Author Description

"The Glosae de diuersis doctoribus collectae in Regula S. Benedicti abbatis is a unique source for analyzing how scholars contextualized and read the text chosen to guide Carolingian monastic reforms. The Glosae consists of two parts, a catena-glossary of ca. 1100 elementary terms of the Regula Benedicti, and a florilegium of more than 360 extracts from a wide range of biblical and patristic texts. Both the glossary and the florilegium follow closely the chapters of the Regula Benedicti. Especially the glossary indicates that the Regula had a curious double function of a text to be studied and a text that was used as a tool for learning Latin. Moreover, the glossary is one of the earliest witnesses to the popularity of the Liber Glossarum in the early ninth century. Like the Liber Glossarum, the Glosae testifies to that remarkable Carolingian spirit of ordering, correcting, preserving, and renewing ancient wisdom. Both the glossary and the florilegium have been used by Smaragdus of St-Mihiel (d. c. 827), the chief monastic reformer of his generation, for the Expositio in Regulam Sancti Benedicti -- the oldest and best known commentary to the Rule. The florilegium of the Glosae is structured in a way that is similar to Benedict of Aniane's Concordia Regularum, a work that juxtaposes the Regula Benedicti with other monastic rules. The Glosae provides a counter model to the Concordia's normative understanding of the Regula Benedicti by contextualizing it with ascetical, doctrinal, exegetic and pastoral texts.--