Armand Jean le Bouthillier de Rancé

Armand Jean Le Bouthillier de Rance ( born January 9, 1626 Paris, † October 27, 1700 in La Trappe ) was a French nobleman and monk. Although it can not qualify as " founder " of the Trappists, but he led reform efforts continue and spread it among like -minded people who were in the 17th century to a strong grouping. It was not until 1892 they split off and founded the Trappist order.

Life

Armand Jean Le Bouthillier de Rance came from high French nobility. His father was private secretary to Queen Marie de Medici. Actually de Rance was intended for a career in the army, but left him his family instead of his deceased brother Denis pursue a clerical career. Already at the age of eleven, in 1637, he became a canon of Notre -Dame in Paris, and abbot of five abbeys, including La Trappe. 1638 his mother died; his sister was in the same year to the monastery. 1650 his father died. This year, he got in touch to fourteen years older Duchess of Montbazon who introduced him into the high society. 1651, he was consecrated after his studies in Paris, by his uncle Victor Bouthillier priest in Paris. 1654 he received his doctorate at the Sorbonne. He lived at the court of the French king and enjoyed there first court life. 1657 was his uncle, the Archbishop of Tours, appoint Archdeacon with a right of succession, but this appointment was prevented. On April 28 of the same year died en Rancés lover, the Duchess of Montbazon. Disappointment over which prevented Erzdiakonenernennung and the sight of the corpse of his friend caused Rancés conversion; henceforth he fulfilled the religious duties of a priest and began to live a celibate life.

In the coming years, de Rance distributed his wealth and his benefice. 1660, he also visited "his" Monastery of La Trappe, which was then expire structurally and morally in this context. Thus de Rance set out to build the building again. The former monks of the monastery he resigned on a pension and settled instead monks from the monastery reform Perseigne at La Trappe on. There were monks a reform movement within the Cistercian order. At that time they were called the abstainers, since the main points of the reform were that they fasted regularly and lived by manual labor. Lived during the reconstruction phase of La Trappe de Rance and worked with these monks together. On August 20, 1662 choral prayer was resumed in La Trappe. Now also de Rancés mind was made up, La Trappe, whose formal Abt ( commendatory ) he was since his childhood, to preside as Resident abbot.

So he went in May 1663 the monastery Perseigne, whose daughter monastery of La Trappe was at that time still, and completed the novitiate; However, his excessive severity soon led to a breakdown, so that he could visit only a few months the Noviziatsunterricht. 1664 he took the vows and received by the bishop of Seez the benediction. Since July 14, 1664, he resided at La Trappe. Basic concern of the reform intentions, the La Trappe had taken over from Perseigne was the literal interpretation of the Rule of Saint Benedict. His interpretation of this rule put de Rance in his work Declarationes in regulam beati St. Benedict ad usum Domus Dei Beatae Mariae de Trappa before, however, this is never printed and only survived in a Latin manuscript, a French translation and a few quotes. From the reform efforts de Rancés finally emerged a particular Cistercian Congregation in 1678 by Pope Innocent XI. was recognized. 1892 this group split from the Cistercian Order.

Was marked de Rance both in his dramatic biography as well as in its reform efforts of the deep consciousness of the necessity of repentance. The focus of the reform was therefore self-denial, humility and asceticism. So leaned de Rance humility any scientific studies in the convent from. The asceticism of the Trappists expressed in strict silence rules, hard manual labor, especially in agriculture, and strict abstinence rules.

Armand Jean Le Bouthillier de Rance was never sacred or beatified, so any official liturgical worship is prohibited. Some Trappist monasteries commemorate the deceased to his dying day, October 27th. François -René de Chateaubriand in 1844 wrote a book about literary history major de Rance with Vie de Rance. Today, the abbot, however, considered critical: The high mortality rate of the monks during his reign, the lack of theological education of his brothers and his ill- polemical way be repeated criticized. Many members of the OCSO branch refuse consciously to " Trappist " to name, because they is not agreeable to the shape of Rance ( the Abbot of La Trappe ). Other worship him hot.