Jean Mabillon

Jean Mabillon (November 23rd 1632 with Saint-Pierremont, in the the Ardennes - December 27th 1707 with Holy Germain of the Meadows) is a monk, scholar and historian French, mainly known as being the founder of the Diplomatique.

Biography

He was the fifth child of Estienne Mabillon, a peasant who was to die in 1692, 104 years old, and his wife, Jeanne Guerin, which went down by her mother from a branch from the lords from Saint-Pierremont. Early child, it exceeded his classmates easily, but the approval of its character was worth the regard of all to him. To the nine years age one sent it in his uncle, Jean Mabillon, then priest of parish with Neufville, which taught in a correct way to him the “rudiments” and gave him the money necessary to enable him to continue its studies. Thanks to this last, it entered in 1644 to the Collège of the Good children to Rheims then studied at the university, alive half as raises, half as servant, in the house of Clément Boucher, canon of the cathedral and commendatory abbot. In 1650, Clément Boucher made it enter to the seminar diocesan, where there remained three years, but in 1653, however, scandalous control and the death of the uncle who had helped it disgusted it vocation of secular priest and he left the seminar, to join the congregation bénédictine reformed of Saint-Maur, with the abbey of Saint-Remi of Rheims.

Of fragile health, it must give up the education of the beginners which had been entrusted to him. Starting from 1656, it is devoted fully to the study of “Antiquities”, i.e. old documents, with Nogent, then with Corbie, where it is successively sent. It then works out gradually the rules of a method being used to distinguish the forgeries. By doing this, it founds the principles of the criticism of documents.

After a stay as treasurer with the abbey of Saint-Denis (1653), quickly noticed by the members of its kind because of its capacities, it is sent to Saint-Germain-of-Meadows, in 1664.

It joined there a circle of scholars trained around the librarian of the abbey, Jean-Luc d' Achery, which it has to succeed. It then starts to assist this last in the collection of documents for the drafting of the Actes about Saint-Beno4it cheese ( Acta Ordinis Sancti Benedicti ): its colossal efforts make that work resulting from this project, whose first volume appears in 1703, is allotted to him.

In 1681, it publishes a treaty Re diplomatica , which it writes in answer to the setting in question of the authenticity of certain charters of the abbey of Saint-Denis by a Jesuit, Dutch Daniel van Papenbroeck. Following the example its detractor, it proposes tools there making it possible to authenticate a document and to date it, but it develops them and puts them so well into practice that its point of view triumphs. In addition to the general admiration of the scholars of the kingdom, the repercussion of this work is worth in Jean Mabillon to seem the founder of “science Diplomatique”:

Become protected from Colbert, it accomplishes for this last two voyages - in Burgundy (1682), then in Suisse and Germany (1683) - in order to collect and to authenticate documents on the history of the crown, then on that of the Church in France. The successor of the minister, the archbishop of Rheims, is also a large admiror of Mabillon and makes so that the king entrusts to Mabillon, in 1685, the task to visit the principal libraries of Italy in order to acquire books and manuscripts for the royal Bibliothèque.

But these favors are worth enemies to him: he enters in particular discusses some with the abbot of the Trap door, Rancé, on the place which the studies compared to manual work in the monastic life must hold. He answers this last by a Traité monastic studies (1691). In 1698, it protests in vain under the pseudonym of Eusebius Romanus against the veneration of the relics of the anonymous saints in the Catacombes of Rome, which is worth to him to be convened to be explained and to have to modify certain passages.

Finally, in spite of the attacks which it undergoes mainly because of its criticism, the reputation of Mabillon arises intact and, in 1701, it is named member of the royal Académie of the Inscriptions and Médailles by the king.

He dies in 1707 with Saint-Germain-of-Meadows. It is in the vicinity that a subway station was named in its memory in 1925.

Works

Works of holy Bernard (1667)
Acta Sanctorum ordinis Sancti Benedicti ( Lives of the Saints about saint Benoit ) (vol. 1: 1668; vol. 2: 1169; vol. 3: 1672)
Vetera Analecta ( Analecte S old ) (vol. 1: 1675; vol. suiv. until in 1685)
Of Re diplomatica (1681)
Treated monastic studies (1691)
Reflections on the Answer of Mr. the Abbot of the Trap door (1692)
Yearly Ordinis Sancti Benedicti occidentalium monachorum patriarchae ( Yearly about Saint Benoit, Patriarch of the Western monachism , or Yearly O.S.B. ) (vol. 1: 1703; vol. suiv. posthumous until in 1730)
Supplementum (with the Re diplomatica ) (1704)

Later homages

Mabillon Course, catholic private establishment of secondary education to Sedan.

Diplomatic
History of the history
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Jean Mabillon

Biography

Works

Later homages

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