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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2020
The sixth-century Rule of Benedict became a foundational text for the practice of Christian monasticism in medieval Europe, but its utility extended outside of the monastery as well. In the Carolingian period church prelates repurposed parts of this influential monastic handbook for the purpose of pastoral care. In the decades around 800 CE, excerpts from the rule appeared in several composite manuscripts made for the instruction of parish priests and by extension their lay audiences. Benedict's fourth chapter on the “Instruments of Good Works” was deemed particularly useful in the context of preaching to lay people not only because of its ecumenical message to love God and one's neighbor but also due to its formulaic and repetitive idiom. This study examines the redeployment of extracts of the Rule of Benedict for the cura animarum in Carolingian parishes with particular attention to the role of Bishop Theodulf of Orléans (ca. 760–821) in disseminating Benedict's teachings beyond the walls of the cloister.
I presented the preliminary findings of this inquiry in May 2017 at the 52nd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo MI. I am grateful for the feedback of the audience on that occasion. I am also much indebted to Carine van Rhijn, who offered extensive comments on the codicology of MS Clm 6330, alerted me to several pertinent manuscripts, and signaled the importance of the capitulary of Theodulf of Orléans to my argument. Likewise, the anonymous reviewers of the article were generous with their helpful criticisms and bibliographical suggestions. Remaining errors of fact or judgment are mine alone.
1 de Vogüé's, Adalbert Histoire littéraire du mouvement monastique dans l'antiquité (Paris, 2005), 9:103–55Google Scholar remains an excellent introduction to the Rule of Benedict.
2 Adalbert de Vogüé, Les règles monastiques anciennes (400–700), Typologie des sources du Moyen Age occidental 46 (Turnhout, 1985); and Diem, Albrecht and Rousseau, Philip, “Monastic Rules (Fourth to Ninth Century),” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, ed. Beach, Alison I. and Cochelin, Isabelle (Cambridge, 2020), 1:162–94Google Scholar.
3 Concilium Germanicum 7, ed. Albertus Werminghoff, MGH, Concilia 2.1 (Hannover and Leipzig, 1906), 4.
4 In 811 Charlemagne himself was said to have asked whether someone who followed a rule other than that of Benedict deserved to be called a monk. See Capitula tractanda cum comitibus, episcopis et abbatibus 12, ed. Alfredus Boretius, MGH, Capitularia regum Francorum 1 (Hannover, 1883), 161–62; with Semmler, Josef, “Karl der Große und das fränkische Mönchtum,” in Karl der Grosse: Lebenswerk und Nachleben, ed. Braunfels, W. (Düsseldorf, 1965), 2:255–89, esp. 262–67Google Scholar. Jong, Mayke de, “Carolingian Monasticism: The Power of Prayer” in The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume 2, c. 700–c. 900, ed. McKitterick, Rosamond (Cambridge, 1995), 622–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar remains the most accessible introduction to the centrality of monasticism to the political ambitions of the Carolingians. On the adjustments made to adapt a sixth-century rule for monks to the realities of monastic experience in the ninth century, see Diem, Albrecht, “The Carolingians and the Regula Benedicti,” in Religious Franks: Religion and Power in the Frankish Kingdoms: Studies in Honour of Mayke de Jong, ed. Meens, Rob et al. (Manchester, 2016), 243–61Google Scholar.
5 Semmler, Joseph, “Die Beschlüsse des Aachener Konzils 816,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 74 (1963): 15–82Google Scholar; and idem, “Benedictus II: Una regula, una consuetudo,” in Benedictine Culture, 750–1050, ed. Willem Lourdaux and Daniël Verhelst (Leuven, 1983), 1–49.
6 Odo of Cluny, Sermo de sancto Benedicto abbate, PL 133.721–29, esp. 724c: “Et hunc quidem beatissimum patrem legislatio specialiter Moysi comparat.”
