The Lives of Colette de Corbie by Perrine de Baume and Pierre de Vaux: Proposals for a New Chronology

ABSTRACT

The fifteenth-century Franciscan reformer Colette de Corbie (1381–1447) is known primarily through two contemporary hagiographic lives, one by her Franciscan confessor, Pierre de Vaux, and the other by her longtime companion Perrine de Baume. Scholarship has long held that Pierre wrote first, before 1450, and that Sister Perrine then dictated her memories at the beginning of the 1470s, while relying heavily on Pierre’s already-established text. But a close analysis of the two texts suggests the need to reconsider the relationship between these two French lives, the order in which they were originally composed, and the importance of Perrine’s contribution. The present article first exposes the problems with the traditional dating and then argues that in fact an early version of Perrine de Baume’s text must have preceded, and served as the prime source for, Pierre de Vaux’s better-known work.