“The Research Group Speaks”:
The Series

Episode 29 [formerly Episode 26]
(Saturday 17 October 2026)
“The Life and Inquest of Jeanne-Marie de Maillé”

• Renate Blumenthal–Kosinski,
• Bruce Venarde, and
• Edmund Van der Molen

Part 2 of our Series on “Local Saints and Their Cults”

[Posted on 23 September 2026]

We continue our series of episodes for “The Research Group Speaks.” It comprises a range of styles including presentations, interviews, roundtables, and other forms of conversations. For information about the series:

• “The Research Group Speaks”: The Series

Following by request from Part 1 in our series on “Local Saints and Their Cults” (Episode 22. Encounters with Local Saints and Their Cults on 13 December 2025), our Associate Renate Blumenfeld–Kosinski (who presided for Part 1) returns to bring the team finishing a translation/commentary of the Life and Inquest of Jeanne-Marie de Maillé (d. 1414).

Basilique Notre Dame des Enfants de Châteauneuf sur Cher. Statue of the Blessed Jeanne-Marie de Maillé dressed in the habit of the Third Order of Franciscans. Photograph 30 September 2024 by Ideefixe, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Team

Members of the team are:

• Renate Blumenfeld–Kosinski, University of Pittsburgh, Emerita
• Bruce Venarde, recently retired from the University of Pittsburgh, History Department
• Edmund Van der Molen, recently completed the PhD from the University of Nottingham

The Project

Together they would describe the progress of their collaborative work as they finish a translation/commentary of the Life and Inquest of Jeanne-Marie de Maillé (died 1414). Although the manuscript of her Life is lost, the manuscript of the Inquest survives. The team will relate how they used this witness in relation to the seventeenth-century edition in the Acta Sanctorum and expound upon on the life of the would-be saint aided by the diverse group of witnesses at the Inquest, which began a mere two weeks after Jeanne-Marie’s death.

The Proposed Saint

Beatified on 27 April 1871 by Pope Pius IX, Jeanne-Marie de Maillé or Jane Mary de Maille (see for example Giovanna Maria della Maillé) was born at the Castle of La Roche (Roche-Saint-Quentin, near Tours) on 14 April 1331 and died on 28 March 1414 at Tours. As saintly patron, with Feast Day of 28 March, her special spheres of patronages include victims of abuse, exiles, people ridiculed for their piety, and widows.

Background:

• Edmund Van der Molen, “Making Saints, Making Selves: Narrative, Rhetoric, and Agency in the Diocesan Inquest into Jeanne-Marie de Maillé (1414–1415),” Church History , Volume 93, Issue 1, March 2026, pp. 1–20.
  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009640724000052
• Acta Sanctorum (for access to which see Acta Sanctorum Product Services), Mar. 3:733–762
• Jean Barbier, Jeanne-Marie de Maillé (Vendée: Editions Castel, 1993)
• Maria de Crisenoy, Bienheureuse Jeanne-Marie de Maillé, La Mystique des Temps de Misère (Paris: Editions Franciscaines, collection “Profils Franciscains”, 1948)

Also:

• Renate Blumenfeld–Kosinski with Bruce L. Vernarde in: de Sabanac, R. and Zanacchi, S., 2010. Two Women of the Great Schism: The Revelations of Constance de Rabastens by Raymond de Sabanac and the Life of Ursulina of Parma by Simone Zanacchi. Toronto: Center for Reformation and Renaissance Studies. (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe, Toronto Series 3).
• De Vaux, P. and De Baume, S.P., 2022. Two Lives of Saint Colette: With a Selection of Letters By, To, and about Colette (Vol. 94). Iter Press.

Registration

• Eventbrite Portal for RGME
• Episode 29. “The Life and Inquest of Jeanne-Marie de Maillé”: Registration

See you there!

Lisbon, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga: The mid 15th-century Saint Vincent Panels, attributed to Nuno Gonçalves. Image (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Nuno_Gon%C3%A7alves._Paineis_de_S%C3%A3o_Vicente_de_Fora.jpg) via Creative Commons.