7 Monastica 1: Donati Regula, Pseudo-Columbani Regula Monialium (fr.), ed. Victoria Zimmerl-Panagl, CSEL 98 (Berlin, 2015), 3–181. See also Diem, Albrecht, “New Ideas Expressed in Old Words: The Regula Donati on Female Monastic Life and Monastic Spirituality,” Viator 43 (2012): 1–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 Vita Pardulfi 7, ed. Wilhelm Levison, MGH, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum (Hannover and Leipzig, 1920), 7:19–40, at 28–29. Arbeo of Freising's near contemporary Vita Corbiniani redeployed passages from the Rule of Benedict in a similar way. For a summary of the evidence, see Palmer, James, Anglo-Saxons in a Frankish World, 690–900 (Turnhout, 2009), 191CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For another example involving a female saint, see Vita Bertilae abbatissae Calensis 2 and 6, ed. Wilhelm Levison, MGH, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum (Hannover and Leipzig, 1913), 6:95–109, at 102–103 and 106–107.
9 Bodarwé, Katrinette, “Eine Männerregel für Frauen: Die Adaption der Benediktsregel im 9. und 10. Jahrhundert,” in Female ‘Vita Religiosa’ between Late Antiquity and the High Middle Ages, ed. Melville, Gert and Müller, Anne (Vienna, 2011), 235–74Google Scholar. More generally on the adaptation of the Rule of Benedict for female communities, see Mohr, R., “Der Gedankenaustausch zwischen Heloisa und Abaelard über eine Modifizierung der Regula Benedicti für Frauen,” Regulae Benedicti Studia 5 (1976): 307–33Google Scholar; and L. de Seilhac, “L'utilisation de la Règle de saint Benoît dans les monastères féminins,” in Atti del 7o Congresso internazionale di studi sull'alto Medioevo: Norcia, Subiaco, Cassino, Montecassino, 29 Settembre-5 Ottobre 1980: San Benedetto nel suo tempo (Spoleto, 1982), 2:527–49.
10 Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek MS Lit. 142, fols. 2–57v; and Katalog der Handschriften der königlichen Bibliothek zu Bamberg, ed. Friedrich Lietschuh and Hans Fischer (Bamberg, 1895), 1:292–94.
11 Krone und Schleier: Kunst aus Mittelalterlichen Frauenklöstern, ed. Jutta Frings (Munich, 2005), 186 (no. 26), where the manuscript is dated “um 990.”
12 See Patzold, Steffen, “Correctio an der Basis: Landpfarrer und ihr Wissen im 9. Jahrhundert,” in Karolingische Klöster: Wissentransfer und kulturelle Innovation, ed. Becker, Julia, Licht, Tino, and Weinfurter, Stefan (Berlin, 2015), 227–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Carine van Rhijn, “The Local Church, Priests’ Handbooks and Pastoral Care in the Carolingian Period,” in Chiese locali e chiese regionali nell'alto medioevo (Spoleto, 4–9 aprile 2013) (Spoleto, 2014), 689–710; eadem, “Manuscripts for Local Priests and the Carolingian Reform,” in Men in the Middle: Local Priests in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Steffen Patzold and Carine van Rhijn (Berlin, 2016), 177–98; and eadem, “Royal Politics in Small Worlds: Local Priests and the Implementation of Carolingian correctio,” in Kleine Welten: Ländliche Gesellschaften im Karolingerreich, ed. Thomas Kohl, Steffen Patzold, and Bernhard Zeller (Ostfildern, 2019), 237–54. Case studies of particular manuscripts include Frederick S. Paxton, “Bonus liber: A Late Carolingian Clerical Manual from Lorsch (Bibliotheca Vaticana MS Pal. Lat. 485),” in The Two Laws: Studies in Medieval Legal History Dedicated to Stephan Kuttner, ed. Laurent Mayali and Stephanie A. J. Tibbetts (Washington, D.C., 1990), 1–30; Hen, Yitzhak, “Knowledge of Canon Law among Rural Priests: The Evidence of Two Carolingian Manuscripts from around 800,” Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. 50 (1999): 117–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Laura A. Hohman, “Carolingian Sermons: Religious Reform, Pastoral Care, and Lay Piety” (Ph.D. diss., Catholic University of America, 2016), which examines Laon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 265; and Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, MS Latin 2328.
