manuscript

Newsnote: Louis XIV manuscript letter is acquired.

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The Vincentiana Collection of Archives and Special Collections at DePaul University has recently acquired a July 1650 manuscript letter of Louis XIV to his ambassador in Rome supporting the canonization of the famous Barbe Acarie or as she was known in her Carmelite convent: Soeur Marie de l’Incarnation.

Transcription, Translation, and Annotation below.

Thanks to Matthieu Brejon and John Rybolt for their assistance.

Transcription

[Louis XIV to Valencey] Mons[ieur] le Bailly de Vallencey. Les miracles que Dieu a operez depuis le décédz de Sœur Marie de l’Incarnaton, fondatrice en France et religieuse de l’ordre des Carmelites, et les graces particulières que ceux qui ont eu recours à elle dans leurs nécessités ont receues par ses prieres et intercessions sont sy admirables qu’elles m’ont confirmé dans l’oppinion que j’avais déjà conçue de la sainteté de sa vye. L’exemple en a été d’une telle édiffication à mes subjects qu’elle a servi à raviver leur devotion et à leur donner de l’emulation pour la suivre, et de faict plusieurs d’entre eux pour faire de plus grands progrez dans la vertu et resister plus puissamment aux tentations des demons se sont resolus de se munir souvent des sacrements de la confession et de la communion. L’usage fréquent que l’on en a faict pendant sa vye a été d‘une telle utillité qu’il a beaucoup contribué a arrester le cours de l’heresie qui continuoit ses progrez dans diverses provinces de nostre Royaume et les soingz quelle a pris pour la refformation de plusieurs monasteres de filles, et l’establissement qu’ell’a faict en France de l’ordre des Carmelittes sont desormais sy meritoires et sy aggreables à Dieu qu’il ne faut point doutter qu’ils n’attirent du Ciel de grandes benedictions sur ce Royaume. Touttes ces raisons me font desirer de voir la vertu de cette bienheureuse reçue comme il se doit dans l’Eglise, tant par ce qu’elle servira beaucoup à l’advancement de la gloire de Jesus Christ, qui fera redoubler la devotion de mes subjects particullierement lorsqu’ilz scauront que nostre Saint Père le Pape, par un surcroise d’estime et de croyance, me l’aura accordëe. C’est pourquoy je vous escris cette lettre par l’advis de la Reyne Regente madame ma mere pour vous dire que vous ayez à presenter à sa sainteté la lettre que je luy escris sur ce suiect et, suivant icelle, faire touttes les instances qui seront necessaires de ma part et amener sa sainteté à ce qu’elle prononce la Cannonisation de cette grande servante de Dieu et pour cet effect qu’on face expedyer et deslivrer touttes les bulles et autres expeditions appostoliques necessaires, suivant les memoires et instructions plus amples qui vous en seront addressëes. Auxquelles me remettant je prye Dieu qu’il vous aye, Monsieur le Bailly de Vallencey, en sa sainte garde. Escrit à Paris ce mois de Juillet 1650. Louis [Side 2] [Addressed] A Mons[ieur] le Bailly de [Vallenc]ey con … cou.els […] a Rome. Monsieur le Bailly de Valancey.

English Translation

The miracles which God has granted since the death of Sister Marie de l’Incarnation, religious, and founder in France of the order of the Carmelites, and the graces which have been received by those who have prayed for her intercession are so admirable that they have confirmed the opinion I had already formed of the sanctity of her life. Her holy example has provided great edification to my subjects who in their devotion have sought to follow her example and vowed to make great progress in virtue by strongly resisting the demons which so resolutely try to distract them from the sacraments of confession and communion. The example of the frequent usage she made of these sacraments in her life has greatly contributed to stop the spread of the heresy which has grown in various provinces of our Kingdom. The great care that she took to reform so many monasteries of women and the establishment which she made in France of the Order of Carmelites are so meritorious and pleasing to God that it is beyond doubt that these actions have attracted Heaven’s blessing upon Our Kingdom. All of these reasons have led me to wish that the virtue of this blessed religious will be recognized by the Church and thus greatly contribute to the advancement of the glory of Jesus Christ and in particular to increase the devotion and esteem of my subjects for our Holy Father the Pope. It is for this reason, at the advice of the Queen-Regent, my mother that I am writing you on this subject. Do all that you can on my behalf to urge His Holiness to canonize this great servant of God. In order to accomplish this please forward all the bulls and other necessary Apostolic documents following the detailed instructions which I am sending to you. I pray that God will preserve you Monsieur le Bailly de Valancey. From Paris this month of July 1650. LOUIS

