The Spirituality of Reform in the Late Medieval Church: The Example of Nicolas de Clamanges

For the Parisian humanist and Avignon papal secretary Nicolas de Clamanges, reform of the late medieval church began not in capite but with personal reform grounded in a spirituality that was itself built on patristic principles. His colleagues, including Jean Gerson and Pierre d'Ailly at the Council of Constance, first located reform institutionally in capite and expected it to trickle down in membris. Clamanges by contrast applied the fathers' emphasis on individual spiritual growth to the late medieval church: a preparatory and indispensable reformatio personalis must constantly be at work in order for broader reform to succeed. He particularly contended that God would grant each Christian guidance and lead his spiritual progress through purgative suffering in fear, humility, and solitude that followed Christ's example. Only by this path could the entire church—member by member—return to union, peace, and purity. In this way Clamanges married the patristic goal of personal reform to the prevailing interior spirituality of his age with its focus on the humanity and suffering of Christ. Clamanges's important religious ideas have frequently been overlooked, however, by the high-profile careers of his close friends d'Ailly and Gerson as well as by Clamanges's own role in French humanism. By looking at his reform thought we will take one step toward identifying Clamanges as far more than an elegant writer while we use his ideas to explore how individual spirituality and personal reform were closely aligned in the troubled church of the late Middle Ages.