Isabel of France

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Not to be confused with the English Queen Isabella of France

Saint Isabel of France (March, 1225 – 23 February 1270) was the daughter of Louis VIII of France and Blanche of Castile. She was a younger sister of Louis IX of France (Saint Louis) and Alphonse of Toulouse, among others. She was also an older sister of Charles I of Sicily. She founded the Abbey of Longchamp.

When still a child at court, Isabel, was devoted to religion. By the Bull of 26 May 1254, Pope Innocent IV allowed her to retain some Franciscan fathers as her special confessors. She was even more devoted to the Franciscan Order than her royal brother. She not only broke off her engagement with a count, but moreover refused the hand of Conrad IV of Germany, son of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, although pressed to accept him by everyone, even by Innocent IV, who however did not hesitate subsequently to praise her fixed determination to remain a virgin.

As Isabel wished to found a convent of the Order of Poor Ladies of Saint Clare, Louis IX began in 1255 to acquire the necessary land in the Forest of Rouvray-Catillon, not far from the Seine and in the neighbourhood of Paris. On 10 June 1256, the first stone of the convent church was laid. The building appears to have been completed about the beginning of 1259, because Pope Alexander IV gave his sanction on 2 February 1259, to the new rule which Isabel composed along with a team of at least four leading Franciscans, including Saint Bonaventure. This rule was drawn up solely for this convent, which was named the Monastery of the Humility of the Blessed Virgin (monasterium humilitatis beatae Mariae virginis). The sisters were called in the rule the Sorores Ordinis humilium ancillarum Beatissimae Mariae Virginis ("sisters of the humble order of servants of the most blessed virgin Mary"). The fast was not so strict as in the Rule of Saint Clare; the community was allowed to hold property, and the sisters were subject to the Franciscans. Some of the first sisters came from the female Franciscan convent at Reims.

French Monarchy
Direct Capetians
Hugh Capet
Robert II
Robert II
Henry I
Robert I, Duke of Burgundy
Henry I
Philip I
Hugh, Count of Vermandois
Philip I
Louis VI
Louis VI
Louis VII
Robert I of Dreux
Louis VII
Mary, Countess of Champagne
Alix, Countess of Blois
Marguerite, Queen of Hungary
Alys, Countess of the Vexin
Philip II
Agnes, Empress of Constantinople
Philip II
Louis VIII
Louis VIII
Louis IX
Robert I, Count of Artois
Alphonse, Count of Poitou and Toulouse
Saint Isabel of France
Charles I of Anjou and Sicily
Louis IX
Philip III
Robert, Count of Clermont
Agnes, Duchess of Burgundy
Philip III
Philip IV
Charles III, Count of Valois
Louis d'Evreux
Margaret, Queen of England
Philip IV
Louis X
Philip V
Isabella, Queen of England
Charles IV
Grandchildren
Joan II of Navarre
John I
Joan III, Countess and Duchess of Burgundy
Margaret I, Countess of Burgundy
Edward III of England
Mary of France
Blanche of France, Duchess of Orléans
Louis X
Joan II of Navarre
John I
John I
Philip V
Charles IV

Isabel refused to become an abbess,and she never entered the cloister, but from 1260 (or 1263) she followed the rules in her own home near by. Isabel was not altogether satisfied with the first rule drawn up, and therefore submitted through the agency of her brother Louis IX, who had also secured the confirmation of the first rule, a revised rule to Pope Urban IV. Urban approved this new constitution on 27 July 1263. The difference between the two rules consisted for the most part in outward observances and minor alterations. This new rule was also adopted by other French and Italian convents of the Order of St. Clare, but one can by no means say that a distinct congregation was formed on the basis of Isabel's rule. In the new rule Urban IV gives the nuns of Longchamp the official title of sorores minores inclusae, which was doubtlessly intended to emphasize closer union with the Order of Friars Minor (the Franciscans).

Isabella died in her house at Longchamp on 23 February 1270, and was buried in the convent church. After nine days her body was exhumed, when it showed no signs of decay, and many miracles were said to have been wrought at her grave. In 1521 Pope Leo X allowed the Abbey of Longchamp to celebrate her feast with a special office. On 4 June 1637, a second exhumation took place. On 25 January 1688, the nuns obtained permission to celebrate her feast with an octave, and in 1696 the celebration of the feast on 31 August was permitted to the whole Franciscan Order.

The history of the Abbey of Longchamp had many vicissitudes. The French Revolution closed it, and in 1794 the empty and dilapidated building was offered for sale, but as no one wished to purchase it, it was destroyed. In 1857 the walls were pulled down except one tower, and the grounds were added to the Bois de Boulogne.

[edit] Ancestry

16. Louis VI of France

8. Louis VII of France

17. Adelaide of Maurienne

4. Philip II of France

18. Theobald II, Count of Champagne

9. Adèle of Champagne

19. Matilda of Carinthia

2. Louis VIII of France

20. Baldwin IV, Count of Hainaut

10. Baldwin V, Count of Hainaut

21. Alice of Namur

5. Isabelle of Hainaut

22. Thierry, Count of Flanders

11. Margaret I, Countess of Flanders

23. Sibylla of Anjou

1. Isabel of France

24. Alfonso VII of León

12. Sancho III of Castile

25. Berenguela of Barcelona

6. Alfonso VIII of Castile

26. García Ramírez of Navarre

13. Blanca of Navarre

27. Marguerite de l'Aigle

3. Blanche of Castile

28. Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou

14. Henry II of England

29. Matilda of England

7. Leonora of England

30. William X, Duke of Aquitaine

15. Eleanor of Aquitaine

31. Aenor de Châtellerault

[edit] References

• Agnes d'Harcourt (third Prioress of Longchamp, 1263–1270), Vie de Madame Isabelle, Archives Nationales L. 1021 MSS., Paris.
• André, Histoire de Ste Isabelle, Carpentras, 1885.
• Daniélo, Vie de Madame Ste Isabelle, Paris, 1840.
• Berguin, La Bienheureuse Isabelle de France, Grenoble, 1899.
• Duchesne, Histoire de l'abbaye royale de Longchamp, 12557–1789, Paris, 1904.
• Sbaralea, Bull. Franc., III, Rome, 1765, 64-9.
• Sbaralea, Bull. Franc., II, Rome, 1761, 477-86.
• Catholic Online Saints – St. Isabel of France
• Sean L. Field, Isabelle of France: Capetian Sanctity and Franciscan Identity in the Thirteenth Century (University of Notre Dame Press, 2006).
• Sean L. Field, ed. and trans., The Writings of Agnes of Harcourt: The Life of Isabelle of France and the Letter on Louis IX and Longchamp (University of Notre Dame Press, 2003).
• "St. Isabel of France". Catholic Encyclopedia. (1913). New York: Robert Appleton Company. 

This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.

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