Blessed Marie de l’Incarnation (Barbe Acarie) (1566-1618). One of the key spiritual figures of the famous l’age d’or (age of gold) which provided the basis for the reform of the French Catholic church at the dawn of the 17th century. A noble widow, and mother of seven children Madame Acarie belonged to the circle of the dévots in France. She helped to bring to France the Discalced Carmelites founded by Teresa of Avila (1603). She also played a role in the founding of the French Oratory of Jesus with her cousin Pierre de Berulle, as well as bringing the Ursulines to France. She was renowned for her charity, mysticism, and zeal for the faith. After the death of her husband in 1614 she entered the Carmel at Amiens as a lay sister. She died in 1616. She was beatified by Pius VI in 1791,

Henri d’Estampes-Valençay (1603-1678) as a child was enrolled in the order of Saint John of Jerusalem (the Order of Malta). He rose to the high position of bailiff in the order. He was a knight, and successively served as the commander in Metz, general in chief of the French navy, and general of the galleys of Malta. He served as French ambassador to the Holy See from 1652 to 1654, then as ambassador to Venice. He rose in positions of leadership and prominence in the Order of Malta. His desire for a cardinal’s hat was frustrated by the promotion of Jean-François de Gondi the Cardinal de Retz as coadjutor to his uncle, the archbishop of Paris. Valencay died in Malta in 1678.

The Coste edition of Vincent de Paul’s Correspondence, Conferences and Douments, records one letter of the saint to him in November 1653 (Volume 5, pg 54). There are two other mentions of the ambassador. (Volume 4, pgs. 271 and 585).

Louis XIV (1638-1715) at age 5 succeeded his father Louis XIII to the throne of France. His mother Anne of Austria (1601-1666) served as regent from 1643 to 1651 when at age 13 the king reached his majority. The Queen and Cardinal Mazarin continued to play key roles in the kingdom until the king undertook his personal rule in 1661 after Mazarin’s death.

Newsnote: Rare Seton Letter Acquired

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DePaul University
Vincentian Studies Institute of the United States

The Vincentian Studies Institute of the United States located at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois, is happy to announce the acquisition of a four-page manuscript Seton family letter. The handwritten letter is dated May 18, 1816. It is addressed to William Seton (1796-1868) at Leghorn (Livorno) Italy with portions written by his two younger sisters and his mother. The first page is from Rebecca Seton (1802-1816). The second page is from Catherine (Kit) Seton (1800-1891). Saint Elizabeth Seton adds 18 lines on the final two pages. The Seton autograph of this letter is found as 7.25 in Elizabeth Bayley Seton Collected Writings, volume 2, p. 396-397. The editors of this series noted the letter was based on a photo-copy, and the location of the original was unknown. Just over two hundred years after it was written, this precious document returns to the possession of the Vincentian family. The letter will join the extensive Vincentiana Collection in the Archives and Special Collections of DePaul University’s, John T. Richardson Library.

Newsnote: Vincentian Research Library Purchase: Saint-Lazare as a juvenile detention center

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The Vincentian Research Library in Special Collections at DePaul University’s Richardson Library has recently purchased a 1696 manuscript entitled: “Arrests de la Cour de Parlement pour la correction des Enfans mineurs.” This document summarizes parlement’s decrees governing the incarceration of minors by their parents or guardians in Paris. The documents summarizes the decrees issues on 13 March 1673, 14 March 1678, and 27 October 1696. When Saint Vincent agreed to take possession of old Saint-Lazare in 1632 the Congregation of the Mission inherited seigneurial responsibilities for the administration of justice. In addition to wayward clerics, Saint-Lazare became a house of correction for juvenile youth. This fascinating document gives us new insights into Saint-Lazare as a penal institution during the Ancien Regime. The introduction to the document reads: “ARRESTS DE LA COUR DE PARLMENET…..Portant reglement general pour les Enfans mineurs que les Peres peuvent faire constituer prisonniers par correction dans la prison pour ce destinee, qui est a present celle de l’Officialite au lieu de Villeneuve sur Gravois, ou dans la Maison de Saint Lazare, jusques a l’age de vingt cinq ans, si ce n’est que les Peres ayent convole a de secondes noces; auquel case il ne le peuvent faire, non plus que les Mere tutrices & autres parens; sans l’Ordonnance de Lieutenant Civil du Chastelet; lequel pourra (si il le judge a propos) prendre l’avis de quelques uns des parents plus proches, tant du coste paternerl que maternel desdits Enfans mineurs.”

