings on spiritual progress. Rather than spiritual development, it concentrates on behaviour: the problems of wandering or absconding monks (Chapter 20); and in general, physical violence grabbing food at table; drunkenness and excess; discord; and theft (Chapter 29).

The Regula Tarnatensis (Villegas 1974; Diem 2025) is putatively from the same area of south-eastern Francia. It was evidently composed for a rural community: its admission procedure includes both an element of probation and reading of the rule and moves on to disposal of property in the shape of flocks. Those admitted to the monastery are allowed to bring slaves, servants and relations with them (Chapter 1, 14) and one of the rule’s most prominent features is its attempt to resolve questions of status and obedience by former slaves who had entered the community with their masters and are now to be treated as brothers. How far this went is questionable as they had to undergo a year’s probation (Chapter 1, 21) and Chapter 9 reveals that some monks carried out a large amount of agricultural work, while others only worked in the garden. Questions of background and status are addressed again in the rule’s second part which consists almost entirely of Augustine’s Praeceptum. It attempts to finesse Augustine’s treatment of social differences by assigning the status of ‘slaves of God’ (famuli Dei) to all (Chapter 16) while emphasising that they are ‘no longer slaves under the law, but a people living in freedom under grace’ (Chapter 23, 16). At the same time, it makes a considerable shift in Augustine’s characterisation of the basis of community life: ‘You should have one soul and one heart, being watchful in the fear of the Lord.’ (Chapter 14, 1–2).

The Gallic/Frankish rules—Cæsareus, Aurelian, Ferreol and Tarn—all suggest a break with earlier programmatic writings’ vision of the monastic community as a place for the spiritual development of its members. In Cæsarius’ Regula ad virgines and Aurelian we see a gradual reduction in earlier standards of admission and probation coupled with the establishment of a clear relationship between community and society in the form of intercession. The composition of the Rule of Ferreol and the Rule of Tarn reflects more limited but equally pressing social considerations, as both wrestled in their different ways with the problems created by the social origins of community members.

6. The Regula Benedicti and the ‘Abbatial Turn’

Probably composed in the second half of the sixth century in Italy, the Regula Benedicti (Vogüé and Neufville 1971–1972; Hanslik 1975; Fry 1980) represents a major landmark in the history of monastic authority, community and rule. While the conclusion to its prologue famously addresses a monastic audience announcing its intention to establish a ‘school of the service of the Lord’, setting down ‘nothing harsh or burdensome’, the rule may have been produced in response to a crisis or crises possibly in more than one monastery (see Chapters 55 and 73). Its opening chapter suggests some previous transgression or problem, affirming that ‘the labour of obedience’ will ‘bring you back to him from whom you had drifted through the sloth of disobedience’, and that God will permit sinners to repent and amend their misdeeds. At many points, it displays familiarity with earlier monastic authorities: its opening words Ausculta fili praecepta magistri et inclina aurem cordis tui, echo the opening of Jerome’s Letter 22 to Eustochium, Audi filia, et vide, et inclina aurem tuam. It goes on to deploy and reframe many older words and ideas in the course of constructing a new pattern of monastic authority and community and creating an ‘abbatial turn’ in monastic life.

The Rule of Benedict is distinguished by the top-down, vertically structured nature of its organisation and by the abbot’s degree of control. He is assisted by a cellarer (Chapter 31) and a porter or doorkeeper (Chapter 66). Should the community become numerous, the abbot’s control is extended downwards through the appointment of decani or deans, each in charge of ten monks (Chapter 21). Seniores in charge of ten new monks are mentioned by Cassian (Institutes 4. 7; 4. 10) and Jerome’s Letter 22 also features decani: but in both cases their primary concern is the spiritual welfare of their charges. Here, decani manage their group according to the commandments of God and the orders of the abbot. They are represented as agents of abbatial control, ‘the kind of men with whom the abbot can confidently share the burdens of his office’; and if they become puffed up with pride and refuse to amend after warnings, they should be removed.

The change in the role of the decani is an indicator of the way in which the Regula Benedicti radically re-casts the idea of intra-monastic spiritual development. Individual effort in a community under an abbot now takes the place of the more personal support of decani and seniores and Chapters 4 to 7 of the rule teach the practice and achievement of obedience, silence and humility. Chapter 4, ‘The instruments of good works’ (instrumenta bonorum operum), instructs monks how to toil at their individual spiritual improvement, describing the enclosure of the monastery and stability of the community as the workshop (officina) where they labour in order to achieve their reward at Judgment Day. Chapter 7 is particularly revealing: while inspired by Cassian’s Institutes 4.39, it expands his ten steps of humility into twelve. Opening with a discussion of pride, the fifth step involves confession, not to seniores, but to the abbot himself. Chapters 71 and 72, possibly additions to the original text (Penco 1954), once more underline obedience: to the abbot, to praepositi (used here in the general sense of seniors)—and to each other. Obedience is represented as salvific: ‘… it is by this way of obedience that we go to God’. The abbot also has control of the disciplinary procedures set out in chapters 23 to 27: it is he who determines the gravity of faults and therefore the appropriate punishment for serious faults as laid down by the rule. We seem to catch a glimpse of a more nurturing approach in the reminder to the abbot, in Chapter 27, that he should take particular care of erring brothers and behave like a wise doctor, sending senpectae, senior and wise brothers, to support them. But this only applies to those who are wavering in their commitment; the senpectae are sent in secret; and it is the abbot himself who has to initiate the process.

