Today we're going to do Cassiodorus, and at least get a good chunk of Spanish monasticism 6th to the 8th centuries out of the way. First I'll say two things, that is, if you could copy these down, or look at the spelling and get them on, I'm not going to write it down again next Wednesday, so there it is, all the spellings you need for the Spanish monasticism section. Also, yesterday after class I had this strange feeling that something was wrong, that something had happened or was said that was wrong, and by the time I got to my cell it dawned on me that Ruspe is not in Spain, so I looked up Ruspe, and Ruspe is in North Africa, so we had talked about Fulgencius of Ruspe, Northern Africa, not Spain, who I was getting

[01:05]

mixed up with Fructuosus of Braga, who we're going to talk about maybe not today, but if not today, on Wednesday. Extremely important for Western monasticism, and I'll explain why later on. But anyway, Fulgencius, who had a rule, was another one of North Africa, who was the famous one in North Africa? Augustus, right, for monasticism. Fulgencius was sort of the secondary influence in monasticism, 4th century. Okay, Cassiodorus, we're talking somebody who's up there, he is a patrician. It's the end of the Roman Empire, things are collapsing, the Goths are in charge, Byzantium is on the horizon, and for 40 years, this fellow, Filius Martius Aurelius Cassiodorus,

[02:06]

senator, worked in public office in the government. He worked as the prefect of the praetorium, he was a quaestor, he was the chief of the civil service in Rome, and he was a patrician. And he served under four, I think, four different barbarian emperors during his time. He was also a very dedicated Christian. He didn't seem to have problems working in the government under Gothic rule. So he was Roman, huh? Or let's say he was Italian, although not by blood. He himself was Syrian by blood, but he was born in Calabria, in southern Italy, of noble lineage. And so he worked in the government, he had a lot of power, but he didn't seem to mind

[03:14]

working under the conquerors as long as it could prolong, his work could help prolong what was left of the Roman Empire, which he helped do. He helped prolong it a little bit longer. But he saw the Roman civilization collapsing all around him. By the time that Byzantium, the Byzantine forces were able to reconquer Italy and destroy the Emperor Theoderic, his rule, Cassidorus decided, I'm getting out of here, there's no more I can do, the whole thing's collapsing, I don't want to be around Byzantium taking over, Lord knows what they're going to do. He was in Byzantium for five years during this time, and he felt he pretty well knew

[04:16]

what was going to happen to what was left of Roman civilization. So at the age of 70, he retired to live the religious life. Now that sounds a bit strange at the age of 70, but if you look at his dates, he still had some time to put in. He lived to be 95. He was a very pious person, and even though he had to deal with Aryanism consistently, because the barbarians for the most part at that time were Aryans, and he was being hassled in court for being a Christian, he kept, he persevered in the Christian persuasion, and he was a very alerted man, devoted to scholarship and study. He had agreed at one point, at the request of Pope Agapitus, to found in Rome an immense

[05:30]

library to collect manuscripts from all over what was left of civilization, and to center them in a library based on what was in Alexandria. So they wanted to do the same sort of thing that Origen had in Alexandria, scrolls from all over put into a depository. War prevented, an ongoing war situation prevented him realizing this. But when he decided to retire and start a monastery, he thought, ah, well even though I couldn't do what I had agreed to do for the Pope, we can do that at our monastery and build up a library, an important monastic library. And that is what he did. He went back into his home, to the family property in Calabria, at a place called Scyllachium

[06:46]

or Scyllachium, like Scyllachium in Calabria, and founded a monastic foundation, which was called Vivarium. The name Vivarium was already there for the property. Does anyone know, just out of curiosity, does anyone know or can guess what Vivarium means? We do. That's what I would say too, just by going back. Can you get a... I didn't know this until I did research. Vivarium was the name of his property. On his property, there was a river that went through the family property, and there were these, it was like a river on stone, and so it had worn, the water had worn in holes in the stone, all along, potholes, and it was filled with fish, which the family had tamed by feeding it, like a Japanese carp.

