The So-Called "Monastic Rules" of Early Ireland

A number of Early Irish (700-1200) texts were once ascribed by scholars to the genre of ‘monastic rules'. More recently, other scholars have implicitly disputed the classification by eschewing the term ‘monasatic', seeming to prefer to intrepret such texts as general precepts for the Christian life, directed at lay and religious alike. This presentation will survey the corpus of relevant and related texts and seek to advance our understanding of their function in Early Irish society, their target public and their appropriate characterization.