Colette of Corbie: Learning and Holiness

Chapter 1: The Letters

CHapter 1 tHe letters The extant writings of Saint Colette are few and far between . The most significant are administrative in nature (constitutions, advice, opinions, etc.,) dealing with the internal life of reformed communities. There are also letters, addressed either to religious or lay people, discussing precise situations less directly linked to the internal operation of the monasteries. presentation There are actually fifteen letters1 of varied length and significance offering a good sample of the range of Colette’s correspondence. The monasteries kept old copies of these letters . Few originals exist: Le Puy and Poligny have some in a very poor state of preservation. We do not know if they are written by St. Colette’s own hand. We do not even know if she 1 Plus a plea to Pope Martin V, in 1418, asking him to allow her to visit convents in Besançon, Auxonne, and Poligny, – to assign a friar minor to the said convent, “either priest or layman,” for the administration of the sacraments and to support them in their poverty, – not to permit a sister to be transferred to another place without the permission of the abbess and the majority of the discretorium or an explicit apostolic letter. U. D’Alençon, “Documents sur la réforme de sainte Colette en France,” A.F.H., II, 1905. CHAPTER 1 THE LETTERS The extant writings of Saint Colette are few and far between . The most significant are administrative in nature (constitutions, advice, opinions, etc.,) dealing with the internal life of reformed communities. There are also letters, addressed either to religious or lay people, discussing precise situations less directly linked to the internal operation of the monasteries. PRESENTATION There are actually fifteen letters1 of varied length and significance offering a good sample of the range of Colette’s correspondence. The monasteries kept old copies of these letters . Few originals exist: Le Puy and Poligny have some in a very poor state of preservation. We do not know if they are written by St. Colette’s own hand. We do not even know if she 1 Plus a plea to Pope Martin V, in 1418, asking him to allow her to visit convents in Besançon, Auxonne, and Poligny, – to assign a friar minor to the said convent, “either priest or layman,” for the administration of the sacraments and to support them in their poverty, – not to permit a sister to be transferred to another place without the permission of the abbess and the majority of the discretorium or an explicit apostolic letter. U. D’Alençon, “Documents sur la réforme de sainte Colette en France,” A.F.H., II, 1905. LEARNING AND HOLINESS 166 could write. The archivist from Lons-Le-Suanier, M. Hours, considers the letters the work of a number of copyists.2 In any case, Colette’s signature is considered authentic, and there is nothing to contradict the oral tradition. Her literacy is proved by the fact that she read the psalter and recited the office. She must have attended the abbey school. We know however that it was fairly rare to write personally. Letters were usually dictated and then signed by the sender. An initial reading of the Letters reveals a stranger’s hand, if only from the use and frequency of legal expressions and turns of phrase, unlikely to feature in Colette’s vocabulary. The friars provided more than just a spiritual role. As well as collecting alms on behalf of the monastery, they also had to provide intellectual services. Other contemporary documents demonstrate this: Henry, Pierre de Vaux, and Brother Claret were all involved in the business of the order and went to Rome for the constitutions.3 Dates For the fifteen extant letters, we observe the following dates: DATES NUMBER 1416 1 1438 (uncertain date) 1 1439 3 + 1 (uncertain date) 1442 3 1445 1 1446 4 1447? 1 Twenty-two years separate the first and the second, thirty -one years the first and the last. 2 Monsieur Hours believes that the one to the people of Gand, kept in the archives of the town’s monastery and considered authentic until recently, is a copy. 3 H. Lippens, “Henry de Baume, coopérateur de Ste Colette…,” Sacris Erudiri, I, 1948, 235-42 ff. tHe letters 167 Most of the Letters cover the final ten or eleven years of her life. We must assume that many were lost...