The Rule of Benedict concentrates not only spiritual but also practical authority in the hands of the abbot. His powers are extensive: while he may consult the entire community on major questions he is not obliged to take its advice and in the case of less important matters, he need only confer with senior brothers (Chapter 3). The rule also seeks to mitigate any potential threats to his authority from a prior (praepositus). It is only with reluctance and towards the end of the rule (Chapter 65) that the appointment of a praepositus is conceded; too often in the past, it maintains, priors have thought of themselves as ‘second abbots’ and ideally the abbot should manage the community through the decani.

Another important aspect of the rule’s ‘abbatial turn’ lies in the way in which the abbot’s role is spelled out at length. Chapter 2 explains what the abbot should be: he holds the place of Christ in the monastery; he should not deviate from the Lord’s instructions; he is shepherd of his flock; he should lead by example, not just by words; he should avoid favouritism and employ different approaches to different characters. He must always remember that more will be expected of one to whom more is entrusted; and on the Day of Judgment, he will have to give an account to God for all the souls in his care. Such ideas derive from earlier monastic writings, including those of Basil, Augustine and Cassian. But the fact that a lengthy chapter of the rule has to be devoted to an explanation of the role and behaviour of the abbot implies a new need to define his qualities and duties.

The rule also re-defines the role of the community. Chapter 73 of the Rule of Benedict locates older programmes of spiritual development beyond the remit of the everyday community existence it outlines: Basil and Cassian (together with the Lives of the Fathers) are specifically characterised as describing a higher level of perfection. It emphasises that the Rule has been set out as a beginning (inchoatio): if observed, it will establish a degree of integrity of character and behaviour and the beginnings of monastic life (initium conversationis). This represents the first explicit expression of a radical break with older traditions of communal life.

7. Columbanus: The Continuation of Older Traditions of Community and Authority

Although the sixth century marks a watershed in continental monasticism, Francia and Italy also saw a late re-invigoration of the more traditional monastic style with the arrival in Francia in the 590s of Irish monk Columbanus. He founded the triple community of Annegray, Luxeuil and Fontaine and subsequently the monastery of Bobbio in Italy, where he died in 615. Columbanus’ Irish training familiarised him with the writings of Cassian and Basil; he himself describes having encountered the works of Faustus of Riez as a young monk, presumably in Ulster. The hymn Precamur patrem attributed to Columbanus shows knowledge of Cassian’s Institutes and of Jerome: even if not his work, it demonstrates the knowledge of and use of these authors in Ireland in the sixth and seventh centuries (Woolf 2018). We now read an edition of Columbanian Regula monachorum—monks’ rule—and Regula cenobialis or communal rule (Walker 1957), but both cases the term ‘rule’ is unlikely to be original. The latter is a monastic penitential, compiled at least in part after Columbanus’ death (Charles-Edwards 2018). The former may be associated with his enforced departure from Luxeuil, when he fell out with members of the Merovingian ruling dynasty: it reads as an attempt to produce a digest of his principles and practice for the benefit of his monastic congregation. The letter addressed to his monks after his departure (Walker 1957, pp. 26–37) uses the term regula twice, but in both cases it could have a more general meaning. It seems unlikely that any set of instructions written specifically for the triple community existed before he left Luxeuil, given both his knowledge of earlier monastic writings and the charismatic nature of his authority. In the 640s, Jonas of Bobbio (Krusch 1902, p. 125; O’Hara and Wood 2017, p. 196) would refer to a ‘rule of Columbanus and Eustasius’, his successor at Luxeuil.

