This book focuses on a little studied and distinctive reformed Benedictine congregation, the Celestine monks of France, at their apex of growth (c.1350-1450). The Celestine congregation was originally founded in Italy by the famed hermit St. Peter of Morrone, who briefly occupied the papacy as Celestine V (1294). Their observance was marked by punctilious austerity, voluminous statutes, and a centralised congregational system that demanded that superiors within the order were replaced and re-elected regularly at general chapters and subjected to checks. The French arm began in 1300 with Philip IV'e(tm)s foundation at Ambert and gained independence in 1380 with the coming of the Great Western Schism (1378-1417). They expanded significantly in the period under study, from four monasteries to seventeen within a hundred years. Key benefactors included Charles V, Charles VI, Charles VII, Louis, duke of Orleans, John, duke of Burgundy, and the Avignonese pope Clement VII.

They also forged close intellectual links with the likes of Pierre d'e(tm)Ailly and especially Jean Gerson, successive chancellors of the University of Paris, and key Church reformers. All of these figures appear as key actors in the Celestine story, alongside the congregation'e(tm)s own luminaries. This study deals in depth with the largely ignored religious culture of the Celestine monks - their ideology, their practice and how they maintained themselves - and represents the result of extensive manuscript and archival research in Paris and Avignon, bringing forth many pieces of evidence that have previously been ignored in published work. More than this, however, it proposes that the character of the French Celestine congregation, their growth, and the challenges they faced offer a new window on their age, revealing both for the history of the later medieval church as well as the history of French politics and society in the same era. They are viewed as part of a vibrant culture of 'e~reform'e(tm) within both the monastic estate (the 'e~Observant'e(tm) movement) and the Church as a whole in the age of the Great Western Schism and the councils of Constance (1414-18) and Basel-Ferrara-Florence (1431- 45). Their history is also found to be closely intertwined with the wars and political instabilities faced by the kingdom of France within the period. They naturally suffered from the economic instabilities that this environment brought, but continued to flourish due to the unique symbolic role played by the Celestines within the public presentation of many of the key figures in these conflicts. As opposed to still prevalent, traditional images of monastic decline and a later medieval religious culture that had outgrown cenobitic religion, this study reveals a congregation alive with the passions of their times and a wider social scene keen to embrace them and take influence from them.

By viewing the age through the prism of a neglected but successful reformed monastic congregation, it aims to offer a unique perspective on later medieval religious, intellectual and political culture.