[07:46]

And so the Vivarium means fish pond. And so his monastery was named Fish Pond, after this series of potholes of semi-tamed fish. There's something for, trivia, trivial for you. The chapel at the monastery was dedicated to, take a guess. Who, to what saint are most of the, I mean, the greatest amount of chapels and churches? Martin of Tours, exactly. The chapel was dedicated to Saint Martin. And the monastery followed a Cenobitic lifestyle. But after a while, the Cenobites in Vivarium could become hermits on a nearby mountain, once they had put in their time in the Cenobites.

[08:49]

So here we have an example of where he's taking Cassian's viewpoint, that you can, you know, move on as a natural thing out of the Cenobium. He founded this monastery so that the monks there could devote themselves to study and scholarship and prayer. The lifestyle was fairly comfortable, because he felt that the life of scholarship, and many of the monks spent their time copying manuscripts, I mean their whole lives, just copying manuscripts and building up the library, that that kind of lifestyle demanded certain accoutrements. And so there wasn't a lot of asceticism to put on top of the people putting long hours in the scriptorial. The scriptorial was like a second chapel to Cassiodorus.

[09:55]

He considered it an absolutely sacred activity to be copying down manuscripts for the library. He, by the way, is not the abbot. He never even became a monk. He stayed as the pious lay benefactor of the community. It was his land and his home. So, if you're all going to have, if you're all going to be reading and writing and copying and you're going to make a living, who's going to do the work? They had peasants who tilled fields to provide the community with its sustenance. This, for the most part, if you look at his days, you're talking about a man who's contemporary of Benedict. We don't find in him any way that Benedict's rule was influencing him at all.

[11:06]

Benedict, towards the end of his life, might have known something about what was going on in Bavaria, by reputation or whatever. We don't know. It wasn't all that club. He wasn't all that far from Montecassino. It's not like he did not know. It's close enough so that, at least by reputation, you know, central and southern Italy, they should have known one another at least. Liturgy was important in the house. And Lectio also, but Lectio here at Bavaria was seen as a way to prepare for the liturgy and to prolong the praise of the liturgical life. That was the accent put on Lectio. But those who could do so were encouraged to take their Lectio and somewhat turn it

[12:13]

into an intellectual activity. So that Lectio became also a strong channel for study. Study of scripture, study of hermeneutics, what the fathers of the church had to say about various texts and whatnot. And so, whereas for Benedict, Lectio was primarily a contemplative activity on the word of God, for Cassiodorus, it became more of a subject for study and an arena for study. All kinds of study was permitted at Bavaria. We're not talking about just scripture or the fathers of the church. We're talking about the whole gamut of education in the then world or civilization, what was left of it. Although the study of scripture and the study of the fathers of the church always ranked

[13:19]

on top in the monastery. But he drew up a manual for what we want our people to be studying during their lifetimes here, which he entitled the Institut Saliens Divinarum et Sacrum Laurium Literarum. So he's talking about setting up principles or a system for studying secular and sacred literature. And it was put in, and really it serves as a bibliographical guide, just a nice bibliography. Well, this bibliography is going to make it out of the garden, it's going to help people in later generations. It's one of the things about coming from Cassiodorus, who isn't really all that important, but he's worth mentioning. This bibliographical guide had two main parts.

[14:24]

The first part was aimed at preparing the reader for approaching the scriptures in an intelligent way and studying hermeneutics, so interpretations of the scriptures as given by the fathers of the church through the early centuries. In addition to studying biblical history, biblical geography, and the natural sciences that would pertain to questions coming from the scriptures to study. The second part of the bibliographical guide was a theory of approaching the liberal arts, which also could be read and studied, and should be. And that second section was in two parts. The first part treated the normal secular education at that time and in earlier centuries,

[15:27]

which would be basically, what did Basil go to Athens for? Rhetoric. Rhetoric. Mathematics. Mathematics. That will be in the second part. Rhetoric. Think words. Grammar. That's good. Rhetoric. Grammar. Speechifying. Dialectics. How to think logically and to dialogue. Okay. That's called the trivium. That was three parts. Trivium. The quadrivium was obviously quad. It's going to be four parts. Mathematics. Sciences. Which one? Biology. No. Physics. Natural sciences.