That Columbanus was steeped in the traditions of Cassian, Basil and Jerome is evident throughout the text of the so-called Regula monachorum (Walker 1957, pp. 122–43). It is prefaced by the Gospel injunction privileged by Basil ‘to love God with the whole heart and the whole mind and all our strength’. It then proceeds to the qualities which the monks should possess: obedience; silence; moderation in food; poverty; overcoming vanity; and chastity. Columbanus presents all these attributes in the context of spiritual progress and mutual support in community: the ‘first perfection’ of monks is ‘nakedness and disdain of riches’; the disobedient monk, by setting a bad example to others, is a ‘destroyer of many’. Chapter 9, ‘Of mortification’, reveals the basis of his approach: ‘do nothing without counsel’—the monk is to submit to the advice and judgment of seniors, something which may seem harsh at first, but which will eventually be found pleasant and safe. The relationship between monks, their seniors and their ‘father’ is central to Columbanian monasticism: the rule does not indicate a hierarchy of named officials to support the superior and there is no discussion of the qualities of a superior. Chapter 1, 1–2 is based on the Regula Basilii’s Q. 70 which constructs obedience to the command of senior as obedience to God himself: ‘whoever listens to you listens to me and whoever rejects you rejects me’ (Luke 10:16). (The suggestion that one of the sources of Columbanus’ doctrine of obedience could have been either the Regula Benedicti or the Regula magistri (Stancliffe 2013, pp. 23–26) not only underestimates the dependence of the Regula monachorum’s Chapter 1, 1–2 on Basil Q. 70, but also does not take into account the conceptual gulf between Columbanus and these two texts.) Some manuscripts of the Regula monachorum contain a tenth chapter consisting of an almost verbatim copy of part of Jerome’s Letter 125 to Rusticus headed De perfectione monachi—Of the monk’s perfection—enumerating the advantages of community life in which the monk learns different virtues from different seniors through total submission of the will. While this has been characterised as a later addition, it is completely in tune with the Columbanian conception of monastic life.

It is worth noting that the short anonymous text known as the Regula cuiusdam patris ad monachos (Villegas 1973; Diem 2018), recently associated with the attack on Eustasius of Luxeuil by a renegade monk, Agrestius, has much in common with Columbanus’ views on community, authority and rule. Although its approach to penance is different, it nevertheless reflects a similar immersion in the teachings of Basil and Cassian, headlining love of God and neighbour and following a traditional model of spiritual guidance and support by seniors. It does not indicate developed structures of authority, naming only abbas, equonomus or steward (not, as recently translated, prior), seniors and monks; and its designation as regula does not appear to be original (Diem 2018, p. 261).

8. Rethinking the Regula Magistri

The Regula magistri (Vogüé et al. 1964–1965; Eberle 1977)—a text several times the length of the Regula Benedicti—has been viewed since the 1930s its precursor and source. Having first challenged this view in the 1990s (Dunn 1990, 1992; Vogüé 1992) I later argued that it was produced after the revolt of the monks of Bobbio against Columbanus’ designated successor Attala in the 620s, in an attempt to support his authority (Dunn 2008). (This revolt is erroneously re-located to Luxeuil in a recent translation of the Life of Columbanus (O’Hara and Wood 2017, p. 29)). A privilege for Bobbio issued by Pope Theodore in 643, genuine in basis, though later interpolated, refers to the use of the rules of Benedict and Columbanus at the monastery (Cipolla 1918, pp. 104–12). This plausibly refers to the Regula magistri, which contains a number of important Columbanian signifiers in parts of its liturgical instructions; in its Trinitarian teaching; in its rituals for blessing food; and in elements of vocabulary drawn from the administrative terminology of the seventh century Longobard kingdom of Italy (Dunn 1990, 1992, 1999, 2008).

The Rule of the Master elaborates on Benedict’s ‘abbatial turn’. While repeating many of Regula Benedicti’s prescriptions and extending its views on the monastery as workshop of the spiritual craft and on obedience, silence and humility (Chapters 6–9), it concentrates even more power in the hands of the abbot. He is not obliged to consult the senior monks on minor matters; and where the monastery’s temporal possessions are concerned, he may (ostensibly for the technical reason that monastery’s property is held in common) assemble the whole community. The decision to do this is his alone; and he is not compelled to take any advice offered (Chapter 2). The creation of the potentially threatening position of praepositus or prior is not even contemplated; and the abbot should not designate a successor—secundarius, a term indicative of Irish influence—until he is on his deathbed (Chapter 92). The rule modifies Benedict’s instruction that the abbot show equal love to everyone and apply the same discipline to all according to their merits: it removes ‘according to their merits’ (Chapter 2. 22) and Chapter 92 advocates manipulation of the monks’ status as a means of control. As in the Regula Benedicti, if the community becomes numerous, the monks are divided into groups of ten; they are watched over not by one but by two officials, equivalents of the decani, now designated as praepositi (Chapter 11). Their role, discussed at length, is even more overtly supervisory and disciplinary than those of Benedict’s decani. They receive rods symbolic of their office. Their role is to keep the brethren from sins of word and deed and to reprimand their various vices and faults. They do less manual work than others, so as not to neglect their work of surveillance. They are compared to secular and ecclesiastical officials; in the same way as abbots, they are superiors who must be listened to and respected as representatives of God; and they help ease the burden of the abbot’s accountability at Judgment. They report persistent offenders to the abbot (Chapter 13): the ‘lesser brethren’ are supposed to confess any sinful thoughts to the praepositi who report in turn to the abbot. After community prayer for the erring brother, it is the abbot—and only the abbot—who is to administer ‘medicinal’ treatment in the form of selected readings, possibly followed by imposition of fasts (Chapter 15). There is no question, as in the Rule of Benedict of sending in experienced monks—even in secret—to help effect a ‘cure’. The authority of the abbot is all-pervasive and unchallenged. To underline this, the rule also seeks to elevate its own authority: most chapters are introduced as questions, with the answers prefaced by the response, ‘God replied through the Master’.