Book of the week: “Status Interaction during the Reign of Louis XIV.” Giora Sternberg

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From the publisher: The first study to address social status in Louis XIV’s court as a key tool for defining and redefining identities, relations, and power. Offers perspectives on members of the court, rather than the usual perspective of the Sun King himself Draws from a wide variety of printed and manuscript sources. Who preceded whom? Who wore what? Which form of address should one use? One of the most striking aspects of the early modern period is the crucial significance that contemporaries ascribed to such questions. In this hierarchical world, status symbols did not simply mirror a pre-defined social and political order; rather, they operated as a key tool for defining and redefining identities, relations, and power. Centuries later, scholars face the twofold challenge of evaluating status interaction in an era where its open pursuit is no longer as widespread and legitimate, and of deciphering its highly sophisticated and often implicit codes.

Status Interaction during the Reign of Louis XIV addresses this challenge by investigating status interaction – in dress as in address, in high ceremony and in everyday life – at one of its most important historical arenas: aristocratic society at the time of Louis XIV. By recovering actual practices on the ground based on a wide array of printed and manuscript sources, it transcends the simplistic view of a court revolving around the Sun King and reveals instead the multiple perspectives of contesting actors, stakes, and strategies. Demonstrating the wide-ranging implications of the phenomenon, macro-political as well as micro-political, this study provides a novel framework for understanding early modern action and agency. Readership: Scholars and students of the early modern period, of Louis XIV and his court, and of social and political interaction in an historical context.

Oxford University Press, 224 pages. ISBN: 978-0-19-964034-8.

Newsnote: “Purchase of the Week: The Vincentiana Collection at DePaul University.”

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The Vincentiana Collection at the Special Collections and Archives of DePaul University has a program to purchase Vincentian art, material culture, books and manuscripts for its collection which is the largest in the world. This new blog feature will showcase the “purchase of the week.”

The above is a French tapestry processional banner of Saint Vincent de Paul and two children. Embroidery, red velvet, gold-lame trim. c. first half of the 20th century.

VHRN Book of the Week

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From Penitence to Charity, By Barbara B. Diefendorf, 368 pages; 7 halftones; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; ISBN13: 978-0-19-509583-8ISBN10: 0-19-509583-9

Winner of the J. Russell Major Prize of the American Historical Association

Description
From Penitence to Charity radically revises our understanding of women’s place in the institutional and spiritual revival known as the Catholic Reformation. Focusing on Paris, where fifty new religious congregations for women were established in as many years, it examines women’s active role as founders and patrons of religious communities, as spiritual leaders within these communities, and as organizers of innovative forms of charitable assistance to the poor. Rejecting the too common view that the Catholic Reformation was a male-dominated movement whose principal impact on women was to control and confine them, the book shows how pious women played an instrumental role, working alongside–and sometimes in advance of–male reformers. At the same time, it establishes a new understanding of the chronology and character of France’s Catholic Reformation by locating the movement’s origins in a penitential spirituality rooted in the agonies of religious war. It argues that a powerful desire to appease the wrath of God through acts of heroic asceticism born of the wars did not subside with peace but, rather, found new outlets in the creation of austere, contemplative convents. Admiration for saintly ascetics prompted new vocations, and convents multiplied, as pious laywomen rushed to fund houses where, enjoying the special rights accorded founders, they might enter the cloister and participate in convent life. Penitential enthusiasm inevitably waned, while new social and economic tensions encouraged women to direct their piety toward different ends. By the 1630s, charitable service was supplanting penitential asceticism as the dominant spiritual mode. Capitalizing on the Council of Trent’s call to catechize an ignorant laity, pious women founded innovative new congregations to aid less favored members of their sex and established lay confraternities to serve society’s outcasts and the poor. Their efforts to provide war relief during the Fronde in particular deserve recognition.

Reviews
“From Penitence to Charity is an important work that goes far to explain the intense religious enthusiasm of the first half of the century of the saints and that shows the crucial role that elite women played in helping to define this spiritualityIt furthers our understanding of the roles that women played in early modern European society and reinforces our view of the Catholic Reformation as a movement profoundly shaped by lay involvement rather than engineered and imposed by clerics.”–Journal of Modern History

