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Миряне в вестготских монастырях (на примере третьего канона III Сарагосского собора (691 г.) и вестготских монашеских уставов)
The present article considers the third canon of the III council in Zaragoza, which regulates the stay of the laypeople in the monastery. This decree, as well as the Visigothic monastic rules, permit us to identify the main causes of conflicts that arise between monks and laity. In the second half of the 7th century the Visigothic kingdom of Toledo entered a crisis phase. Small and middling landowners went bankrupt, their lands were bought up for next to nothing or simply taken away by the magnates, who felt themselves with impunity because the royal power was weakened. In fact, the only refuge for the poor and disadvantaged was the monastery, the abbot of which could resist the arbitrariness of the magnates. As the “Regula communis” testifies, that whole families often entered the monastery, with wives and small children. All this affected the discipline of the monks. According to the canon of the council in Zaragoza, the laypeople prevent the monks from working and violate their daily routine. Conversations with the laity inspire monks with a desire to return to the world, to seek wealth and honors. According to church authors, this leads both to death for a particular monk, and to damage to the entire monastery and undermining monastic discipline. There was a big problem due to the conflicts over property, because, leaving the monastery, the monk began to demand back the funds invested by him. Thus, the laity appears as a serious threat to the monastic way of life. However, the council did not forbid the abbots to provide asylum to the needy, but only limited this right. From now on, only the poor and the oppressed can be accepted into the monastery, while their way of life should not cause complaints from the abbot. The guests should settle in buildings specially designated for this, thus limiting their contacts with the brethren.
Despite the rhetoric of church authors that denounced the laity, the monastery remained a place of refuge for the socially unprotected segments of the population and in this sense was closely connected with society.