9. The ‘Abbatial Turn’ in Female Houses of the Columbanian Congregation

In addition to reinforcing the powers of abbot and rule in the Regula magistri, the Rule of Benedict was used elsewhere in the Columbanian congregation. Although we cannot tell precisely when and how it was used at Luxeuil itself, we can see its ‘abbatial turn’ supporting the heads of female houses created in the early seventh century by an emergent Frankish aristocracy. Its focus on the abbot would be moulded, in different ways, into a focus on the abbess in both the Regula Donati (McNamara 1993; Zimmerl-Panagl 2015) and the Regula cuiusdam ad virgines (McNamara 1993; Diem 2012; Diem 2021). The first, based on Caesarius, Benedict and the Columbanian Regula cenobialis, was composed by Bishop Donatus of Besançon, formerly a monk at Luxeuil, for the nunnery headed by his mother; while the anonymous Regula cuiusdam ad virgines, formerly attributed to Waldebert, abbot of Luxeuil—has been identified in a recent edition, translation and commentary as the work of Jonas of Bobbio for Faremoutiers or another female Columbanian community (Diem 2021). Both follow the Regula Benedicti in the powers they give to the head of the community. Donatus’ abbess does not need to take her community’s advice and her will is paramount (Chapter 2). Her position is then further underpinned by elements modelled on the Columbanian Regula cenobialis: daily confession by nuns along with penances and physical punishments Chapters (23–32) Cuiusdam ad virgines combines an initial allusion to the abbess’s nobility of birth (she ought not so much to be noble by birth as noble by wisdom and holiness) with a version of Benedict’s reminder of the powers and responsibilities of the abbot, stressing the need to teach not just by word but also by example. Assisted by a praeposita, doorkeepers and a cellaria (as well as by cooks and servants, cocis et ministris), she herself takes charge of the keys of the monastery and cellar at night (Chapter 3) and maintains strict control of (frequent) confession and the administration of penance (Chapters 6–7, 18–20). Diem underlines not only Regula cuiusdam’s reliance on the wording of Regula Benedicti at several points, but also its conceptual closeness to the Regula magistri on these and other issues (see his index p. 681, ‘Regula cuiusdam, proximity to the Regula magistri’). At the same time, he continues to think in terms of a reopening of the debate on the priority of RB and RM.

10. A Rule for Monastic Dependencies: The ‘Regula Eugippii’

The traditional chronology of rules and the assumptions underlying it also obscures the emergence of another type of rule—the rule created for monastic cells or dependencies.

The revolt of the monks of Bobbio not only generated the Rule of the Master: it brought about the composition of rules for sub-monasteries or dependencies, monastic outposts of a type known in Ireland and Scotland in the sixth and seventh centuries. (Dunn 2003, pp. 249–50) In their original setting, combining agricultural production with community engagement, they had helped to bring their neighbouring populations into contact with Christianity. Cells had the potential to play a similar role in Lombard-controlled northern Italy in the early seventh century. Lombard kings only officially embraced Nicene Christianity in the 650s: many Lombard dukes were pagan or practised syncretistic versions of Christianity, while paganising practices possibly survived among the indigenous population. (Dunn 2008; 2021, pp. 103–9; O’Hara and Wood 2017, pp. 235–36). Jonas of Bobbio’s Life of Columbanus tells us that in the course of the revolt, persistent rebels left the monastery: some went to the shores or bays of the sea, while others ‘made for a desert place, in order to have liberty’ (alii eorum marinis sunt sinibus recepti, alii locum heremi ob libertatem habendam petiere) (Krusch 1902, p. 114). This secession from the monastery was seen by the historian of Bobbio, Michele Tosi, as the first step towards the creation of cells or dependencies of Bobbio. While Tosi was certain that Liguria was at the heart of the earliest appearance of the cells of Bobbio, he did not think that these products of rebellion had any links to the central monastery, unlike a ‘second wave’, definitely under Bobbio’s control (Tosi 1992). But while the Life relates the dreadful ends of some of the ringleaders it also notes the reconciliation of those who returned to the fold (O’Hara and Wood 2017, pp. 180–181). Could one, or some, of the rebel houses have survived, to be put under new management in a rule firmly establishing their subordination to Bobbio? Chapter 57 of the Regula magistri mentions the monastery’s cells. There is a very strong case for re-thinking several texts currently classified as rules for cenobitic houses as rules for cells, first of all the ‘Regula Eugippii’ (Villegas and Vogüé 1976).