[16:30]

Okay. Well, mathematics is good. Don't, you know, at this time, think of where you're at. You're in the fifth, sixth century. Mathematics isn't going to apply to all of the related things. So mathematics is one, but geometry is another. Geometry is another. I was wondering which of you was going to come up with it. Music and one other important science at that time. As for the ancients. Astronomy. Very good, very good. So those four are in the second part of the second part. 2.2 of this bibliographical guide. And this program of study was probably only meant originally for an elite group. Not that other people were cut out, but for the ones who could handle it all. In the monastery. He worked this up, because he was a very learned man himself.

[17:33]

He worked up this bibliographic guide as a guide for them to pursue during their lives. The whole gamut of scholastic approach. So not everybody was forced to go through that. No one was forced to use a bibliographical guide at the time. Many of the monks there probably lived their whole lives just as copyists and illuminators in the scriptorium. Others studied. Spent their whole lives studying. Okay. The chief manual labor for the monks was the work in the scriptorium. Was the copying and illuminating itself. There wasn't so much illuminating. There was a little bit of illuminating. The largest copying. The library seems to have, it got moved afterwards.

[18:36]

Got moved to Rome at one point. And got split up at one point. But the library seems to have contained at least 160 codices. So they did pretty well. You have to remember that after Cassidore dies, it pretty well falls apart. Not because Cassidore isn't there. But because Byzantium sweeps through, takes over all of southern Italy again. And Nibar just sort of fades away. So you're talking about just a few decades. Who's ruling Byzantium at the time? Barbarians? No, not barbarians. Barbarians are overcome and defeated by Byzantium for a short while. Period. But once Byzantium got in there, Byzantium stayed in southern Italy, even though it lost influence in a lot of other places. It stayed in Calabria until 1060.

[19:40]

They still have a fairly high level of culture. Yes, yes. But they had their own monastic foundations and their own influence. And the barbarians didn't take a picture. So if a barbarian wasn't squelched, it just faded away. But what happens in 1060? In Calabria. What a nice date. 1060. What do you think of 1060? The Normans. The Normans took over Calabria and southern Italy prior to moving into England. So southern Italy has a very, very rich heritage in the sense that they have eastern Byzantine influence. They have the Normans later on. Already they're Italian and ancient civilizations. They have a very, very rich heritage. Not always happy circumstances,

[20:43]

but all of that's going to come. And later on we're going to talk about this when we swing back and look at what's happening in Italian monasticism in the 1500s. In the 1600s. Anyway, they built up a nice library and six massive bookcases. Excuse me, eight. Eight massive bookcases. They know that. They know there were eight large cases and at least 160 codices. And there were eight major fields of interest, one for each case. Let's see how many of those you can get. This is fun. Quiz time. Eight what? Eight major parts of the library. Philosophy? No. No. They didn't have a periodical section. Scripture. Hermeneutics of Scripture.

[21:46]

So you have Scripture itself and then the interpretations of Scripture. You have the histories. You have a patristic section, so that's Christian authors. The fourth case. There was a case devoted totally to practicality, that is, manuals for how to till the soil, how to enrich the soil, how to do irrigation. So they have a whole case of manual how-to books, which they themselves formulated and then copied for the library. Liberal arts. Now, in liberal arts, of course, you're going to run into all kinds of stuff. Dialectics. So, again, speechifying. And Greek literature, with the eighth case.

[22:47]

Cassius had a great love for Greek knowledge and Greek culture. Cassiodorus is considered by monastic scholars as the father of monastic librarians and monastic librarians. He was the ultimate monastic. Not the ultimate. Later on, you have people who are even more tedious than he is for details. But you have a fine example of an organized person who can order things and get things set up in a very clear and consistent fashion. He wasn't a theologian as such. He wasn't even that much of a thinker. He was just a good systematizer.

