La Vie des Pères: Premier recueil, trad. de Paul Bretel. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2020, 397 pp.

Abstract: The Old French Vie des Pères (First Collection) was one of the highly popular religious collections of late medieval religious narratives. The First Collection, consisting of the first 42 tales, dates from ca. 1215 and 1230. The following 32 tales have survived in two groups, the first being the Second Collection consisting of 19 tales from after 1241, and the Third Collection, consisting of the final 13 tales, from ca. 1250. Adrian P. Tudor had re-published the first group in 2005, and Paul Bretel now presents a modern French translation. All these tales go back, of course, to the late antique Vitae Patrum and present the glory and heroism of the early Desert Fathers, offering many insights into their lives and personal experiences in practical and spiritual terms (hermits or cenobites). There are, however, numerous references to the contemporary monastic situation, giving particular credit to the Cistercians. Altogether, the Vitae Patrum