Congregation of St. Maur - History

History

At the end of the 16th century the Benedictine monasteries of France had fallen into a state of disorganization and laxity. In the Abbey of St. Vanne near Verdun a reform was initiated by Dom Didier de la Cour, which spread to other houses in Lorraine, and in 1604 the reformed Congregation of St. Vanne was established, the most distinguished members of which were Ceillier and Calmet. A number of French houses joined the new congregation; but as Lorraine was still independent of the French crown, it was considered desirable to form on the same lines a separate congregation for France. Thus in 1621 was established the famous French Congregation of St. Maur.

Most of the Benedictine monasteries of France, except those belonging to Cluny, gradually joined the new congregation, which eventually embraced nearly two hundred houses. The chief house was Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, the residence of the superior-general and center of the literary activity of the congregation.

The primary idea of the movement was not the undertaking of literary and historical work, but the return to a strict monastic régime and the faithful carrying out of Benedictine life; and throughout the most glorious period of Maurist history the literary work was not allowed to interfere with the due performance of the choral office and the other duties of the monastic life. Towards the end of the 18th century a tendency crept in, in some quarters, to relax the monastic observances in favor of study; but the constitutions of 1770 show that a strict monastic régime was maintained until the end.

The course of Maurist history and work was checkered by the ecclesiastical controversies that distracted the French Church during the 17th and 18th centuries. Some of the members identified themselves with the Jansenist cause; but the bulk, including nearly all the greatest names, pursued a middle path, opposing the lax moral theology condemned in 1679 by Pope Innocent XI, and adhering to those strong views on grace and predestination associated with the Augustinian and Thomist schools of Roman Catholic theology; and like all the theological faculties and schools on French soil, they were bound to teach the four Gallican articles.

Towards the end of the 18th century a rationalistic and freethinking spirit seems to have invaded some of the houses. The congregation was suppressed and the monks scattered at the revolution, the last superior-general with forty of his monks dying on the scaffold in Paris.