[23:50]

He had a good head. He had a lot of scholastic experience. But he really wasn't even a scholar in his own right. He understood scholars. He understood literature and studies and whatnot. But we don't have a lot of output as Cassiodorus and his great treatises. No. He's kind of practical. It sounds ironic, because his monastery was hardly very practical. They have slaves that do the work, but not slaves. Peasants doing the works, but they didn't live and read manuscripts and write manuscripts all through their lives. It doesn't sound ultimately practical. But in many ways, in another sense, his approach was very practical. He just wasn't an egghead. He gave an ordered library to posterity. And to the 6th century and 7th century down the line, a nice bibliographical guide on how to educate yourself. Anything about Cassiodorus before we move on to Spain?

[24:54]

They got split up. They know that it went to Rome at one point, and then it got split up in Rome into two. And then after that, they have some of them, as I understand it, in the Vatican. But not the whole thing. What sort of worship are all of us to be allowed to attend? It seems to me we're going to run into this again, just a little bit down the line, when we return to Latin monasticism. Because Benedict's foundations get attacked and destroyed. The monks run to Rome for the protection of the Pope. And they run into Cassiodorus' library there for some reason. It was part of their, to take care of their liturgy. We'll run into another reference down the line. I hope. I hope it's in my notes. The liturgy what? What kind of ordered office did they have? I don't know.

[25:58]

Do we know when they had it? When did they have it? Or did they have a monastic office? Well, all during these centuries, even from the earliest times, even outside of monasteries, they have a quickly developed approach to the divine office that people in parishes were planning. So it's probably modeled on the same thing. When you wake up, when you, you know, morning, mid-morning, mid-afternoon, when the sun goes down, in the dark, and probably, I don't know, I don't know if you hear, you would have a broken sleep. Scholars copy a sleeper's sleep. Maybe they didn't get up in the middle of the night from vigilance or whatever. It was an easier approach in that sense. So I don't know how that affects the makeup of their heraldry. You won't find an awful lot on Cassiodorus. They're just listened to a lot. Okay, now we're going to hop over to Spain, and we're talking about the 500s through the 700s in Spain.

[27:09]

We have some record already in early times of monasteries existing in Spain, just like they did in Gaul, early Gaul. We know from Etheria, has anyone ever read Etheria? Does anyone know who this is? Real important, real important. It's one of the earliest travelogues done by a woman pilgrim, a woman, no less. She was wealthy enough to get protection and to do a caravan together, and away she went through Christendom down into the Holy Land. And she wrote this account, very, very important to history, not just monastic history, history itself. You'll find it in the ancient Christian writers' series, maybe number one or number two, Light Blue, you'll find it there, Etheria.

[28:11]

She refers to monasteries she saw, I think she went to Compostela. Is that how you pronounce it, Compostela? Have you been there? What is that how you pronounce it? Compostela, right. I think she went there also, and along the way she saw these monasteries, these groups of monastics, a little different, a little primitive at that time. But we have record of them being there, and they were connected with this, and I don't know how they were connected with this heresy that was going on there at the time. Priscillianism, does anyone know what Priscillianism is? I do these things because they're fun and they're interesting, and they do affect what happens in monasteries and whatnot. Priscillianism. There was this bishop, Priscillia, actually he wasn't a bishop, he wasn't a bishop. We have this leader, this spiritual leader in Spain,

[29:18]

who gets some strange ideas into his head, that are very, very akin to what we knew before as Manicheanism. Very strong dualism, black and white hat, that type of stuff. Body is evil, the whole business. He doesn't start out that way, but it sort of sounds like it. And then he's cornered by a synod, condemned, and after the condemnation, another faction makes him a bishop. He's made the bishop of Ávila. Does that ring a bell, that city? Ávila. People flock to him, other bishops flock to him, they start their own little semi-Manichean movement in Spain. Somehow in all of this, monasteries are involved at that time. We're talking the 4th century, so 300 in Spain, we know that monasteries are involved. By the way, they got him in a synod finally.

