Middle+Ages+Letter

Dear St.Isabel of France:

I heard that you were born in March 1225 and died at Longchamp on February 23, 1270 and that your real name is Elizabeth but you were always called by your nickname which was Isabel. Your brother was named St. Louis IX, King of France. He was born in 1226 and died in 1270. When you were a child at court you showed an extraordinary devotion to exercises of piety, modesty, and other virtues. On May 26, 1254, Innocent IV allowed you to retain some Franciscan fathers as your special confessors. You were even more devoted to the Franciscan Order then your royal brother. You broke off your engagement with a count, but moreover refused the hand of Conrad, son of the German emperor Frederick II, although pressed to accept him by everyone, even by Pope Innocent IV. You wished to found a convent of the Order of St. Clare, Louis IX began in 1255 to acquire the necessary land in the Forest of Rouvray, not far from the Seine and in the neighborhood of Paris. On June 10, 1256, the first stone of the convent church was laid. The building appears to have been completed about the beginning of 1259 to the new rule which you had had complied by the Franciscan Mansuetus on the basis of the Rule of the Order of St. Clare. These rules were drawn up solely for this convent. The sisters were called in the rule the “ Sorores Ordinis humilium ancillarum Beatissimf Marif Virginis”. The fast was not so strict as in the Rule of St. Clare; the community was allowed to hold property, and the sisters were subject to the Minorities. The first sisters came from the convent of the Poor Clares at Reims. You never entered the cloister, but from 1260 you followed the rules of your own home nearby. You were not altogether satisfied with the first rule drawn up by, and therefore submitted through the agency of your brother Louis IX, who had also secured the confirmation of the first rule, a revised rule to Urban IV. Urban approved this new constitution on July 27, 1263. The differences between the two rulers 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 your rule. In the new rule Urban IV gave the nuns of Longchamp the official tile. After a life of mortification and virtue, you died in your house at Longchamp on February 23, 1270, and then you were buried in the convent church. After nine days your body was exhumed, and when it showed no signs of decay, and many miracles were wrought at your grave.

Bihl, Michael. "St. Isabel of France." //Catholic Encyclopedia//. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 1-4. Catholic Encyclopedia. //Catholic// //Encyclopedia//. Web. 29 Oct. 2009. .