9 I 2025: Cezary Rudnicki (UMCS), The long duration of the Augustinian admonitio: From theology to politics

One of the best-known documents of the Carolingian era is the capitulary issued by Charlemagne in 789 and titled Admonitio generalis by its modern editor. Although we find many documents of this type in the following centuries—such as Admonitio ad omnes regni ordines by Louis the Pious or the anonymous Admonitio synodalis—they seem to have no precedent in the times before the Carolingians came to power. And yet, the term admonitio, which expresses the nature of these documents, was not absent from late antique literature. Far more often than in legal texts, however, we find it in the literature of pastoral theology. Its proper source seems to be the treatises of Augustine of Hippo written between 386 and 391. In suggesting the possibility of a transfer of the concept of admonitio from theology to politics, I would like not only to reconstruct the meanings that Augustine inscribed in it, but also to look at the techniques of governance inscribed in late antique pastoral treatises. In my paper, I will try to show what a philosopher of politics sees when he reads ancient monastic rules or treatises like De correptione et gratia or Liber Regulae Pastoralis.