IV.1.3
THE DEAN
(DECANUS)
The dean was in charge of the spiritual conduct of the
monks and of monastic discipline. Wala informs us that he
took the responsibility for the monastery as a whole, as the
third in command, when the abbot and the prior were
absent.[35]
Originally the term decanus was a denotation for
the leader of a group of ten men, both in secular and in
ecclesiastical life. Wala uses the title in the singular form,
clear evidence that by the ninth century the institution of
multiple deanships had made allowance for the emergence
of a senior dean who could act as vicegerent for the abbot
or prior. The division of the community of monks into
groups of ten, each under the spiritual and disciplinary
supervision of a dean, is an old monastic custom attested by
St. Jerome, St. Augustine, Cassian[36]
and St. Benedict.
St. Benedict stipulates that they be chosen "not by order
(of seniority) but according to their worthiness of life,
learning and wisdom."[37]
He preferred a division of power
among deans to the centralization of authority in the person
of a prior, since "the business being thus shared by
many, no individual will become proud."[38]
A late reflection
of this influence can be seen in the rulings of the Council of
Mainz (813), which also favored the sole institution of
deans,[39]
but it was revoked by the first synod of Aachen in
816. Until the beginning of the ninth century, however, the
deans had occupied a rank superior to that of the prior in
such monasteries as Fulda, Reichenau, St. Gall, and Weissenburg.[40]