[30:20]

Tracked him down, got him into a church synod, and the bishops dutifully cut off his head, despite St. Martin of Tours was there, pleading for clemency for this bishop, and they ignored Martin, they cut his head off, and they cut the heads off of a few of his followers, probably other bishops. And that settled the question. Anyway, we know that there were early monasteries there. We get to a figure named Martin of Braga. Notice there's two Bragas here. Two Braga people. We don't exactly know his dates, those are guesstimates, 515 to 580. He was a reformer who appeared after the vandals and Goths had destroyed the first colonies of monks. So we know that these first colonies in Spain were destroyed by the first waves of barbarians

[31:22]

that went through there. And then along comes Martin of Braga later on, and restarts them up, and reforms, sort of a reform movement of monastic life. He came to Spain in the year 550. He came from Pannonia. We've hit this once before. Where is Pannonia? Who came from Pannonia? The son of an army officer. Thank you! We keep this refrain of Martin of Tours going on today. Martin of Tours came from Pannonia. Do you remember where that is? Hungary, that's right! Hungary. I don't know how you would... I remember it by Pannenhelma, that's the name of the big Benedictine abbey there. Pannenhelma, P-A-N-N. That's how I always remember it. I don't know what Pannonia itself means.

[32:23]

It means Hungary. Anyway, he came from Hungary, and did this resurrection of monastic life there. He was familiar with what was going on in the East, regarding monasticism, and he made his own translations of some of these collections. In fact, some of the more famous ones, the Sentenciae Signorum, the Verba Signorum. These are some of these, you know, there's many collections of what we call Apothegmata, these sayings of the desert fathers and that sort of thing. There's all kinds of collections of them in different languages. These are two of them. Merton made a translation of one, I think it was Sentenciae, at one point. Sentenciae Apothegmata. Anyway, he's no dummy. He knows what's going on, and so he comes into the situation with a reformer's heart, monastically,

[33:28]

to get something started again in Spain. And I think that, for the most part, what he evolved, and we don't know a lot about Merton Brockett, we just know it happened, that his monasteries were kind of like the same thing that was happening in Gaul at this time. Well, what time are we talking about? Well, we're talking about Lorraine and Celtic monasticism, and the two of them having a relationship, and Celtic monks having the Lorraine thing and spreading and starting new monastic foundations in Gaul and Switzerland and Italy. So, the same type of, more of an eastern approach, a more eastern flavor to it than what you're going to get with people like Cezanne, for instance, in Gaul. So it's the early Gaul that still has a lot of this eastern influence

[34:31]

and a lot of asceticism, partial asceticism. Leander, we know he died around 600. Leander was a nobleman in Spain, ancient Roman family in that province, who later on was very influential in the Byzantine epoch. So he didn't let the Byzantium faze him at all. He worked his way in there and was influential there also. He studied, in fact, in Constantinople itself. And there he came in contact with the knowledge of eastern monasticism. And also, he, they think, or probably knew of the works of Gregory the Great, and so he knew of a certain approach

[35:32]

to western monasticism. But he knew more about eastern monasticism. He wrote a rule, the Rule of Leander, it's called. And really what it is, is it boils down to a treatise on virginity. As some of the other early ones did. He wrote this rule for his sister, who was an enclosed virgin of a young man. And it's a lot of practical considerations about how to live this type of religious life and certain spiritual counsels and advice, that type of thing. As well as discussing some basic theory about monasticism, which he had obtained by his studies of eastern monasticism in Constantinople. But it really wasn't a rule as such, like we were talking yesterday, with Benedict's rule. It isn't that kind of a rule. It's more akin to some of those