13 Keefe, Susan A., Water and the Word: Baptism and the Education of the Clergy in the Carolingian Empire (Notre Dame, IN, 2002), 1:23–26 and 160–63 (Table 1)Google Scholar. See also eadem, A Catalogue of Works Pertaining to the Explanation of the Creed in Carolingian Manuscripts (Turnhout, 2012).
14 Miller, Maureen, “Reform, Clerical Culture, and Politics,” in The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Christianity, ed. Arnold, John H. (Oxford, 2014), 305–22, at 313Google Scholar.
15 van Rhijn, “Manuscripts for Local Priests,” 190.
16 For descriptions of the manuscript and its contents, see Die vorkarolingischen und karolingischen Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek, ed. Katharina Bierbauer (Wiesbaden, 1990), 1:108 (“Theologische Sammelhandschrift”); Bischoff, Bernhard, Südostdeutschen Schreibschulen und Bibliotheken in der Karolingerzeit, 3rd ed. (Wiesbaden, 1974), 1:145–46Google Scholar (“Varia excerpta ecclesiastica”); and idem, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts (mit Ausnahme der wisigotischen) (Wiesbaden, 2004), 2:239 (no. 3054).
17 See Regula Magistri 3–6, ed. Adalbert de Vogüé, in La règle de Maître, SC 105 (Paris, 1964), 1:364–80. The spiritual inspiration of this list of directives was probably the Didache, a treatise on Christian ethics dating from the late first century. See van de Sandt, Huub and Flusser, David, The Didache: Its Jewish Sources and its Place in Early Judaism and Christianity (Minneapolis, 2002), 90–95Google Scholar.
18 RB 4.1–2: “In primis dominum Deum diligere ex toto corde, tota anima, tota uirtute; deinde proximum tanquam seipsum.”
19 RB 4.9: “Et quod sibi quis fieri non vult, alio ne faciat”; RB 4.29: “Malum pro malo non reddere”; RB 4.33: “Persecutionem pro iustitia sustinere”; and RB 4.34–35: “Non esse superbum, non vinolentum.”
20 RB 4.44–49: “Diem iudicii timere, Gehennam expavescere, vitam aeternam omni concupiscentia spiritali desiderare, mortem cotidie ante oculos suspectam habere. Actus vitae suae omni hora custodire, in omni loco Deum se respicere pro certo scire.”
21 RB 4.75: “Ecce haec sunt instrumenta artis spiritalis.”
22 RB 4.78: “Officina vero ubi haec omnia diligenter operemur claustra sunt monasterii et stabilitas in congregatione.”
23 Indicative as well of the interest of Carolingian monks in Benedict's Instrumenta bonorum operum is the attention that this chapter received from commentators on the Rule of Benedict, as witnessed in a fragmentary eighth-century commentary discovered by Kassius Hallinger as well as in the better known ninth-century commentaries of Smaragdus of St. Mihiel (ca. 760–ca. 840) and Hildemar of Corbie (fl. ca. 845). See Hallinger, Kassius, “Das Kommentarfragment zu Regula Benedicti IV aus der ersten Hälfte des 8. Jahrhunderts,” Wiener Studien 82 (1969): 211–32Google Scholar; Smaragdus, Expositio in Regulam S. Benedicti 4, ed. A. Spannagel and P. Engelbert, Corpus Consuetudinum Monasticarum 8 (Siegburg, 1974), 86–148; and Hildemar, Expositio regulae sancti Benedicti 4, ed. Rupert Mittermüller, in Vita et Regula SS. P. Benedicti una cum Expositio Regulae a Hildemaro tradita (Regensburg, New York, and Cincinnati, 1880), 138–84. See also Glosae in regula Sancti Benedicti abbatis ad usum Smaragdi Sancti Michaelis abbatis, ed. Matthieu van der Meer, CCM 282 (Turnhout, 2017), 35–46.
24 The early history of this manuscript is unknown, but by the thirteenth century it had found its way to the abbey of San Salvatore in Settimo, near Florence, and by 1635 it belonged to Carolus Strozzi. These statements of ownership are clear on fol. 2. See Reifferscheid, August, Bibliotheca Patrum Latinorum Italica (Vienna, 1870), 1:166–70, and CLA 1:20 (no. 64)Google Scholar.
