Pierre Coustant

Dom Pierre Coustant (1654 - 1721), was a Moine French, author of a complete study of the letters of the popes Clément Ier with Innocent III.

Biography

Pierre Coustant was born with Compiegne, parish Saint-Jacob, on April 30th 1654, in a family of the Noblesse de robe, Coustant. His/her father was lawyer at the Parliament, his mother a Loysel, had received a traditional education at the Jésuites of Compiegne.

After having received a traditional education among Jesuits of Compiegne, it enters to the monastery Benedictine Saint-Remi of Rheims, like beginner at the seventeen years age, and pronounces its wishes on August 12th 1672. It carries out studies of Philosophie and Théologie.

It publishes in Paris, in 1693, Gallicanos of codex of manuscripto . Work is published with some additions by Scipion Maffei, art writer and critic Italian, and republished by Jacques Paul Migne at the 19th century.

The love of Coustant for the studies did not prevent it from being an exemplary monk. Although often overpowered with work, it is specific while attending the common religious exercises and finds time for private work of piety. It is named with the Abbaye of Nogent-under-Coucy where there remain three years there, and on its own pressing request to be relieved of the priory, he finds himself with Abbaye of Saint-Germain-of-Meadows. During a certain time he works with the Mauristes with a new edition of works of Saint Augustin

Immediately after the publication of work of the street Augustine in 1700, Coustant is seen entrusting by its superiors the edition of a complete collection of the letters of the popes of Clément Ier to Innocent III (C. 88-1216). To include colossal work that such a company required, it should be considered that very little had been made in this direction already. There was, indeed, the decrees of the pope Clément Ier with Gregoire VII, gathered by the cardinal Antonio Caraffa and published by Aquino d' Antonio in 1591, but they were unfinished and their chronological order was frequently incorrect. There were also the Record ecclesiastical of Caesar Baronius and the Concilia antiquae Galliaedu Jesuit Jacques Sirmond. But nobody had never tried to make a complete collection of the papal letters, to filter much less the forgery of authentic, to reconstitute the original texts and to classify the letters chronologically.

After having devoted more than twenty years to this colossal company, Coustant can publish the first volume in 1721. It contains the letters of year 67 at year 440, and is authorized " Epistolae Romanorum Pontificum" …

In the wide foreword perhaps of 150 pages, Coustant explains the origin, the significance and the width of the first pope and examines the existing collections of Guns and papal letters. The letters of each pope are preceded by a historical introduction and are provided with notes copiers, whereas them false letters are gathered in appendix. Coustant had collected a great quantity of material for volumes of success, but he dies on October 18th 1721, the same year when the first volume is published.

A new edition of the volume of Coustant will be brought by Schönemann (Göttingen, 1796); a continuation, based mainly on the manuscripts of Coustant and containing the papal letters of 461-521, will be published by Thiel (Braunsberg, 1867). There are with the National library of France fourteen great folio volumes, containing the material collected by Coustant and the Benedictines. Coustant also took part in the polemic caused by Mabillon and the Jesuit Barthélemi Germon and the Benedictines of Maurist.

It is austere and deep scholar, who is prior of the Abbaye of Nogent-under-Coucy to the diocese of Laon, Benedictine of the Congrégation of Saint-Maur, which lives without heating, even during the hard winters of the beginning of the XVIIIe century. He dies in the Abbaye of Saint-Germain-of-Meadows, on October 18th, 1721, of which he had become the Senior.

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