PIMSPontifical Institute
of
Mediaeval Studies

Recent decades have witnessed a growing body of ground-breaking work concerning the reform of religious orders in the later Middle Ages, with historians increasingly challenging the teleology of pre-Reformation 'decline'. From the middle of the fourteenth century, and with increasing pace in the fifteenth, a new generation of reformers, avowing stricter and more standardised forms of religious obedience, made themselves felt across both cenobitic and mendicant orders. The startling scale of influence that these religious men and women - known as 'Observants' - had both inside and outside the cloister is now beginning to become apparent.

While the Observant reforms and reformers in Germany and Italy have begun to receive significant attention, they have been less studied in France and its environs. This paper draws attention to a largely unnoticed 'Observant' group, the French arm of the Celestine order, an offshoot of an earlier Italian Benedictine reform with thirteenth century roots. These French Celestines enjoyed a spectacular century of growth and influence from the mid-fourteenth century onwards. As a very early example of a cenobitic group taking up the Observant banner, their history contains much of importance for understanding the origins and ideological frameworks of such reforms. Their story, however, is also one of both significant outreach and highly receptive external audiences, keen to support and draw influence from them. The latter appear to have included other religious, including mendicants, as well as significant portions of the political elite and the educated laity: the Valois monarchy, the Avignonese papacy and Jean Gerson are all present within this wider cast.

Through an examination of largely unstudied literary and documentary evidence, this paper will attempt to add new avenues for understanding the origins, spread, and socio-cultural relevance of 'Observant' religious reform.