25 There is no modern edition of Isidore's De fide catholica, so PL 83.449–538 must suffice. Likewise, there is no modern treatment of the Latin translations of the work of Ephraim, even though his influence is equally well attested. See Siegmund, Albert, Die Überlieferung der griechischen christlichen Literatur in der lateinischen Kirche bis zum 12. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1948), 67–71Google Scholar; and Ganz, David, “Knowledge of Ephraim's Writings in the Merovingian and Carolingian Age,” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 2 (1999): 37–46Google Scholar.
26 De admonitione S. Basilii ad filium spiritualem, ed. Paul Lehmann (Munich, 1955), who followed André Wilmart in accepting the treatise as an authentic work by Basil. See Wilmart, “Le discourse de saint Basile sur l'ascèse en Latin,” Revue bénédictine 27 (1910): 226–233. More recently, Adalbert de Vogüé has argued convincingly that Admonition to a Spiritual Son was not an authentic work of Greek asceticism translated into Latin in late antiquity, but rather an original Latin composition made in the decades around 500 by Abbot Porcarius of Lérins. See de Vogüé, “Entre Basile et Benoît: L'admonitio ad filium spiritualem de Pseudo-Basile,” Regulae Benedicti Studia 10/11 (1981/1982): 19–34.
27 In addition, “some larger initials show the human figure and animals, often surrounded by red dots.” CLA 1:20 (no. 64).
28 Meier, Gabriel, Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum qui in bibliotheca monasterii Einsiedlensis servantur, Tomus 1 (Leipzig, 1899), 255–59Google Scholar (no. 281: “Ascetica varia”); and CLA 7:12 (no. 875): “Written no doubt in a Rhaetian centre, to judge by the script.” As noted by Lowe in the CLA entry, a section almost one hundred pages in length has been removed from this manuscript and bound into a near contemporary collection of acts of church councils: Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, MS 199, 431–526.
29 The same is true of many other initials in the manuscript, which are decorated with “the interlace or rope pattern and the fish motifs, including the dolphin.” CLA 7:12 (no. 875).
30 Monita Porcarii: Wilmart, A., “Les Monita de l'abbé Porcaire,” Revue bénédictine 26 (1909): 475–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Ioca monachorum: Wright, Charles D. and Wright, Roger, “Additions to the Bobbio Missal: De dies malus and Joca monachorum (6r–8v),” in The Bobbio Missal: Liturgy and Religious Culture in Merovingian Gaul, ed. Hen, Yitzhak and Meens, Rob (Cambridge, 2004), 79–139, at 104–22Google Scholar.
31 For a description of the manuscript and its contents, see n. 16 above.
32 Only a few of these texts have been edited and studied. Expositio fidei: “Fides Romanorum (I),” ed. J. Armitage Robinson, in Texts and Studies: Contributions to Biblical and Patristic Literature, Volume 4.1: The Athanasian Creed and its Early Commentaries (Cambridge, 1896), 61–62; Dogma ecclesia (sic) sancta: Turner, C. H., “The Liber Ecclesiasticorum Dogmatum attributed to Gennadius,” Journal of Theological Studies 8 (1907): 78–99Google Scholar, with idem, “The Liber Ecclesiasticorum Dogmatum: Supplenda to J.T.S. vii. 78–99,” Journal of Theological Studies 8 (1907): 103–14; the model sermon: ed. Scherer, W., “Eine lateinische Musterpredigt aus der Zeit Karls des Grossens,” Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum 12 (1865): 436–41Google Scholar. On the meaning of symbolum in the Carolingian period, see Phelan, Owen M., The Formation of Christian Europe: The Carolingians, Baptism, and the Imperium Christianum (Oxford, 2014), 169–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the Lord's Prayer in Old High German, see Bischoff, Die südostdeutschen Schreibschulen und Bibliotheken (n. 16 above), 144–45.
33 See the commentary of Adalbert de Vogüé, in La règle de saint Benoît, SC 187 (Paris, 1972), 7:126–28 (quotation at 126).
