Nouvelles perspectives sur la vie monastique à Port-Royal : découverte d’une ancienne version des Constitutions

Abstract

This article examines a recently discovered manuscript of the Constitutions de Port-Royal dating from 1645. It is now the earliest-known copy of the Constitutions. This paper describes the main highlights of the 1645 manuscript and compares it against the 1648 variant at the BnF, which was previously the earliest known variant. A highlight of the manuscript is an Avant-Propos crediting Saint-Cyran as the author of the Constitutions. Changes between the two manuscripts reveal that the nuns rewrote most of the chapters having to do with the spaces of the convent (le parloir, le chapitre, etc.) and of the officers (abbess, sous-prieure, etc). They also show that the nuns removed practices that were not part of the Benedictine Rule and added in Cistercian customs. The article concludes that the Constitutions were originally written for the Augustinian Rule and were later adapted to the Rule of Saint Benedict.