Sources of spirituality and the Carolingian exegetical tradition

This study examines how the Regula s. Benedicti as well as other monastic, ascetic and patristic sources helped to shape the religious ideology of major Carolingian writers as well as the original exegetical methods the latter employed in the treatment of their sources. Chapter one discusses the considerable impact the Regula s. Benedicti exercised over Jonas of Orleans' specula principum: the Le metier de roi and De institutione laicali. Yet, as the chapter attempts to demonstrate, other sources such as John Cassian's Institutions cenobitiques and Julius Pomerius' De vita contemplativa were equally important in defining Jonas's spirituality and his exegetical originality. Chapter two discusses how the Carolingian noblewoman Dhuoda manipulated sources such as the Holy Scriptures, the writings of St. Jerome, and the mid sixth-century Verba seniorum in her Manuel pour mon fils to serve as a personal spiritual guide for her son William. Chapter three stresses the significant impact of the sixth-century Regula s. Columbani, the pseudo-Basil's De admonitio ad filium spiritualem and Cassian's Institutions cenobitiques on Alcuin of York's Epistulae and his Liber de virtutibus et vitiis. Chapter four examines Abbot Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel and his original treatment of sources such as the Institutions cenobitiques of Cassian, the pseudo-Basil's De admonitio ad filium spiritualem, the Defensor of Liguge's Liber sscintillarum and Bishop Cyprian of Carthage's third-century De opere eleemosymnis. Chapter five explores Archbishop Hincmar of Reims' original treatment of such sources as the sixth-century Regula s. Benedicti, pseudo-Cyprian's seventh-century De XII abusivis saeculi and Ambrosiaster's late fourth-century commentaries on the Pauline letters. The conclusion suggests the need for further research in order to define the precise relationship between early Carolingian writers and their sources.