This is an anonymous compilation edited by Villegas and de Vogüé, who assigned it the title by which it is currently known, dated it to the sixth century and attributed it to Eugippius of Lucullanum, founder of a monastery near Naples and author of the Life of Severinus of Noricum. Their case rests on three circumstances: (1) the rule is made up of excerpts and contains a work by Augustine; (2) Eugippius was responsible for a collection of Augustinian excerpts; and (3) Isidore of Seville credited Eugippius with composing a monastic rule. These are hardly decisive arguments in themselves; and they ultimately depend on de Vogüé’s thesis that the Regula magistri was a source for the Regula Benedicti and on his disagreements with other scholars over related questions (Vogüé 1984).

The ‘Regula Eugippii’ is remarkable in several ways. In the first place, its unique copy is contained in a single manuscript, ff. 9v.–77v. of the seventh century Ms. Paris. BN Lat. 12634, part of a codex of Italian origin transferred before 700 to Corbie and likely to have come from Bobbio. It opens with the brief text—379 words—usually known as the Ordo monasterii; followed by the Augustinian Praeceptum; then excerpts from the Rule of the Four Fathers and the Regula magistri; one passage from Jerome’s version of the Pachomian rule; a sermon ‘On humility, obedience and the trampling down of pride’; sections of Rufinus’ Regula Basilii; extracts from Cassian’s Conferences and Institutes; and a section of Jerome’s letter 125 to Rusticus.

It is also remarkable as it contains the earliest appearance of the so-called Ordo monasterii. (Lawless 1987, pp. 74–79). (Fragments are thought to appear earlier in association with the Praceptum in both Cæsarius of Arles’ Regula ad virgines Chapters 17–20 (Vogüé and Courreau 1988, p. 192) and in the Regula Tarnatensis Chapter 14, 20–21 (Villegas 1974, p. 35); however, the similar (not identical) phrases in the former could be monastic commonplaces, while the dating of the latter is uncertain.) The text has no title: Ordo monasterii was first applied to it in the ninth century (Lawless 1987, p. 167). It is followed without a break by the Praeceptum, which terminates with ‘Explicit regula Sancti Augustini episcopi’. There is no incipit either at the outset of the two rules or at the beginning of the Praceptum. So this earliest appearance of the Ordo leaves it unclear as to whether it is being presented as the work of Augustine of Hippo. Despite a mistaken assertion that it is the ‘core document’ of Augustine’s monasticism (Diem and Rousseau 2020, p. 170), in reality, modern scholarship has been divided on the question of its origins and authenticity. Lawless states firmly that ‘… the author of the Regulations for a Monastery remains anonymous and its place of origin is by no means established with certainty’ (Lawless 1987, p. 171).

The work’s contents themselves suggest neither Augustinian authorship nor applicability to a cenobium. It opens with the Gospel injunction privileged by Basil and Columbanus, to love God and then one’s neighbour. This is followed by prescriptions for the daily liturgical round. Only the instructions for Matins specify which psalms are to be said: sixty-six, five and eighty-nine. Cassian (Institutes 3.6) described the Bethlehem Matins as consisting of psalms fifty, sixty-two and eighty-nine and scholars have attempted to claim that the two are really the same: Verheijen argued that Augustine’s associate Alypius brought back this custom from a visit to Bethlehem (Verheijen 1967, vol. 2, p. 136). Such arguments have been given short shrift (Lawless 1987, pp. 170–71). The instructions for the night office suggest that we should look northwards for the origins of the Ordo monasterii’s liturgy, which outlines a striking seasonal variation: twelve antiphons, six psalms and three readings from November to February; ten antiphons, five psalms and three readings in March, April, September and October; and from May to August eight antiphons, four psalms and two readings. A graduated system was applied by Columbanus to the ‘holy nights’ of Saturday and Sunday (with a simpler seasonal modification for other nights) (Walker 1957, pp. 129–33); the Regula magistri’s night office (Chapter 33) also incorporates a system of seasonal variation. We can presume that all three originated in the need to take into account the progressive and substantial lengthening of winter nights in more northerly areas of Europe, illustrated in Bishop Gregory of Tours’ astronomical work De cursu stellarum ratio (McCluskey 1998, pp. 99–110).

