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The Abbatial Election at Citeaux in 1625

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Louis J. Lekai
Louis J. Lekai
Affiliation:
Father Lekai is professor of history in theUniversity of Dallos
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Extract

The sixteenth century was a crucial period in the history of French monasticism. In addition to the causes of a general decline throughout Europe, in France two peculiar developments precipitated a nearly fatal collapse of monastic establishments. One was the commendatory system that spread over the whole country following the Concordat of Bologna in 1516. Royally appointed commendatory abbots, whose only concern was the collection of their share of monastic income, contributed much to the moral and material decline of the institutions supposedly under their care. The other and even more devastating calamity was the series of religious and civil wars during the second half of the century that resulted in the pillage and partial or total destruction of hundreds of monasteries.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , March 1970 , pp. 30 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1970

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References

1. See for background and bibliography articles “Citeaux (abbaye),” and “Citeaux (ordre)” by Canivez, J. -M. in Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, vol. XII (Paris, 1951), cols. 852–997Google Scholar; King, Archdale A., Cîteaux and her Elder Daughters (London, 1954), pp. 1–105Google Scholar; Lekai, Louis J., “Moral and Material Status of French Cistercian Abbeys in the Seventeenth Century,” Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis, 19 (1963), 199–266.Google Scholar

2. Goutagny, Etienne, “Le pillage de l'abbaye de Cîteaux par Guillaume de Sank, seigneur de Tavanues, le 16 Octobre 1589,” Cîteaux, 13 (1962), 233–237.Google Scholar

3. The General Chapter of 1601 spent much time and effort to facilitate Cîteaux's recovery. See the opening speech of La Croix assessing the situation in the municipal library of Chalon-sur-Saône, no. 2268 (283), a unique printed copy. Other unpublished details are in Luzern (Switzerland), Staatsarchiv, MS H 544, pp. 259–264. The detailed reform decrees adopted by the Chapter were published by Canivez, J.-M, Statuta Capitulorum Generalium Ordinis Cisterciensis (Louvain, 1939), VII, 193–250.Google Scholar

4. Archives Nationales (Paris), LL 988, fol. 71.

5. On the origins of the reform consult Zakar, Polycarpe, Histoire de la Stricte Observance de l'Ordre Cistercien depuis ses débuts jusqu'au généralat du Cardinal de Richelieu (Rome, 1966)Google Scholar, or, Lekai, Louis J., The Rise of the Cistercian Strict Observance (Washington, 1968).Google Scholar

6. Concerning factual details the best guide is an unpublished manuscript by Dom Nicolas Cotheret, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de l'abbaye de Cîteaux, in the archives of the abbey of Tainié (Savoic), fols, 256–280. The existence of this work has been known for some time, but it has never been exploited. In addition to the copy at Taimié (in 585 folios) there are two other copies, both in the municipal library of Dijon (MSS 2474, pp. 517; 2475, pp. 851). The author was a professed monk of Cîteaux, doctor of the Sorbonne, librarian and archivist of the abbey during the first four decades of the eighteenth century. He completed the above manuscript in 1738, but was unable to publish it because of his highly critical attitude toward the administration of Cîteaux. In his view the taste of power spoiled even the most promising abbots and they all ended their careers as tyrants. His tone is often that of a pamphleteer but he uses and quotes a large number of subsequently lost documents. In the absence of other references, the text below follows Cotheret's work.

7. Cotheret, op. cit. (MS of Tamié), fols. 256–259.

8. des Barres, Chaillou, de Pontigny, L'abbaye (Paris, 1844), pp. 175–176.Google Scholar

9. See these details among the papers of La Rochefoueauld in Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève (Paris), MS 3247, fols. 89–103.

10. Cotheret, op. cit., fol 261.

11. Zakar, op. cit., pp. 75–84.

12. The same Zamet was dispatched in April by the cardinal to settle the troubled affairs of Clairvaux, although his mission there ended in a humiliating failure. Zakar, op. cit., p. 73.

13. Bibl. Ste-Geneviève, MS 3247, fols. 441–450.

14. The King's letter to Béthune, dated April 8, 1626, is quoted in Cotheret, op. cit., fols. 278–279.

15. See the full history of the movement of reform in Lekai, The Rise of the Cistercian Strict Observance.