[36:34]

other older rules that we had, that were just like collections of wise sayings or prescriptions. Rather than, you mustn't do this, and at two o'clock you will do that. That type of rule. He had an interesting approach to class society. He said that slaves have to remain slaves. Even in the monastery. If you go in, very different from Benedict, if you go in the monastery, you remain a slave. And, everybody holds on to their own position in life. And that charity has to rule how people treat one another, but you're still a slave. If you're born a slave, you die a slave. In Benedict's point of view. Generally speaking, other than that statement,

[37:34]

his approach to monastic life and community life is very moderate. He had this thing about slavery. Very different from Benedict's approach. There's a very Germanic tone to it, also. Which is, you know, the actual monasticism that comes from Spain now, from Leander on, Leander only partially, but more with Fructuosis, for instance, is going to be Gothic monasticism. We're talking about monasticism coming from the barbarian. The barbarian Christians. The ones who become Christians. So, monasticism we're going to find here is going to be called Gothic monasticism. But first, let's talk about Isidore. Isidore is one of the fathers of the Church. One of the doctors of the Church. One of the doctors, I think.

[38:36]

He was a very important bishop. Very important in a lot of Church organizations and running synods and whatnot. He was considered one of the fathers of the Church, and he wrote, among many other things, a rule for monks that had 23 chapters in which there's strong evidence, clear evidence, that he knows the Rule of Benedict. And he's using the Rule of Benedict to help formulate his rule. This is going to be common for centuries now. When you do a rule, you just take what you like out of every rule and you make your own. You compile your own in the end. Well, that's what Leander's doing. Well, that's what Benedict did, eh? Benedict himself. And there's nothing unusual about this. They're all doing that. Very solid rule. Very practical regulations. Nice systematizing and ordering of how monks are going to be able to live together

[39:41]

at peace and get things done that need to be done in the monastic life. Also, he, in his rule, lays out a physical plan for a monastery of how this would work the best. So, in that sense, it's very interesting to look at how he envisions a physical plan for having this set up and having it run smoothly. Have any of you looked at the plan of St. Gall in our library, in the three volumes? Or the hundreds and hundreds? I took it, finally, out of the locked vault and I put it out in the art, the true ecclesiastical arts. You want to look at that sometime. We'll talk about St. Gall's down the centuries, but just to look at the incredible input into the plan for the ideal monastery and how that's envisioned architecturally, etc. These are oversized volumes like this. In the 245 section, top shelf.

[40:41]

Anyway, his rule, Isidore's rule, is a fairly mild rule. Again, very practical. Although they were very big into fasting, they were fasting during ordinary time. So, during the summer until September, they fasted only three days a week. Only three days a week. From September all the way through the Easter season, September all the way until April, May, around there, they fasted every day. Every day. And what would that mean? Probably not, you know, probably like one meal and two light meals. Not bread and water, but a very light ascetic approach. That you'd feel it. It's not Celtic in that sense. It's not as harsh as a Celtic fast, for instance.

[41:48]

There was a penal code, and everything is very clear. And this rule of Isidore lays down everything very succinctly. All the different positions in the monastery, he doesn't just do the fiscal plan, he names all the positions and what they should be doing. It's a very handy rule in that sense, for all the officials. The prior was to take care of all the properties and be the overseer of the various works of the community. The sacristan had charge of everything that had to do with the church. Everything. Period. The porter was the custodian of the entire enclosure. And he was responsible, ultimately, for all the guests. The cellarer was in charge of the storerooms and making sure there was food on the plates, on the tables, and in the storerooms. He was in charge of the livestock.

[42:48]

He was the overseer of some of the work, more of a manual, food-producing nature. And he also was in charge of almsgiving to the poor. And then there are other positions mentioned, gardeners, obviously the gardener is going to be in charge. And besides the cellarer, who is in charge of the alms, there is an almaner in the community. So he must work under the cellarer, regarding the actual giving of alms to the poor, and helping the poor and needy out. The teachers in the community, and the custodian. The custodian. It sounds funny, doesn't it? The custodian. What does the custodian do? Yeah, nowadays, the custodian takes care of the apartment in the city.