“Barbara Diefendorf’s new book on the leading role played by aristocratic and bourgeois women in the French Catholic revival marks the triumphant completion of a trilogy of books transformed our understanding of Paris in the era of the Catholic and Protestant Reformations. Diefendorf’s lucid and straightforward prose will ensure that the books becomes essential reading to students and scholars of the Counter-Reformation. This is women’s history at its best; rather than apply anachronistic interpretative models to slippery evidence, she builds strong narrative by letting female actors speak for themselves and in so doing she permits us to get as close as we can to their world, their experiences, and to the possibilities of female agency in the early modern public sphere.” —The Sixteenth Century Journal

“Relying on an impressive abundance of primary sources, printed and manuscript, Diefendorf identifies several developments during and just after the French wars of the later decades of the 1500s. This book will be very significant for historians of early modern France and for scholars interested in the interactions of religion, gender, and culture.”–Theological Studies

“From Penitence to Charity is one of the most important studies of the Catholic Reform to date. This book will change our understanding of the reform movement and gender.”–Renaissance Quarterly

“This book will be very significant for historians of early modern France and for scholars interested in the interactions of religion, gender, and culture.”–Theological Studies

“To say that Barbara Diefendorf’s third monograph is her most significant contribution is saying something indeed. From Penitence to Charity bears all the hallmarks of Diefendorf’s fine scholarly hand: meticulous research, nuanced analysis, and narrative richness. It is, however, a more ambitious project, one that deftly weaves together gender, religion, economics, and politics to explain the spiritual renewal of the seventeenth century. In the process, Diefendorf rewrites the history of the Catholic Reformation in France, and, along with it, the spiritual life of women.”–H-France Review

“The first achievement of this refreshing book is to return to the forefront of scholarly minds the forgotten and overshadowed Parisian women who drove Catholic revival in their city and beyond during and after the Wars of Religion.”–The Journal of Ecclesiastical History

“Diefendorf argues for the enormously positive role of women during the formative years of the Catholic Reformation. She makes her case eloquently and well. Without their collaboration, that Reformation would have been a much different thing.”–The Catholic Historical Review

“[A] significant contribution to the larger story of the “feminization” of religion in France….It could be argued that the Catholic Reformation, instead of being a moment when men controlled and confined women, was a moment when some women imposed their vision of piety upon the church. Diefendorf has composed a very compelling and readable book that offers her audience an understanding of the changing meanings of piety in late sixteenth and early seventeeth-century France.”–American Historical Review

Product Details
368 pages; 7 halftones; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; ISBN13: 978-0-19-509583-8ISBN10: 0-19-509583-9

About the Author(s)
Barbara B. Diefendorf is Professor of History at Boston University

An Invitation to Publish with Vincentian Heritage

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Greetings,

 

By way of introduction, my name is Nathaniel Michaud and I serve as Publications Director for the DePaul University Vincentian Studies Institute. We publish the journal Vincentian Heritage, as well as a scholarly monograph series and a variety of special publication projects.

 

For those who may not be familiar with us, the Institute is dedicated to promoting research and a living interest in the historical and spiritual heritage of Saint Vincent de Paul and Saint Louise de Marillac, the patrons of the wide-ranging Vincentian Family including the Congregation of the Mission, the Daughters of Charity, the Ladies of Charity, the Sisters of Charity, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and a number of other congregations, communities, and lay movements who share a common dedication to serving those in need.

 

If you are involved in such research, and are seeking an outlet for possible publication, I would like to take this opportunity and invite you to consider submitting your work to the V.S.I.

 

Vincentian Heritage welcomes manuscripts, poetry, and other expressions of Vincentian themes that meet the publication criteria.  All articles should relate directly to topics of Vincentian interest, and be researched and documented in a scholarly fashion.  Ordinarily, articles should not exceed thirty typewritten pages and should be submitted as a Word Document twelve months prior to anticipated publication.  Publication is subject to the approval of our Editorial Board.

 

We would also welcome recommendations you might have regarding possible article reprints or translations, works you may have found in your research which you feel deserve a wider audience.

 

Finally, if you are working on a book-length manuscript the V.S.I. would certainly welcome proposals which fit within the parameters of our monograph series or our special publications.

 

For more information, including links to our editorial style sheet and monograph series, please click on this link and visit our web site at: The Vincentian Heritage Journal

 

We thank you for considering this possibility and hope to hear from you.

 

If you have any questions, or would like to submit an article or proposal for possible publication, I can be reached at:

 

Mr. Nathaniel Michaud

DePaul University Vincentian Studies Institute

Suite 850F

55 East Jackson Blvd.

Chicago, IL 60604

Email: nmichaud@depaul.edu

Phone: 312-362-6169

VHRN Event: “From Beijing to Paris: Baroque Music from China and from St. Vincent de Paul’s Paris”

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Ars Musica Chicago presents “From Beijing to Paris: Baroque Music from China and from St. Vincent de Paul’s Paris” at 4:00 p.m., Sunday, March 6, 2011 at the DePaul Art Museum in the Richardson Library of DePaul University, 2350 North Kenmore Avenue, Chicago.

