Colette of Corbie: Learning and Holiness

Chapter 5: Monastery Life or Living the Heritage

CHapter 5 Monastery life or liVing tHe Heritage Monasteries and soCiety A study of some of the Colettine Clarisses provides insight into certain aspects of the relationship between the monastery and society. Recruitment from Society The founders of the various male or female monasteries had one or more members of their own families in the Colettine reform, including: From the first generation: – Élisabeth de Bavière, daughter of Mahaut, niece of Blanche of Geneva. – Perrine de Baume, niece of Brother Henry de Baume and Colette’s biographer. – Isabeau and Marie, the two daughters of Jacques de Bourbon. – Catherine and Bonne, granddaughters of Jacques de Bourbon, daughters of Bernard d’Armagnac. – Guillemette, Countess of Valentinois. CHAPTER 5 MONASTERY LIFE OR LIVING THE HERITAGE MONASTERIES AND SOCIETY A study of some of the Colettine Clarisses provides insight into certain aspects of the relationship between the monastery and society. Recruitment from Society The founders of the various male or female monasteries had one or more members of their own families in the Colettine reform, including: From the first generation: – Élisabeth de Bavière, daughter of Mahaut, niece of Blanche of Geneva. – Perrine de Baume, niece of Brother Henry de Baume and Colette’s biographer. – Isabeau and Marie, the two daughters of Jacques de Bourbon. – Catherine and Bonne, granddaughters of Jacques de Bourbon, daughters of Bernard d’Armagnac. – Guillemette, Countess of Valentinois. LEARNING AND HOLINESS 466 From the second generation: – Philippine de Chalon, sister-in-law of Louise de Chalon . – Louise of Savoy, wife of Hugues de Chalon, daughter of Amadeus IX. – Philippa de Gueldre, dowager duchess of Lorraine. – Marguerite, her sister-in-law, wife of the Duke d’Alençon. The lists of abbesses or sisters that have come down to us from this period carry their particular names. The Annals of the monasteries of Puy, Poligny, and Amiens give the family names of the provincial nobility or the upper bourgeoisie.1 Thus, Marie Chevalier from Besançon belonged, according to her biographer, to a “family endowed with wealth and property,”2 and Etiennette Hannequin, mentioned by Perrine , was the daughter of a rich merchant. In turn, the presence of the daughters of the aristocracy certainly attracted vocations from the nobility or the provincial middle classes, as suggested in the Letter to the inhabitants of Amiens.3 Monastery governance most frequently lay in the hands of these sisters, who either became abbesses or held other important responsibilities within the community (vicar, councilor, etc.). Even if, like Philippa de Gueldre, they refused election as abbess, they still played an important part in supporting the reform and could build oratories or commission works of art within the monastery. However, Louise of Savoy did not seem to have exercised any authority. Catherine de Saulx, her biographer and former lady-in-waiting, commented on her humility: she carried out inferior work, perhaps because of her frail health. 1 At Orbe, for instance, the list of abbesses includes: Mahaut de la Baume, François d’Aubonne, Catherine de Gavid. At Amiens, the abbess who opposed Catherine de la Marche’s departure was Marguerite de Belleval . 2 Abbé De Saint-Laurent, Ms., 343. 3 P. De Vaux, Part 2. Monastery life or living tHe Heritage 467 An interesting document reveals that, in fact, governance of a monastery might occasionally have been assigned to a particular sister just because of her parentage. It involves a bull sent to Pierre de Vaux by Pope Nicholas V4 (October 23, 1448), permitting ten religious brothers and ten religious sisters of illegitimate birth to exercise offices in the cloister and to act as abbess. Since the original of this bull is in the Amiens archives, it is possible that one of the princesses, a daughter of Jacques de Bourbon, perhaps Isabeau, was illegitimate . In the documents, she is given the name Jeanne and was the first abbess of Amiens. Furthermore, her sister, Marie de la Marche, was vicar. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there were still many abbesses who belonged to the nobility, but there were few if any great families represented, and just as many abbesses seemed to have come from the bourgeoisie. In Péronne, the sixteenth-century abbesses were noblewomen: Jeanne de Famechon (†1504), Jeanne de Caulincourt (†1560), and Françoise du Bourg (†1561). This does not mean that no middleclass women had responsibility at this time. At the monastery of Vieil-Hesdin,5 besides Agnès de...