[43:54]

So obviously, in the 7th century, they had a little setup where they had their apartment in the city. They called it the cellar, or the cell of the city. And he took charge of that, and I suppose gave hospitality to whatever monks were there in the day. Interesting. The heavy work, the manual labor, and all building projects, all that kind of work, were done by slaves. This is one reason, when there is a lot of building going on, this is one reason why you want to keep slaves. Because they did the work. The monks did manual labor, they worked in the vegetable gardens, the fruit orchards. But the heavy, heavy-duty stuff was done by slaves. There was a lot of stress put on study, and sort of attainment of spiritual perfection,

[44:57]

so it was a serious approach to monasticism, and Isidore, being a learned man himself, did not shun learning. So you have a healthy balance between work, prayer, and study in his monasteries. The actual arrangement, the work of Isidore, is later adopted by Benedict of Anion, he was our friend, Benedict of Anion, and the Cluniac reform, a few weeks down the line we'll be talking about the importance of monasticism. They're very, very indebted to Isidore of Seville and his rule for monks. Now, of course, Benedict of Anion is also going to make the rule of Benedict the rule in the Carolingian Empire.

[45:58]

But it's affected very strongly by Isidore's set-up. And remember, Isidore knows the rule of Benedict. Part of his rule has the rule of Benedict in it. Okay, there's still time to start fructuosus, who is not Fulgencius of Ruspe, but fructuosus of Braco. But up to this point, any questions or discussion? Or comments regarding Spain this time? Eruditism, I just buy it. It's a very strange topic. And looking at it, it's a rather bizarre collection, what's going on at this time. But anyway, there is quite a bit of monasticism going on in Spain during the centuries. And again, as early as the 4th century.

[47:00]

Fructuosus of Braga, you have his dates, we don't know exactly when he was born, we know he died. He was born around the turn of the century, and he died in 665. Here we have a Gothic-Germanic monasticism rooted in Spain, particular to Spain. In 7th century Spain, we see an example of active church life characterized by very practically minded church synods going on. We have luminaries in the Church of Spain at this time. Just like in Gaul, a nice church is being set up, so also in Spain. A lot of it is due to monastics at this time. The difference being that what happens in Gaul for the most part, one exception would be Caesarius in the Diocese of Auro,

[48:05]

but for the most part in Gaul, the setup, you have a lot of synods and stuff going on, but they have an Eastern flavor of how they set up the church, and how they deal with problems in the church. Still during this century. So we're talking 7th century. Whereas in Spain, no. It doesn't have an Eastern flavor at all, it's very Western, it's Gothic, it's barbarian, it's its own animal. Fructuosus, after his studies, became a monk, and he built the monastery of Completum, or also called Concludo, if you run into that word, Completum. And he attracted many disciples, and he rapidly established another number of foundations

[49:06]

around Completum, so that he had his own little congregation in no time at all. Then he became a real monastic founder and reformer. Later on he became the Bishop of Braga, and that's why he's called Entomosis of Braga. But his chief work remained, even as bishop, founding more monasteries, and setting up, making sure things are going well within the propagation of monasticism in Spain at that time. What we have left from Fructuosus are two rules that we know of. These two have actually come down to us. Regula Completum, the rule of Completum, and the Regula Communis. Very interesting documents. The first one, the rule of Completum, is sort of based on the work Isidore had done. So Isidore used the rule of Benedict,

[50:09]

Fructuosus uses Isidore, which uses the rule of Benedict. But with Fructuosus, there's a real strong desert flavor to it, eastern desert. It's real odd, because here you have a Gothic barbarian, and yet he's being influenced by Isidore and Latin-Western monasticism in Benedict, but you can still find within him that his ideal are all the most northern Egyptian swamps and deserts, and that's going to be his model. In this first rule, this Completum, rule of Completum, it seems to have been written for criminals. I kid you not. We have monasteries of criminals, they're like penitentiaries.

