The Longer Rule

A third text, which draws heavily on the Rule of Chrodegang and the Institute of Aachen, is that usually known as the ‘Interpolated Rule of Chrodegang’, known from four English and Continental manuscripts. It was first published by d’Achery, from the Paris manuscript, and accepted uncritically as the Rule of Chrodegang (d’Achery 1657–77). Labbé and Mansi, having discovered and published the authentic text of Chrodegang, correctly identified this third Rule as by an ‘unknown author’, though without hazarding a guess as to its date or provenance (Labbé 1671 II, 1–16 Jur.; Mansi XIV, 313–32). Migne, however, although he did reprint Labbé’s text with part of its introduction, also reprinted d’Achery’s text, and placed it first, as if it were Chrodegang’s original version, and the Labbé text were an alternative version or an abridgment. ¹ As a result, d’Achery’s text has continued to be accepted as the ‘Rule of Chrodegang’, and many historians, noticing the identity of many passages with parts of the Rule of Aachen, the Institutio Canonica, have concluded that Aachen came later, and consciously incorporated the Rule of Chrodegang, or expanded the Rule of Chrodegang for wider use (see p. 2, above). As we have seen, the Institutio Canonica does not in fact display any knowledge of the text of the original Rule of Chrodegang, and there can be no doubt that this third text is later, probably considerably later, than the date of the Council of Aachen.