Overview

Two accounts of the life of Saint Colette of Corbie. Saint Colette of Corbie (1381–1447) was a French reformer of the Franciscan Order and the founder of seventeen convents. Though of humble origin, she attracted the support of powerful patrons and important Church officials. The two biographies translated here were authored by Pierre de Vaux, her confessor and mentor, and Perrine de Baume, a nun who for decades was Colette’s companion and confidant. Both accounts offer fascinating portraits of the saint as a pious ascetic assailed by demons and performing miracles, as well as in her role as skillful administrator and caring mother of her nuns. This is the first English translation of two biographies in Middle French of the most important female figures of the Middle Ages.   

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9781649590664

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“Saint Colette of Corbie is one of the most important reformers of the late-medieval and early modern period, one of the most influential of all pre-modern European women in terms of institutional impact, and a fascinating French figure in the era of the Hundred Years War. She has never quite received her historiographic due, very likely because her two French ‘lives’—the second of the two authored by a woman—have not been available in English translation, while even the French edition is difficult to access. Blumenfeld-Kosinski, one of America’s great medievalists and leading specialists in medieval French, is just the right scholar to make these compelling lives of Saint Colette available to a contemporary audience.” -- Sean L. Field, Professor of History, University of Vermont

“Saint Colette of Corbie is one of the most important reformers of the late-medieval and early modern period, one of the most influential of all pre-modern European women in terms of institutional impact, and a fascinating French figure in the era of the Hundred Years War. She has never quite received her historiographic due, very likely because her two French ‘lives’—the second of the two authored by a woman—have not been available in English translation, while even the French edition is difficult to access. Blumenfeld-Kosinski, one of America’s great medievalists and leading specialists in medieval French, is just the right scholar to make these compelling lives of Saint Colette available to a contemporary audience.” -- Sean L. Field, Professor of History, University of Vermont Winner -- SSEMWG 2022 Award for a Scholarly Edition in Translation

Saint Colette of Corbie is one of the most important reformers of the late-medieval and early modern period, one of the most influential of all pre-modern European women in terms of institutional impact, and a fascinating French figure in the era of the Hundred Years War. She has never quite received her historiographic due, very likely because her two French 'lives'--the second of the two authored by a woman--have not been available in English translation, while even the French edition is difficult to access. Blumenfeld-Kosinski, one of America's great medievalists and leading specialists in medieval French, is just the right scholar to make these compelling lives of Saint Colette available to a contemporary audience. --Sean L. Field, Professor of History, University of Vermont

Author Information

Pierre de Vaux was a Franciscan friar. He was the companion and confessor of Saint Colette of Corbie, as well as her biographer. Sister Perrine de Baume was a Colettine Poor Clare. Her memoirs serve as a testimony to the life of Saint Colette of Corbie. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski is distinguished professor of French emerita at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of The Strange Case of Ermine de Reims and Christine de Pizan.   

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