Saint Emeline of Yèvres (died around 1178)

The abbey of Boulancourt

The abbey of Boulancourt (Bullencuria) was founded in 1095 in the commune of Longeville-sur-la-Laines, in Haute-Marne. It passed to the Order of Cîteaux around 1147-1150 as a daughter of Clairvaux, at the request of the bishop of Troyes, Henry of Carinthia. It counted up to two hundred monks in the 13th century, the height of its prosperity.^[8][9]

Beside the abbey of the monks stood the Lieu-des-Dames of Boulancourt, a monastery of Cistercian nuns, whose prioress Asceline (died 1195) is likewise venerated as a saint. The monk Gossuin, a professed monk of Clairvaux, died at Boulancourt in 1203; he left the life of Asceline, a book of miracles and the Vita Hemelinae of Emeline.^[10][11]

The grange of Perte-Sèche

Emeline joined the community of Boulancourt while the abbey was still settling into the Cistercian order. She did not become a choir religious: she was a lay sister, and she led a recluse's life in the grange of Perte-Sèche (also called Perthes Sèches), a farm belonging to the monastery, on the lands of Yèvres, near Yèvres-le-Petit.^[12][13]

The place lies in the diocese of Troyes; this is why the ancient sources and the abbé Lalore, historian of the diocese, call her “Emeline of Yèvres”. According to the Vita and the testimonies reported by Nominis, she was already at work as a lay sister in this grange when the Cistercians arrived: she was therefore never a Cistercian sister in the strict sense, but a lay sister living under the Cistercian rule, and far beyond it in penance.^[14][15]

A life shared between work and prayer

Her day was divided between the manual work of the grange and prayer. Nominis sums up her life thus: she sang psalms and prayed all day long.^[16] The setting is that of Cistercian rural life in the 12th century: the granges of Boulancourt, like those of Clairvaux, were at once farms and places of spiritual life, where lay sisters and recluses served the community by their work and their prayer.

Emeline's asceticism

Emeline's austerity struck her contemporaries. The sources that have reached us agree on the following traits: she fasted three days a week (or ate only three times a week), walked barefoot summer and winter alike, and wore haircloth.^[17][18]

“She ate only 3 times a week, went barefoot summer and winter alike, wore haircloth, sang psalms and prayed all day long.” Nominis, notice of Blessed Emeline (27 October)^[19]

This penance is not eccentricity: it belongs to the Cistercian spirituality of the 12th century, that of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux and his sons, for whom penance is the path of union with God and of compassion for the world. What set Emeline apart, in the eyes of her contemporains, was the constancy of this rigour, lived in the secrecy of a grange, far from any religious office.

The gifts of prophecy

The Vita and local tradition report that Emeline had gifts of prophecy, which set the whole region running to consult her. The best-known episode concerns Simon de Beaufort, son of Simon I of Broyes: Emeline is said to have foretold the loss of “a very dear member” in battle, and he returned from that battle blind in one eye.^[20][21]

The baron then made gifts to the abbey to honour the saint, following this prediction. This episode is one of the few datable facts of Emeline's life: it places her among the great lords of Champagne, the Broyes-Beaufort, protectors of Boulancourt.^[22]

Nominis also reports testimonies of animal speech (she is said to have spoken to animals), which the notice does not develop further.^[23] None of these prodigies is the object of a canonical inquiry: they belong to ancient testimony, handed down by the Vita of Gossuin and by local piety.

What tradition has not established

Several confusions have crept in around Emeline, which modern sources note without endorsing them:

The title of “saint” commonly given her belongs to popular and diocesan veneration; the notice of Nominis, which follows the martyrology in use, calls her “Blessed Emeline”.^[24]

Emeline died around 1178, on the territory of the abbey of Boulancourt. She was buried under the altar of the convent of the Ladies, attached to the abbey, and a flame was placed above her tomb, where it burned constantly.^[25]

The first trace of public cult dates from 1182, when Simon II made a donation for the upkeep of the lamp that burned over her burial.^[26] This gesture of the Beaufort-Broyes family confirms that the veneration of Emeline is earlier than any formal canonization, and that it rests on the reputation for holiness left by the recluse.

Later, her relics were joined by those of Saint Asceline, prioress of the Lieu-des-Dames who died in 1195, and of the blessed Gossuin, her biographer, who died in 1203. A painting depicted them in black and white habits, sharing the glory of God.^[27]

When the chapel was destroyed, the remains of Emeline, Asceline and Gossuin were translated into the church of Boulancourt. The abbey was sold as national property in 1791, then entirely destroyed, save for the abbot's house. Nothing remains today of these vestiges, nor of the relics of the three servants of God.^[28][29]

Emeline's memory is fixed at 27 October, the date given by the calendar of saints of the day and by the notice of Nominis.^[30][31]

This date is confirmed by the liturgical use of the diocese of Troyes, where the figure of Emeline of Yèvres remains alive as one of the spiritual glories of Cistercian Champagne. Local fervour keeps her a place among the saints of the Cistercian Order alongside Asceline and Gossuin.

The exact title of her cult deserves to be stated precisely: Nominis, which follows the official nomenclature, calls her “blessed”; popular and diocesan usage, as well as the piety of the faithful, call her “saint”. Both usages coexist in the French tradition for ancient figures venerated by immemorial cult, without a process of canonization in the modern sense.^[32]

No representation, whether painted or sculpted, of Blessed Emeline has survived. The finding is clear: Nominis notes that she remains, “decidedly, a very discreet saint”.^[33]

The only known image is a book cover: the Vie de la bienheureuse Emeline d'Yèvres of the abbé Charles Lalore (1869), illustrated for the diocese of Troyes.^[34] The painting that depicted Emeline, Asceline and Gossuin in black and white habits, sharing the glory of God, disappeared with the chapel of Boulancourt.^[35]

The visual elements available today are therefore architectural and iconographic by neighbourhood: the statue of the Virgin of Boulancourt, from the abbey and kept in the church of Montier-en-Der; the church of Notre-Dame-de-la-Nativité at Longeville-sur-la-Laines, where she lived and died. The Cistercian art of the 12th century offers the usual frame for such a representation: white or black habit, work in the grange, solitary prayer, and, for recluses, the image of the cell or the oratory.^[36]

• Saint Bernard of Menthon (1020-1081): another figure of alpine and Champenois penance, in the same monastic world of the 11th century.
• Saint Anthony of Padua (1195-1231): a saint of penance and prayer, whose spirituality joins that of Cistercian recluses.
• Saint Francis of Assisi (1181/1182-1226): radical poverty and penance, at the other end of the century in which Emeline lived.