34 RB 4.34–40.
35 MS Orléans, Bibliothèque municipale 116, fols. 28r–29v. See Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France, Tome XII: Orléans, ed. C. Cuissard (Paris, 1889), 45–48 (no. 116), esp. 45 where it is called “Mélanges théologiques, abrégé de la doctrine chrétienne et explication du canon de la messe”; and Keefe, Water and the Word (n. 13 above), 2:61–64.
36 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm 28135, fols. 54v–57r. See Hauke, Hermann, Katalog der lateinischen Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek München: Clm 28111–28254 (Wiesbaden, 1986), 31–37Google Scholar. On the Liber scintillarum, see most recently Yitzak Hen, “Defensor of Ligugé's Liber Scintillarum and the Migration of Knowledge,” in East and West in the Early Middle Ages: The Merovingian Kingdoms in Mediterranean Perspective, ed. Stefan Esders, Yaniv Fox, Yitzhak Hen, and Laury Sarti (Cambridge, 2019), 218–29.
37 van Rhijn, “Manuscripts for Local Priests” (n. 12 above), 183.
38 There is no modern study of Theodulf. For a sketch of his career and works, see the article by Hans Sauer in Lexikon des Mittelalters (Munich, 1997), 8:647–48, s.v. “Theodulf, Bischof von Orléans, Abt von Fleury, Theologe und Dichter (um 760–821),” as well as the extensive and much more current bibliography listed on the website “Geschichtsquellen des deutschen Mittelalters” (www.geschichtsquellen.de) s.v. “Theodulfus episcopus Aurelianensis” (accessed 12 May 2020).
39 Noble, Thomas F. X., Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians (Philadelphia, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
40 Theodulf, Capitula prima, ed. Peter Brommer, MGH, Capitula Episcoporum, Pars I (Hanover, 1984), 73–142, at 103–42. The bishop issued a second set of capitula later in his career (ed. Brommer, 143–84), but these decrees made no reference to the Rule of Benedict. For context, see Rhijn, Carine van, Shepherds of the Lord: Priests and Episcopal Statutes in the Carolingian Period (Turnhout, 2007), 101–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
41 Theodulf, Capitula prima 21, ed. Brommer, 117–19.
42 Theodulf, Capitula prima 21: “Cum ergo omnium sanctarum scripturarum paginae instrumentis bonorum operum refertae sint et per sanctarum scripturarum campos possint inveniri arma, quibus vitia comprimantur et virtutes nutriantur, libuit nobis huic nostro capitulari inserere sententiam cuiusdam patris de instrumentis bonorum operum, in qua magna brevitate, quid agi quidve vitari debeat, continetur.” ed. Brommer, 117.
43 Compare RB 4.61 and Theodulf, Capitula prima 21, ed. Brommer, 118.
44 RB 4.78: “Officina vero ubi haec omnia diligenter operemur claustra sunt monasterii et stabilitas in congregatione.”
45 Brommer, Peter, “Die Rezeption der bischöflichen Kapitularien Theodulfs von Orléans,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Kanonistische Abteilung 92 (1975): 113–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a survey of the manuscripts, see the introduction to Brommer's edition, 76–99.
46 Eldevik, John, Episcopal Power and Ecclesiastical Reform in the German Empire: Tithes, Lordship, and Community, 950–1150 (Cambridge, 2012), 77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
47 Sauer, Hans, Theodulfi Capitula in England: Die altenglischen Übersetzung zusammen mit der lateinischen Text (Munich, 1978)Google Scholar. I am grateful to Drew Jones for drawing my attention to this study.
48 By the Carolingian period, Latin was “a language at arm's length” for all but the most educated individuals. See Ruff, Carin, “Latin as an Acquired Language,” in The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Latin Literature, ed. Hexter, Ralph J. and Townsend, David (Oxford, 2012), 47–62 (quotation at 47)Google Scholar.
49 Bruce, Scott G. “The Dark Age of Herodotus: Shards of a Fugitive History in Early Medieval Europe,” Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies 94 (2019): 47–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar (quotation at p. 66).