Sancti Jacobi domus Parisius

Couvent de Saint-Jacques de Paris

“I don't understand, magister Johannes. Why did you come all the way here... when you are decanus of Sancti Quintini?”
“I am always surprised by your questions, frater Mateus. Honorius, our dearest guide and servant, requested that you shall be taught the holy art of the sacra pagina. It was only natural that I voluntarily stepped down from my less important duties in the North. After all, you are the ones who will tell the Joyous Word to the deepest of misery and the wildest of inlands. Now, will you stop thinking people always have selfish motives? I will have to give you special lectio subjects to get rid of these worries of yours.”

In 1215, Domingo Núñez de Guzmán founds the Dominican order or Ordo Predicatorum, but there is no home for his followers yet. A few years later, the Saint-Jacques convent becomes a bruistling house full of students, and in decennies to follow it will possess a magnificent library and be chosen by prestigious scholars as their studium, their classrooms. The convent even gives its name to the order : the Dominican Preachers are also called Jacobins in French, although they themselves prefer to use Latin and refer to each other with the old affective name of brothers, fratres.

Structure

As soon as the building becomes property of the fratres ordini predicatorum, it is owned by a newborn order which has written its statutes only a few years before, in 1216 ; but those are excellent statutes, which the pope Honorius approved of with his bulla Religiosam vitam.
The convent strives to raise his own regent masters, and then maintains them as long as possible so as to produce as many theologian as possible, to the point it becomes one of the inevitable studia where sacra pagina may be learned. It inscribes itself in the University organization, as almost all its residents are either magistri or scholares. There are sent the new Dominican fratres and from there they leave to their new preaching assignments.
While the convent is a place of study, many of its residents preach not only on its grounds, but throughout the city, in the neighbouring rural lands, and in private houses as much as in the street.

Public Agenda

All along their history, the Dominican have one goal : to preach, to teach, to spread the Word. The Sancti Jacobi Convent serves as one of its major studia and naturaly specializes in sacra pagina, the study of the Holy Scriptures. It is, after all, the very reason their order was founded, only a few months after the Latran Council, who claimed all shall receive the "spiritual bread" and predication, confession and penitence shall be spread, and not stay a luxury.

Assets

The order statutes found the poverty and mendicity of the fratres, and in 1228, some years before Saint Louis has the convent rebuilt, a general chapter gives very strict instructions as to the height of ceilings and other such matters. Even if there is stil a lot of flexibility for new foundations, who inherit buildings rather than construct them, Sancti Jacobi takes pride in the fact that it was able to follow at least some of those instructions, even though the stricter (most noticeably those about size) were abolished soon, because they were near impractible, and then Sancti Jacobi did not obey them when reparations were needed - since they were no longer. With time, the buildings changed shape many times. The prayer sanctum was divided in laicus and clerical space by a high barrier, though it was made so that the lay public could see the elevation, and after complies, the fratres left the clerical sanctum in a procession which lays could come to see. The chapel had a single roof, then a double one (see picture), then only one again; when the convent enters its last half century, the chapel is already in ruins. It is an ever-changing, quickly-growing, sprawling complex made of bits and pieces of buildings and it acquired proper borders only in the 16^th century, quite late.

by Michel Etienne Turgot, 1734

Here is what the convent looks like in the middle of the 18^th century, labelled as Jacobins. Left is the Sorbonne, and above that, with only the corner visible, the Jesuite College. It now takes a whole block, with two courts, an enormous chapel and a gigantic school, below the picture, all along the great court planted with trees.

History

The slot that would later host the convent of Saint-Jacques where originally owned by Symon de Pisciaco and his wife Agnes, for one part, and the magistri et scholares Parisius, for the other part. It was a small spot on the slopes of the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, in front of ecclesia Sancti Stephani de Gres, near Porte d'Orléans, the most important southern gate of Paris. Symon and Agnes gave the place to a friend, magister Iohannes de Sancto Albano, if he would build an hospital in name of Sanctus Jacobus there. Iohannes did exactly that, and within a few years rose an hospice where fratres conversi healed the poorest. He added a chapel to the original plan where prayers were sang.
In 1217, fratres from the ordo Predicatorum led by Matheus arrive in Paris with letters from Honorius III, asking the University to send magistri to Tolosa to spread knowledge of the sacra pagina, and to teach the same subject to the fratres predicatores. By then, Iohannes had become decanus Sancti Quintini and welcomes the fratres as students. Within months, he grows so accostumed to them that he rehabilitates the Sancti Jacobi hospital into a studium for them and starts giving his lessons there. In addition, he formally gives them the place, first temporarily, and then permanently in 1221. Shortly after, the University adds more slots to the donation.
In the same period, voices rise from neighbouring chapters, and worry that there might simply be too many chapels and churches for the actual living population. Letters are written, orders are given : Sancti Benedicti, the nearest chapter, does not want the fratres to hold the right to celebrate the divine office. A frater was promptly sent to Roma, where papal authorisation was acquired, and later extended to the right to hold a burial ground. After all, the episcopus was not pleased by the departure of the fratres from the Île, where he could directly oversee them.
The studium however is rapidly too small for the ever growing community of fratres. Thus, from 1226 to 1228, the group buys numerous more slots : one is provided by the fratres et sorores hospitalis Sancti Lazari, and is an empty land spot near the gate, another is sold by Baldwenus de Campis and is a house across the main building's street, the third is acquired from domus Jerosolimitani and is a land outside the parisian walls. A year later in 1229, the ordo predicatorum had one of their own graduate as magister, and Johannes stopped teaching them.
It is in those very years, 1228-1229, that the ordo comes under the eyes of Louis IX, a pious king and powerful knight as well as a vibrant youth hiding more excentricities than most could withstand. With the meeting of Louis IX and Vincent of Beauvais comes a time of great prosperity for the ordo : the king has appointed Vincent to the office of lector of his favorite monastery, Royaumont, and then proceeds to drown the fratres of Sancti Jacobi under his generosity. Through the years, he has the dormitories, the refectoire as well as the chapel rebuilt, and every new land acquisition is sure to be the target of a new funding of reconstruction. When the king comes back from the crusade in 1249, the Sancti Jacobi and ordo predicatorum recieve one of the three newly founded annual celebrations of the relics of the Sainte Chapelle, bringing them even more fame and spiritual responsibilities.
When Louis IX finally dies in 1270, it is not a surprise that Sancti Jacobi is among the first entities to advocate for his elevation to the title of saint.

Laudare, benedicere, praedicare

On this map, you can see the Couvent, pinpointed with the "les Jacobins" label, next to the Porte St Jacques (previously known as Porte d'Orléans). Isn't the chapel's double-nave cute ? In the inner court, the cross marks the right to hold a burial ground, and across the street, the church Sancti Stephani de Gres (labelled as Saint-Etienne-de-Grès) with its red roof and tiny cross is way smaller !

1217 - 1790

Type

Religious, Coven

Alternative Names

Couvent des Jacobins, Sancti Jacobi studium, Sancti Jacobi domus Parisius, or simply Sancti Jacobi

Demonym

Jacobins, Dominicains

Government System

Democracy, Direct

Legislative Body

Chapter of vowed fratres

Official State Religion

Catholicisme

Parent Organization

Ordo Predicatorum

Official Languages

• Latin

Notable Characters
Vincent de Beauvais

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