From September 28 to 1er October 2022, is held at the Departmental Archives of Ille-et-Vilaine the first conference ever devoted to Jean de Saint-Samson, Carmelite of the XVIIe century and author of numerous writings. Free access within the limit of available places.
This symposium is the first ever dedicated to Jean de Saint-Samson (1571-1636), author of numerous Spiritual and mystical works (Rennes, 1658-1659). It brings together specialists in the spiritual literature of the XVIIe century and historians of Catholicism in modern times, French and foreign (Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Malta), as well as those responsible for the current edition of Complete Works (Edizioni Carmelitani, eleven volumes planned), by the Institutum Carmelitanum, Rome. It is held in the Departmental Archives of Ille-et-Vilaine, which preserves an exceptional manuscript fund, the main source for this edition. The symposium is an opportunity for the Archives to publicize this fund by putting it online on their site.
A first session will be devoted to the presentation of the fund, Complete Works and publishing problems: very early on it was observed that the volumes published in the 17the century, some twenty years after John’s death, were sometimes very far from the preserved manuscripts. These are not autographs, because Jean de Saint-Samson was blind, but they are very old copies. All speakers at the symposium were able to access digital copies and working transcripts.
A second session will try to appreciate the historical role of Jean de Saint-Samson. Originally from Sens in Burgundy, who came to Paris in 1597, Jean Du Moulin was admitted to the Carmelite convent of Dol-de-Bretagne in 1606 and took his religious name there. Although a “lay brother”, he acquired a strong influence over the novices and, in 1612, was called to Rennes by the prior. Historiography has therefore considered him the “spiritual master” of the Reformation of Touraine, a reforming current of which Rennes was the home.
We will then focus more on his writings. A central point is the link between the spirituality of Jean de Saint-Samson and the “abstract” mysticism of Rhine-Flemish origin. We will also approach her spousal mystique and the theme of love in her writings (the best known today being theEpithalamium). We will endeavor to shed some light on its reception and its influence, linked to the stakes of a “mystical science” at the time of late scholasticism.
Almost entirely unpublished, the poetic production of Jean de Saint-Samson will represent the equivalent of a volume in the future edition of Complete Works : it will be the subject of an entire day of the colloquium. Here we will come across prosodic, stylistic, thematic and historical approaches to spirituality.
The symposium therefore invites to a real rediscovery of Jean de Saint-Samson, Carmelite and mystic, and even to the discovery of Jean de Saint-Samson poet: he whom Titus Brandsma dared to compare to Jean de la Croix, great figure of the reform of the Discalced Carmelites.