Prosopographie Génovéfaine: Répertoire biographique des Chanoines Réguliers de Saint Augustin de la Congrégation de France (1624–1789)

The French congregation of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, headquartered at the abbey of St. Genevieve in Paris, was a major manifestation of the resurgence and renewal of religious life and of priesthood that occurred in seventeenth-century France. Several French scholars have recently brought attention to this congregation, Yves Breton and Isabelle Brian among them. Brian's 1994 doctoral dissertation on this topic was published as Messieurs de Sainte-Geneviève (Paris, 2001). In contrast to many French historians, Brian enjoys the gift of succinctness. In a very helpful preface (pp. 7–14) to the present work by Nicolas Petit, Brian explains that within ten years of 1624, when reform of the abbey of St. Genevieve began, the number of canons had soared and a national congregation created. The years of the reign of King Louis XIV correspond to the golden age of the congregation. In the eighteenth century, the congregation suffered internal division between Jansenists and Jansenist opponents; the 1745 chapter of the congregation took a firm position against Jansenism. The eighteenth century also saw a decline in vocations, although numbers were rising again by the 1770s. Most of the canons were priests, and parish work was the most frequent occupation. Brian praises Petit's work for many things, not the least of which is its inclusion of what ex-canons did after the National Assembly dissolved the congregation in 1790.

An archivist, Petit was for a long period conservator at the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève in Paris and more recently has been a rare book librarian at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. In his introduction to this volume, Petit explains that he devoted seventeen years of research to gathering the information needed. He points out what is and is not included in this prosopography: this is an alphabetical catalog of the 5352 members of the congregation for the years 1624–1789. Each entry includes names with variant spellings; dates of birth, religious profession, and death; functions or offices and appointments held; and indications of where to find more information on a canon. The volume also provides a useful table of dates of profession, a chronological necrology, indices of places, and a map showing where the 119 houses of the congregation were located. The northern half of France was more endowed with these houses than was the south. Although Petit adds a bibliography of both primary and secondary sources he has used, he does not mention works published by the canons themselves. This is indeed the subject of his current research, and he promises that such a bibliographical volume will be forthcoming to accompany the present work.

At first glance, this large volume looks no more tantalizing than a telephone directory. Yet it is a reference work full of significant information for any scholar interested in religion and society in early-modern France, and it certainly belongs in any serious research library.