This concert will present Baroque music with Vincentian themes: music composed in China by an Italian Vincentian priest, and music that St. Vincent de Paul might have heard in his early days in Paris.

Featured will be a modern world premier performance of a violin sonata composed by Father Teodorico Pedrini during his 35 years in China in the early 18th century.

Fr. Pedrini, a Vincentian missionary and Vatican emissary, served as music master at the courts of the Qing emperors. He taught music to the Emperor’s children, and tuned and maintained the court’s many harpsichords; he co-authored the first book on Western musical theory written in Chinese; and he founded a church, which, though rebuilt, is still in Beijing.

The sonata will be performed by renowned Baroque violinist Nancy Wilson and harpsichordist Joyce Lindorff, Professor of Keyboard Studies at Temple University, Philadelphia. They are in the process of recording all twelve of Pedrini’s Opus 3 violin sonatas for commercial release.

Interspersed throughout the program Dr. Lindorff, early music scholar and international expert on the harpsichord in China and the music and life of Pedrini, will share with the audience portions of the composer’s correspondence detailing his fascinating experiences in the Chinese court. She will also outline her research on the manuscript of Pedrini’s twelve violin sonatas, which is still preserved in archives in Beijing today.

The second half of the program moves from the courts of China to the court and streets of Paris. The audience will be able to enjoy lute songs from the early 17th century, which St. Vincent de Paul may have heard as a young priest in Paris. These lovely and evanescent airs de cour will be performed by the matchless pair of Stephanie Sheffield, soprano, and Joel Spears, lute. Also from Vincent’s Parisian years, Joyce Lindorff will perform a beautifully delicate harpsichord suite by Louis Couperin.

Tickets for the concert are $20 regular admission; $15 for seniors; free for DePaul University students; and $5 for non-DePaul students with ID. For more information, please email arsmusicachicago@aol.com or phone 312-409-7874.

Discounted parking through validation is available at DePaul University’s Sheffield parking garage, 2331 N. Sheffield, Chicago. Validation may be made at the desk at DePaul’s Richardson Library. Public transit access is available via the Fullerton stop on the Red Line and the #74 Fullerton and #11 Lincoln busses.

This concert is generously underwritten by a grant from the Vincentian Endowment Fund of DePaul University. Ars Musica Chicago is funded in part by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency; a CityArts I Grant from the Chicago Department of Cultural affairs; and by generous individual contributors.

About Ars Musica Chicago
Since 1986, Ars Musica Chicago has provided concerts, workshops and educational outreach events on music from the 12th to the 18th century for audiences in the Chicago area. For more information, please visit www.arsmusicachicago.org

Additional Information
At present, there are two commercially available recordings containing violin sonatas from Pedrini’s Opus 3. Both recordings are performed by Ensemble XVIII-21 Musique des Lumières:
1) Teodorico Pedrini: Concert Baroque à la Cité Interdite – 5 solo sonatas (Astrée)
2) Amiot: Messe des Jésuites de Pékin – two movements of one sonata (Naïve)

What makes this concert possible is, according to Lindorff, an “unlikely cultural convergence during the 17th and 18th centuries that…set the stage for a nearly two century heyday of Western keyboard instruments in China.” Serving as a composer and tutor, Pedrini may even have played the harpsichord with one of the emperors himself. An unusual and unexpected crossing of East and West, she finds that at the time, and to varying degrees, “the clavichord and harpsichord were favorite instruments of the Chinese court in Beijing.”

For further details on Fr. Teodorico Pedrini, his music and life, see the article by Joyce Lindorff and Peter C. Allsop available on line: http://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1283&…

Vincent de Paul Manuscript Letter Acquired

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The Vincentian Studies Institute of DePaul University recently acquired a manuscript letter of Vincent de Paul.  The letter is #603 in Coste, dated 24 July 1642 at Saint Lazare in Paris.  The recipient was Pierre du Chesnay in Crecy.  This letter is in Volume 2 of the English Edition, pages 311-313.  Click here to access: http://via.library.depaul.edu/coste_en/ The letter will join the other Vincent de Paul manuscripts in the Archives and Special Collections Department of the Richardson Library.  The letter was purchased from a French collector who is the friend of a confrere at the Maison-Mere in Paris.