The Ordo’s general allocation of time, with its six offices plus ‘customary psalms’, indicates a desire to balance liturgical obligations with work and study. Community members work in silence after the morning office until the third hour; after this office they return to their tasks until the sixth hour. Between the offices of the sixth and ninth hours they read, before returning their books (codices). After the ninth hour, they take their single meal of the day: they can then work in the garden or wherever necessary. In the evening there are readings and the ‘customary psalms’ before sleep. Community members are never referred to as monachi but, in the Ordo’s opening words, as brothers. However, they may be sent out for the needs of the monasterium or to sell the monastery’s products. There is no discussion of disposal of property or rules for admission to the community, suggesting that such issues were dealt with elsewhere. These features combine to suggest instructions for a cell attached to a monasterium rather than regulations for a cenobium. So does the instruction that all are to honour their father (pater) after God and defer to their praepositus ‘as becomes saints’. The extract from Jerome’s rendering of the Pachomian texts in Chapter 26 of the ‘Regula Eugippii’ signals that the praepositus is the equivalent of the Pachomian housemaster in terms of responsibilities and can thus be understood as head of a cell; while the pater can be interpreted as the priest, whom we would expect to find attached to a monastic cell carrying out baptisms and other pastoral activities as Pope Theodore’s charter of 643 for Bobbio indicates by its instructions to bishops to provide chrism (Tosi 1992, p. 22).

The Ordo’s praepositus and pater dovetail with the references to a praepositus and presbyter in the Praeceptum which follows directly. The latter’s Augustinian picture of a group harmoniously united under a praepositus who should seek to be loved as well as feared seems intended to alleviate any resentments about his imposition by the central house (as well as allowing wealthier individuals to donate to the community—probably to be understood as the monastery as a whole—and making allowances for their more privileged background). But this has to be set in the context of what follows in the subsequent chapters, where older authorities are decontextualised and re-framed in the context of newer teachings. Basil is mined, not for his view of mutual support in spiritual development, but for his treatment of potential threats to discipline, from laughter to the independent cultivation of skills, and for his instructions on the care of implements and utensils, here issued to the cell by the monastery’s cellarer (Chapters 4–16). Chapters 17–25 and 27–8 select passages from the Rule of the Master, including its discussions of obedience and the abbot: Chapter 27 gives a shortened version of its teaching on the ‘four kinds of monks’, in turn based on the Rule of Benedict’s vindication of cenobitic life. Extracts from Cassian’s Twelfth Conference focus on chastity (Chapters 30 and 31). The need to confess prurient thoughts to a senior (Chapter 32) and the ascent from fear of God to the perfection of charity via the stages of humility are based on the Institutes. But there is no attempt to place any of this in the context of his wider scheme of spiritual training and further selections from the Institutes (Chapters 34–38) focus on behaviour. The abbot’s control over the cell emerges in Chapters 39 and 40 taken from the Regula magistri dealing with the praepositus’ reporting to him any brothers guilty of anger or pride. There is a very marked emphasis on the virtues and superiority of the cenobitic life coupled with hostility to tendencies towards eremiticism. The concluding sections, excerpts from Basil and Jerome, are selected to emphasise the desirability and propriety of leading a life in community, rather than leaving to become a solitary (Chapters 41 and 42). Chapter 29 consists of an anonymous sermon (later attributed to ‘Novatus’) on humility, obedience and the trampling down of pride, while incidentally revealing an all-powerful abbot, who is to be obeyed even if his behaviour appears arbitrary; the brothers are to ‘be abbots to one another’, monitoring each other’s speech (Villegas 1976; Vogüé 1976). This has been persuasively interpreted in the light of a second monastic sermon surviving in a later manuscript, sharing a similar outlook, and identifying pride with the desire to become a hermit (Leclercq 1964). The anti-eremitic theme assumes particular significance in view of the Life of Columbanus’ assertion that some of the Bobbio rebels had left to seek the liberty of the eremitic life and suggests that the rule was composed when memories of the revolt were still fresh and there were anxieties about the possibility of continued unrest.

