The Conflict between Observant and Conventual Reformed Franciscans in Fifteenth-Century France and Flanders

THE CONFUCT BETWEEN OBSERVANT AND CONVENTUAL REFORMED FRANCISCANS IN FIFTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE AND FLANDERS Characteristic of the factionalism within the Franciscan movement in the fifteenth century was the conflict in France between the Observant Franciscans and the Reformed Conventual Franciscans, called Coletan after their spiritual leader, St. Colette of Corbie (1381-1447). The conflict was only imperfectly resolved by the papal directive of 1517 which joined the two reforms together. The two groups, though apparently natural allies in their attack upon the lax standards of the unreformed Conventuals, differed on one policy only: whether their communities should be under the direct supervision of a Vicar General or instead report to the Provincial, and through him to the Minister General of the Franciscan Order. The quarrel ensuing from this seemingly small procedural matter caused severe animosity between the two groups and substantially impeded the movement toward reform in some areas of France and Flanders. Moreover, the struggle between the two reforms of the men's order had dire consequences for the major reform of the Order of St. Clare undertaken by St. Colette. Thus, in an irony that St. Colette had predicted and found deeply unfortunate, her reform of the First Order of St. Francis brought about one of the hardest struggles faced by the reformed Second Order, the Order of St. Clare. A policy of separation from the Observance had begun with Colette, under the influence of her Franciscan confessor Bl. Henry of Baume (d. 1439), and she never wavered in her conviction that her reform should not join with the Observant movement. After her death, the convents under her reform held fast to this principle, despite its cost. Sadly, by the end of the fifteenth century, both nuns and friars of the Colettine reform were being attacked, threatened, and even forcibly coerced by enemies who should have been their natural allies. Colette's reform began in 1406 with a vision in which God 264MARIE RICHARDS and St. Francis commanded her to undertake the reform of all three Franciscan Orders: the men's and women's regular Orders , and the tertiary or secular Order.1 Leaving her recluse's cell in Corbie, Colette traveled to Nice to receive permission to put her idea into effect from the Avignonese pope Benedict XIII; from there she returned to the north of France and then settled in Franche-Comté, to begin her reform activity at the Clarissan convent at Besançon. During the years until Colette's death in 1447, the struggles of the men's branch remained somewhat apart from the Clarissan, or Colettine, movement. But the two movements were bound together practically, in that the convents drew their chaplains from Coletan friaries, and spiritually, in that both groups looked for leadership to Colette and her advisor, Henry of Baume. Henry had come to Corbie in 1406, apparently before Colette had her vision, and shortly after the death of her first confessor, the Franciscan John Pinet. Henry remained with Colette and her reform to the end of his life, serving as her spiritual director and as the leader of the reformed friars.2 According to a near-contemporary source, Sr. Katherine Rufiné, Henry had first been at the Franciscan friary at Mirebeau before coming to join Colette.3 Henry had apparently left Mirebeau because of a dispute with the friars there over authority. In fact, Mirebeau effectively joined itself to the Observant movement in 1407 when it received permission from Pope Benedict XIII to be exempted from the control of the Franciscan Provincial, and put under the authority of a Vicar.4 Henry and Colette, by contrast, did not want their movement to break away from the traditional form of supervision. Sr. Katherine Rufiné describes the scene leading to Henry's departure from Mirebeau as follows: 1 Acta Sanctorum March Vol. I (1865) 531-626; the original French of the biographies has been published by Ubald d'Alençon, O.F.M. Cap., in Les vies de Sainte Colette Boylet de Corbie . . . écrites par ses contemporains ... , in Archives Franciscaines 4 (Paris, 1911). 2 The influences on Henry's thought have been discussed by Duncan Nimmo in his recent study, Reform and Division...