Jean-Martial Besse

Jean-Martial Besse (born October 29, 1861 in Saint-Angel (Corrèze) , † July 26, 1920 in Chevetogne, today part of the parish of Ciney ) was a French Roman Catholic clergyman, theologian, Benedictine , religious historian and conservative intellectual.

life and work

The Benedictine

Jean Besse, son of a hotelier, attended the seminary school in Servières-le-Château , where he had Justin Verniolles (1814-1900) and Jean-Baptiste Poulbrière (1842-1917) as teachers. In September 1881 he entered the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Pierre de Solesmes . Under Novice Master Athanase Logerot (1840-1908) he was a co-novice of Paul Delatte (1848-1937). In July 1883 he made his profession and took the religious name Martial. In 1885 he moved to the Abbey of Saint-Martin de Ligugé , was ordained a priest in Tulle in 1886 and made solemn profession in Ligugé in July of the same year.

In 1890 he was appointed subprior and novice master in Ligugé. In 1894 he participated in the reconstruction of the Abbey of Saint-Wandrille , after which he stayed in the Abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos . In 1897 he returned to Ligugé as a novice master. In 1901 the entire convent went into exile in Belgium (to Chevetogne Abbey ) in view of the Third Republic, which was hostile to the monastery .

The conservative intellectual

“Dom Besse”, conversational partner of numerous Parisian intellectuals (especially Joris-Karl Huysmans ), thought, like the majority of French Catholics of his time, monarchist and anti-democratic. He turned against that of Pope Leo XIII. and Cardinal Lavigerie proposed reconciliation with democracy ("Ralliement"). From 1900 he was (under the pseudonym Léon de Cheyssac) employee of the monarchist newspaper Gazette de France . In the same year he met for the first time with Charles Maurras , in whose daily newspaper L' Action française he wrote articles regularly from 1910 (under the pseudonym Jehan) and in whose private counter-revolutionary college he held the syllabus chair from 1909 . The actual author of Pius IX. published syllabus, Cardinal Louis-Édouard Pie , he dedicated a biography.

The order historian

He made lasting contributions to the history of monasticism and French monasteries. His adaptation of the history of the monastery by Charles Beaunier (1676–1737), Benedictine of Fontgombault Abbey , was in fact a new work that was reprinted in 1999. To maintain the history of the monastery, he founded the Revue Mabillon in 1905 , which has been published by Brepols since 1990 (90th vol. 2018).

Besse died of overwork in exile in Belgium in 1920 at the age of 58.

Works

The monastery work

• (Editor) Charles Beaunier: Abbayes et prieurés de l'ancienne France. Nouvelle édition . 9 vols. 1905-1932. Reprinted in 1999.
  • T. 1. Introduction. I, Province écclésiastique de Paris. Paris 1905.
  • T. 2. Provinces ecclésiastiques d'Aix, Arles, Avignon et Embrun. 1909.
  • T. 3. Provinces ecclésiastiques d'Auch et de Bordeaux. 1910.
  • T. 4. Provinces ecclésiastiques d'Alby, de Narbonne et de Toulouse. 1911.
  • T. 5. Province ecclésiastique de Bourges. 1912.
  • T. 6. Province ecclésiastique de Sens. 1913.
  • T. 7. Province ecclésiastique de Rouen. 1914.
  • T. 8. Province ecclésiastique de Tours. 1920.
  • (Posthumous) T. 9. Province ecclésiastique de Vienne. 1932.

Monographs

Monasticism

• Le Moine bénédictin . Ligugé 1892 (numerous editions)
• The diverse sortes des moines en Orient avant le concile de Chalcédoine (451). In: Revue de l'histoire des religions (Annales du Musée Guimet) 40, 1899.
• Les Moines d'Orient antérieurs au concile de Chalcédoine (451) . H. Oudin, Paris 1900.
• Les Études ecclésiastiques d'après la méthode de Mabillon . Bloud et Barral, Paris 1900.
• D'où viennent les moines? Bloud, Paris 1901.
• Saint-Wandrille (VIe-VIIe p.) . Gabalda, Paris 1904
• Les moines de l'ancienne France . Poussielgue 1906.

Church in its time

• Le cardinal pie. Sa vie, son action religieuse et sociale . Librairie des Saints-Pères, Paris 1902.
• Les saints protecteurs du travail . Bloud, Paris 1905.
• Le ralliement . Librairie des Saints-Prères, Paris 1906. (under the pseudonym Léon de Cheyssac)
• Eglise et monarchie . Jouve & Cie, Paris 1910
• Aux catholiques de droite . Saint Augustin, Paris 1911.
• Le catholicisme libéral . Desclée de Brouwer, Lille 1911.
• La Question scolaire . Nouvelle Librairie nationale, Paris 1912.
• Le syllabus. L'Église et les libertés . Nouvelle librairie nationale, Paris 1913. Sciences Po, Paris 2016.
• Les religions laïques. Un romantisme religieux . Nouvelle librairie nationale, Paris 1913.
• Joris Karl Huysmans . Art catholique, Paris 1917.
• Les oblats de Saint Benoît . Librairie de l'art catholique, Paris 1918.

Posthumously

• Les mystiques bénédictins des origines au XIIIe siècle . Lethielleux, Paris 1922.
• Le tombeau de saint Martin de Tours . Notes et documents sur la découverte du tombeau, le rétablissement du culte de saint Martin et la reconstruction de la basilique, 1854–1893. Champion, Paris 1922.
• La messe . Paris 1923. Éd. Sainte Jeanne d'Arc, Villegenon 1992.

literature

• Jean-Paul Besse: Dom Besse. Un bénédictin monarchiste . Editions de Paris, Paris 2005.

Web links

• Information on Jean-Martial Besse in the database of the Bibliothèque nationale de France .
• Literature by and about Jean-Martial Besse in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)