11. Rules for Monasteries and Their Cells: The ‘Rules of the Fathers’ Again

Ms Paris. BN Lat. 12634 also contains (ff. 1–3v) the earliest copy of Chapters 3.15 to 5.19 of the Rule of the Four Fathers, followed by the Second Rule of the Fathers (statua patrum). (Another version of the Rule of the Four Fathers, along with the Second Rule, forms part of Ms Paris. BN lat. 12205, dating from around CE 700; also likely to have originated in Bobbio, it contains the earliest complete copy of the Regula magistri). These rules, which de Vogüé attempted to associate with Lérins, are strikingly un-Lérinian in tone and content. The original version of the Rule of the Four Fathers puts forward a strongly anti-eremitic line, announcing ‘the desolation of the desert and the terrors of various monsters do not permit us to live singly’ (Franklin et al. 1982, pp. 16–17)—hardly compatible with Eucherius’ praise of the desert. Its request that ‘all live in one house harmoniously and pleasantly’ (Franklin et al. 1982, pp. 16–17) hints at previous conflicts or tensions. Despite the use of the Basilian is qui praeest (altered to praepositus in BN lat. 12205), the essence of community is obedience to the superior. It gives no hint of mutual support in spiritual progress. Instead, this is the preserve of the superior who leads the brothers ‘from terrestrial to celestial matters’ by the quality of his truth and ‘mystic piety’ and is also to ‘judge’ (not ‘show’ as in the translation) the ‘disposition of piety around individuals’. (Franklin et al. 1982, pp. 18–19). It lays down conditions for admission that resemble the Regula Benedicti in their distinction between rich and poor (while imposing a waiting period outside the house only on the latter) (Franklin et al. 1982, pp. 20–21). It sets out the manner of singing psalms; instructions for the reception of pilgrims including clerics; instructions for fasting and for work (from the third to the ninth hour); for care of vessels and tools in terms similar to the Regula Eugippii; and for the reception of monks from other houses (Franklin et al. 1982, pp. 22–31). The Second Rule (Franklin et al. 1982, pp. 32–39) appears to be an accompanying set of instructions for those living in cells or dependencies under the headship of a praepositus who is also a priest. It refers to infringements of discipline by brothers either ‘in the monastery or the cells’ and, as we have seen, allows study and meditation to be sacrificed, when necessary, to the demands of work carried out in common (Franklin et al. 1982, pp. 34–37).

12. The Invention of Tradition: The Regula Macarii and the Diffusion of ‘Benedictine–Columbanian Monasticism’

Despite their purportedly primitive origins, the ‘Rules of the Fathers’ are highly sophisticated compositions, carefully crafted to create the appearance of antiquity while embodying a very different interpretation of community and authority. I previously suggested that their production might have been an initial response to the aftermath of rebellion, rapidly superseded by the Regula magistri and ‘Regula Eugippii’ (Dunn 2008). Yet while the Regula magistri shored up the power of the abbot, there are also likely to have been community members who felt uneasy with its replacement of older traditions; and Jonas’ remarkable circumspection about the presence of the Regula Benedicti and creation of the Regula magistri at Bobbio—he mentions neither—is likely to reflect his consciousness of this problem. So an alternative explanation of their production might be that they were created in the wake of the Regula magistri and ‘Regula Eugippii’ to demonstrate that the structures of authority and community they embodied—as well as the concept of a rule itself—went back to the Desert Fathers.

The suggestion that these rules were devised in an attempt to make the newer style of monasticism acceptable finds support if we look at another of Jonas’ works, his Life of the sixth-century abbot John of Réomé. (O’Hara and Wood 2017). This late and unreliable Life (Jonas’ chronology wavers between the fifth and sixth century) says that John ran away from Réomé to Lérins when it was headed by Honoratus; and that after his return he introduced the Rule of Macarius to his monastery. These statements were taken by de Vogüé as evidence of the Lérinian origins of the Rule of Macarius: but the Regula Macarii is closely related to the Rule of the Four Fathers and the Second Rule; is written in a similar style; and legislates for a central house with cells. Diem (2008) has already read the Life as Jonas’ attempt to introduce the monks of Réomé to Columbanian monasticism through its reminiscences of his Life of Columbanus. We might take this further. The Life was composed at the request of Abbot Chunna of Réomé, identified by a number of authors as the Hunna who entered Luxeuil as a young man (Diem 2008, p. 17, n. 68). We can presume that Chunna attempted to introduce ‘Benedictine–Columbanian’ monasticism, including some version of the Regula Benedicti, to Réomé and called on John to demonstrate the essential harmony of the new regime with previous traditions. Jonas wove into his text not only allusions to his own Life of Columbanus, but also to Cassian: the account of John’s running away to Lérins (Chapter 4) echoes the story of Abba Pinufius in Institutes 4, 30; and in Chapter 18, he borrows (rather maladroitly) from the ninth Conference (Diem 2008, pp. 42–43). The claim that John had introduced the Rule of Macarius provided a third strand of argument: at some time in an earlier era Réomé had been acquainted with a rule, which incidentally happened to embody a similar concept of authority and community to the rule now being imposed.

