THE Regula Magistri, is an anonymous monastic Rule written by ‘the Master’ in Italy. perhaps in a region southeast of Rome c. 500–25. It appears c. 817 in the Codex Regularum of St Benedict of Aniane, the great Carolingian monastic reformer. Because it is in part verbally identical with the prologue and chapters 1–7 of the Rule of St. Benedict, it was thought to be later than this until A. Génestout, OSB, in 1940 declared St Benedict to be the borrower. This assertion opened a lively and widespread debate which continued for 20 years.  Presently almost all scholars give priority to the Regula Magistri.

The Regula Magistri is diffuse and disorderly. The monastery of the Master, though similar to that of St Benedict, is smaller and simpler, with many homely, if complex and sometimes-bizarre rituals.  The text hints at an imperious, condescending leader, often-suspicious of his subjects.

While textual and palaeographical evidence is inconclusive, liturgy and observance suggests the priority of the Regula Magistri.  Vocabulary and grammar seem decisive in favour of separate authorship (i.e. the Regula Magistri is not a first recension of the Rule of St Benedict), though possibly the Regula Magistri may stand between two redactions of the Rule of St Benedict.

The RM probably was not often copied because of its length and because it was probably not followed in many (any?) monasteries after the time of its author.  No monastery is known to have followed it as a rule.  Therefore, we have but few manuscripts—only three complete and several fragmentary copies. Two of these, however, are older than any manuscript of the RB. The Paris Codex P, which contains the entire rule, dates from the early seventh century, and Codex E, the only surviving copy of the florilegium attributed to Eugippius, which contains sixteen extracts from the RM, is probably even earlier, from the end of the sixth century. The composition of the rule, therefore, must belong to the sixth century at the very latest, and internal evidence points to the opening decades of the century.

Diplomatic edn. by H. Vanderhoven, F. Masai, and P. B. Corbett (Publications de Scriptorium, 3; Brussels and Paris, 1953); text also ed., with Fr. tr. and introd., by A. de Vogüé, OSB, and others (SC 105–7; 1964–5). M. J. Cappuyns, OSB, Lexique de la Regula Magistri (Instrumenta Patristica, 6; 1964) A. Génestout, OSB, ‘La Règle du Maître et la Règle de S. Benoît’, Revue d’Ascétique et de Mystique, 21 (1940), pp. 51–122. B. Steidle, OSB (ed.), Regula Magistri, Regula S. Benedicti: Studia Monastica (Studia Anselmiana, 44; 1959), with extensive bibl. The Regula Magistri and the Rule of St Benedict are set out in parallel by B. Guevin, OSB, Synopsis Fontesque (Regulae Benedicti Studia, Supplementum 10; 1999). M. D. *Knowles, Great Historical Enterprises [1963], pp. 135–95. See also works cited s.v. benedict, rule of st, esp. introd. to edns. of R. Hanslik and of J. Neufville, OSB, and A. de Vogüé, OSB.