Isabelle de France (1224-1269)

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Princess Isabella as a figure at the church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois

Saint Isabella of France , also Isabella of Longchamp , (* March 3 / April 14, 1224 , † February 23, 1269 in Longchamp) was the daughter of the French King Louis VIII and his wife Blanka of Castile , thus the sister of ten years older Louis the saint . In 1255 she founded the Longchamp Humilité-Notre-Dame Clarisse Abbey in the Rouvray forest to the west of Paris (today: Bois de Boulogne ) and belongs together with Clare of Assisi to the first women to write a rule of the order.

Life

To after the death of Louis VIII († November 1226) and the accession of the only twelve year old Louis IX. In 1230 , the Queen Mother and Regent Blanka of Castile promised her five-year-old daughter Isabella the young Hugues or Hugo von Lusignan , son of Count Hugo of La Marche and Angoulême , who eventually became Yolande, the Duke's daughter, to secure the support of the vassals for the kingdom Peter I of Brittany married.

Blanka of Castile gave Isabella a strict moral and religious upbringing and so she showed great piety even as a child. In 1243 she refused to marry Konrad von Hohenstaufen , the son of Friedrich II . After her mother's death she put one of Pope Innocent IV. Confirmed on May 26, 1254 chastity vow , and decided to use her dowry for the establishment of a monastery. A site on the edge of the Rouvray forest, the royal hunting grounds at the time, was chosen as the location. Louis the Saint bought an elongated field (French: long champ ) between the forest and the Seine for his sister and laid the foundation stone of the Poor Clare Abbey on June 10, 1256. The cost of construction, completed in 1259 , amounted to around 30,000 livres.

The donor withdrew to the monastery district in 1260, but lived there in her own house and did not make her profession , so she did not join the order and therefore, contrary to popular opinion, was not the abbess of the community. She was one of the outstanding personalities of her time and exerted great influence in the circle of Louis the Saint, among others on his daughters, her nieces Isabella of France and Navarre and her younger sister Blanka of France. Both founded Poor Clare monasteries, which obeyed the Longchamp order.

Isabella of France died on February 23, 1270 shortly before the age of 45 and was buried in the monastery church. In particular, the nuns of Longchamp venerated them as saints. Isabella was canonized by Pope Leo X in 1521 by the bull Piis omnium .

plant

Following the example of St. Clare of Assisi , who wrote the rule of her order between 1247 and 1252, Isabella of France herself wrote down the rule of the order for Longchamp in 1255. She took advice on this from the most important scholars of her time. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio supported their project. He held the theological chair of the Franciscans in Paris between 1254 and 1257 before he was appointed general minister of his order. Bonaventure took a moderate stance on the vow of poverty. The Poor Clares of Longchamp were allowed to inherit and manage the common property. In 1259, Pope Alexander IV confirmed the rule, which was changed under Pope Urban IV in 1263.

Representations

  • Philippe de Champaigne : Sainte Isabelle offering à la Vierge le modèle de l'abbaye de Longchamps ("Saint Isabelle presents the model of the Abbey of Longchamp to the Virgin Mary", 17th century, Paris, Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis)

literature

Guillaume de Saint-Pathus and Jean de Joinville , biographers of Saint Louis of France, pay only brief mentions to Isabelle de France. The main source for her life and work remains the vita "La vie d'Isabelle soeur de S. Louys, fondatrice de l'Abbaye" written down by her former companion, the third abbess of Longchamp Agnès d'Harcourt , at the request of her younger brother Karl von Anjou de Longchamp ”. This was created between 1279 and 1281, depicts Isabelle de France as a saint and at the end performs forty miracles. Researchers have only recently become aware of their paramount role.

In the following bibliography, the most recently published works are put in front.

  • Sean L. Field: Isabelle of France: Capetian Sanctity and Franciscan Identity in the Thirteenth Century . University of Notre Dame Press, 2006.
  • Gabrielle Joudiou: Isabelle de France et l'abbaye de Longchamp . Editions franciscaines, Paris 2006, ISBN 2-85020-198-7 .
  • Anne-Hélène Allirot: Isabelle de France, soeur de saint Louis, la vierge savante . In: Princes et princesses de la fin du Moyen Âge, Médiavales 48 . 2005 (a study of the Vie d'Isabelle de France written by Agnes d'Harcourt ).
  • Sean L. Field: The Writings of Agnes of Harcourt: The Life of Isabelle of France and the Letter on Louis IX and Longchamp . University of Notre Dame Press, 2003.
  • Sean L. Field: The Princess, the Abbess, and the Friars: Isabelle of France (1225-1270) and the Course of Thirteenth-Century Religious History . Northwestern University, Evanston 2002.
  • Sean L. Field: New Evidence for the Life of Isabelle of France . In: Revue Mabillon . tape 13 , 2002, p. 109-123 .
  • Thomas Worcester: Neither married nor cloistered: blessed Isabella in catholic reformation France . In: Sixteenth Century Journal . tape 30 , 1999, pp. 457-472 .
  • Beth Lynn: Clare of Assisi and Isabelle of Longchamp: Further Light on the Early Development of Franciscan Charism . Magistra, 1997.
  • Albert Garreau: Bienheureuse Isabelle de France . Editions franciscaines, Paris 1943 (reprint 1955).
  • Jean-François André: Histoire de s. Isabelle de France, soeur de s. Louis et fondatrice de l'abbaye de Longchamp . Carpentras, 1855.
  • Acta Sanctorum : Vita B. Elisabethae seu Isabellae Virginis . tape 6 . Acta Sanctorum , August 1753.
  • Agnes d'Harcourt: La vie d'Isabelle soeur de S. Louys, fondatrice de l'Abbaye de Longchamp . Sébastien Mabre-Cramoisy, Paris 1668.

Web links

Commons : Isabelle de France  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ According to other, mostly French sources, born in March 1225 and died on February 23, 1270
  2. ↑ Isabella of France (1242–1271), daughter of Louis the Saint, founded in 1270 together with her husband Theobald II , King of Navarre , who died in the same year, a Poor Clare monastery at the gates of Troyes .
  3. ↑ Blanka of France (1252–1320), daughter of Louis the Saint, was brought up in Longchamp until her wedding in November 1268 with Ferdinand de la Cerda († 1275), Crown Prince of Castile, and is considered to be together with her mother Margaret of Provence ( 1221–1295) as co-founder of the Poor Clare Monastery, founded in 1289, Couvent des Cordelières in the Paris suburb of Faubourg Saint-Marcel , in whose church (Sainte-Claire-de-l'Oursine) she was buried.
personal data
SURNAME Isabelle de France
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Isabelle von Longchamp; Isabella of France
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Monastery founder
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1224 or April 14, 1224
DATE OF DEATH February 23, 1269
Place of death unsure: Longchamp