The Regula Macarii is to be found in company with a range of older and newer monastic writings and in association with Bobbio and Luxeuil in the seventh century. Philibert, founder of Jumièges, is said to have visited monasteries in Francia, Burgundy and Italy including Luxeuil and Bobbio, where he encountered Basilii sancti charismata, Macharii regula, Benedicti decreta, Columbani instituta sanctissima (Krusch and Levison 1910, p. 587). The Third Rule of the Fathers and the related Regula Orientalis, the former designed for a monastery with a cell or cells, the latter for a cenobium alone, appear in manuscripts of the eighth and ninth centuries (Paris Ms BN lat. 4333B and Clm. 28118), suggesting that it was felt necessary to employ the strategy of validating a newer style of monasticism through the creation of simulated ‘ancient’ rules.

13. Conclusions: Continuing to Rethink?

Current chronology treats monastic rules as an integral part of western monastic life from the fifth century onwards. But the authors and translators of the earliest programmes for monastic life in the west did not call them rules, a term they employed in a variety of senses. Nor did those who made these programmes the basis of their communal life—from the monks of Lérins to Columbanus and beyond—refer to them as rules. Acceptance of the erroneous idea that regularity went back to a very early stage of western monasticism has been assisted by the way Benedict of Aniane’s Codex regularum labelled as rules texts that did not originally identify themselves as such, from Jerome’s Pachomian translations in the early fifth century to the so-called Cuiusdam patris regula in the seventh (Diem and Rousseau 2020). The unfortunate impression of the antiquity and ubiquity of monastic rules has also gained traction from the modern tendency to interpret references to regula as monastic rule when it is being used in its original and more general sense of way of life or tradition. And the currently dominant sequence risks distorting our picture of western communities before the emergence of the rules of Cæsarius and Benedict in the sixth century. Up to this point, they would have relied on either Basil or Cassian, though we cannot be certain about monastic knowledge of Augustine’s Praeceptum outside North Africa before Cæsarius was introduced to it by Julianus Pomerius. The extent of knowledge of Jerome’s version of the Pachomian texts is not certain either, but his letter to Rusticus which emphasised the spiritual benefits of community life in the spiritual formation of the individual may have been widely diffused.

Monastic rules emerged in the sixth century in Gaul/Francia and Italy, creating a paradigm shift in the concept of monastic community and authority. Cæsarius’ opinion that the monks of Lérins were perfect enough and should now start praying for everyone else marks a change in outlook. Even more dramatic is the Regula Benedicti’s effective removal of what it presents as the higher stages of contemplation from the remit of the monastic community. Equally significant is his creation of the ‘abbatial turn’with its explicit concentration of power in the hands of the abbot. The rules took the words of earlier authors out of their original context, turning away from the traditional focus on the spiritual perfection of the individual in community to react to pressures created in the world beyond the monastery walls. In the case of the Gallic rules, this involved either a perception of the need for intercession or an attempt to deal with problems produced by the social origins of their members—or both. While we cannot pin down the exact circumstances that produced the Regula Benedicti, its re-definition of what could be accomplished in terms of spiritual development within the community, coupled with its emphasis on the authority of the abbot suggests that it, too, was attempting to re-inscribe monastic life in altered social conditions. The Regula magistri built on its basic assumptions and on its ‘abbatial turn’.

Current thinking obscures the arrival on the continent in the early seventh century of a new style of sub-monastery, combining spiritual and agricultural roles that assisted in strengthening the hold of Christianity in the countryside. The ‘Regula Eugippii’ excerpted the Regula magistri and older monastic programmatic texts to create a rule establishing the relationship between cells and central cenobium. The relationship between central house and cell is also negotiated in the Rule of the Four Fathers and the Second Rule of the Fathers and is a feature of the Rule of Macarius and the Third Rule of the Fathers.

The invented tradition of the Rules of the Fathers also throws some light on the diffusion of the Rule of Benedict. The period before the latter’s rise to the status of the normative una regula of Benedict of Aniane and Louis the Pious is currently regarded, after its initial success in the Benedictine-Columbanian orbit, as obscure. The case of Réomé suggests that the introduction of a ‘Benedictine–Columbanian’ rule might well have presented problems in monasteries with different traditions and that its progress depended to some extent on the strategy of invoking the support of supposedly ancient rules.

An examination of concepts of community, authority and rule points to a landscape of western monastic rules very different from the currently dominant model. It also suggests future directions for investigation: the study of the enigmatic Ordo monasterii and of the rules for cells already discussed, to which we might add the Rule of Paul and Stephen described by its editor as ‘not a complete monastic code’ (Vilanova 1959, p. 138); and the history of the diffusion of the Rule of Benedict. The development of Iberian monastic rules, which has not been discussed here, should also be considered especially the light of recent work (e.g., Castillo Maldonado 2019; Diaz 2020). It should provide valuable insights: for example, the earliest Iberian rule, written by Isidore of Seville (d. 636) responded to social and economic realities while still referring to the community vision of Augustine, Basil and Cassian.

Can we continue to rethink?