[51:10]

And it demands very strict observance, and actively encourages that, according to this rule, no one is ever to be trusted. Very peculiar rule. And the punishments given are very, very cruel and severe. Here's an example. One who wrongs a boy. I don't know what that means. I have a feeling that if it has anything to do with what it meant in the northern Egyptian deserts, it means pederasty. Public scourging, shaving off of all the hair and spat upon by all the monks, public. Then bound with chains and imprisoned for six months on bread alone, three times a week. Afterwards, strict surveillance for another six months while working alone and speaking to absolutely no one.

[52:15]

He should keep his hands to himself, in other words. Real, this is just an example, real strong penal thing. Remember that this rule is being set up for, evidently, for criminals. Or people who have been imprisoned for whatever reason and come into a monastic situation. We're going to find now, with the regular communists, a whole different kind of monasticism coming through this Gothic strain in Spain. Very unique and very strange. That is, and we have a date around 660 for the regular communists. 660. This is intended for a whole congregation of monasteries, this rule, the second one. And it's like a decree coming out of a general chapter where they all got together and passed things through and then came up with the institutions for the congregation. And certain hypotheses given in this document

[53:20]

are governed by certain ecclesiastical conditions in Gothic territories at the time. And so scholars love to look at this stuff because it tells them a lot about what's going on in the Gothic areas at this time. Evidently, there was a lot of anarchy in the mid-7th century in Spain. A lot of anarchy, a lot of massacres and killing, very little safety. And people were joining monasteries because of that, because of these situations, in order to stay alive. And whole families were joining monasteries. And whole families, extended families, were forming monasteries and joining this union, this congregation. And so you have whole monastic colonies

[54:21]

being formed by entire families just moving over and becoming monastics, in which the men and the women are separated, husbands and wives are separated, they live in different dormitories, they have different refectories, they even worship in different churches. Real strange situation. The children are allowed to see their mother and their father, but never together. As opposed to the Celts, Celtic monasticism, where the family life became monastic, here you have the monastic life becoming clansh, and it gets more and more clansh. There is evidence that these people would go out, remember the circumcellians in Northern Africa? These would also go out on raids. They'd go plundering. And there's evidence in the rule of guiding plunder, the plunder parties and whatnot.

[55:23]

They plunder each other. Yeah, but don't do it. Or they plunder people outside the congregation. Not a real healthy situation. There were often bloody disputes between houses in the congregation. Well, again, it's like the Hatfields and the McCoys, when you get this type of thing, where everybody's a blood relative. All you got to do is touch one hair of somebody's and you've got the whole clan on you. Well, that's the situation of fructuosus had to deal with coming out of this general chapter. So you get all these things coming out of this type of situation, with fructuosus saying, what's going on? We've got to put some order into this. And that's how we know about it, what was going on. Soon the moors. The moors are going to come through, and this is gone. It's very short-lived, and very unique, and very odd.

[56:23]

So fructuosus is a reform of this going out of this thing. He's trying to, yeah, because where he started with a number of disciples in his houses, and started a congregation with this rule, later on you have whole family units starting, and they're all, you know, it's just blooming. And what's happening is these people are becoming monastics basically stay alive and have walls around them. And so he's trying to practically deal with this, with all these problems. This is a quote from a document called the Consensoria Uniformum. If, as often happens, a sudden invasion or attack of the enemy takes place, these we're talking about monasteries, so that it is impossible for the brothers to seek flight together because of the pursuit of their enemies,

[57:23]

so they're all scattering to every which direction. And if later they escape with God's help, and shall be able to go wherever they have learned the abbot is, they must hasten thither as sons to a father. Well, this just tells you a little bit about what's going on at this time. This is a regulation. If you can possibly manage to live through this, and you can find the abbot, you have to go to the abbot. Another very interesting thing coming up with this monasticism or fructuosis regarding obedience, very early, we're not going to get to it today though. So I will continue with fructuosis on Wednesday, and we'll go into Anglo-Saxon monasticism in England. So we're going to jump up to England after that. Hey! What's going on?

[58:24]

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