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{{short description|Franciscan foundress,  abbess and saint (1381–1447)}}
{{Infobox saint
|name=Colette of Corbie, P.C.C.
|birth_date=13 January 1381
|death_date={{death date and age|1447|3|6|1381|1|13|df=y}}
|feast_day=6 March (7 February for the Franciscan Order)
|venerated_in=[[Catholic Church]] ([[Franciscan Order]])
|image=Santa Coleta (pormenor - Santa Clara e Santa Coleta, c. 1520, Mestre da Lourinhã).png
|imagesize=235 px
|caption=Saint Colette (detail of ''Saint Clare and Saint Colette'', c. 1520, by the [[Master of Lourinhã]]; [[National Museum of Ancient Art]], [[Portugal]])
|birth_place=[[Corbie]], County of [[Amiens]], [[Duchy of Burgundy]]
|death_place=[[Ghent]], [[County of Flanders]], Duchy of Burgundy
|birth_name=Nicole Boellet
|titles=[[Virgin (title)|Virgin]] and Foundress
|beatified_date=23 January 1740
|beatified_place=
|beatified_by=[[Pope Clement XII]]
|canonized_date=24 May 1807
|canonized_place=
|canonized_by=[[Pope Pius VII]]
|attributes=
|patronage=<!-- WARNING: patronages MUST CORRESPOND to a reliable secondary source, per WP:RS -->women seeking to conceive, expectant mothers and sick children
|suppressed_date=
|issues=
|honorific_prefix=Saint}}

'''Colette of Corbie''', [[Colettine Poor Clares|PCC]] (13 January 1381 – 6 March 1447) was a [[French people|French]] [[abbess]] and the foundress of the [[Colettine Poor Clares]], a reform branch of the Order of Saint Clare, better known as the [[Poor Clares]]. She is honored as a saint in the [[Catholic Church]]. Due to a number of miraculous events claimed during her life, she is venerated as a [[patron saint]] of women seeking to [[Human fertilization|conceive]], expectant mothers, and sick children.

==Life==

===Early life===
She was born '''Nicolette Boellet''' (or '''Boylet''') in the village of [[Corbie]], in the [[Picardy]] region of France, on 13 January 1381<ref name="Oxford Dictionary of Saints">David Farmer, Oxford Dictionary of Saints ([[Oxford University Press]], 1996), p105.</ref> to Robert Boellet, a poor carpenter at the noted Benedictine [[Corbie Abbey|Abbey of Corbie]], and to his wife, Marguerite Moyon.{{sfn|Roest|2013|p=169}} Her contemporary biographers say that her parents had grown old without having children, before praying to [[Saint Nicholas]] for help in having a child. Their prayers were answered when, at the age of 60, Marguerite gave birth to a daughter. Out of gratitude, they named the baby after the saint to whom they credited the miracle of her birth.<ref>[http://poorclarestmd.org/colette/life/story.html Ty Mam Duw Monastery "St Colette's life"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120405232549/http://poorclarestmd.org/colette/life/story.html |date=2012-04-05 }}</ref> She was affectionately called Nicolette by her parents, which soon came to be shorted to Colette, by which name she is known.

After her parents died in 1399, Colette joined the [[Beguines]] but found their manner of life unchallenging.{{sfn|Roest|2013|p=169}} Joining a [[Benedictine]] order as a lay sister, most likely to avoid an arranged marriage,{{sfn|Roest|2013|p=169}} she again became dissatisfied. In September 1402, Colette received the [[religious habit|habit]] of the [[Third Order of St. Francis]]{{sfn|Farmer|1997|p=96}} and became a [[hermit]] under the direction of the Abbot of Corbie, living near the abbey church.{{sfn|Roest|2013|p=170}} After four years of following this [[ascetic]] way of life (1402–1406), through several dreams and visions, she came to believe that she was being called to reform the Franciscan [[Second Order (religious)|Second Order]] and to return it to its original Franciscan ideals of absolute poverty and austerity.

===Foundress===
In October 1406, she turned to the [[Antipope Benedict XIII]] of Avignon who was recognized in France as the rightful pope. Benedict received her in [[Nice]], in southern France, and allowed her to transfer to the Order of Poor Clares. Additionally, he empowered her through several [[papal bull]]s, issued between 1406 and 1412, to found new [[monastery|monasteries]] and to complete the reform of the Order.{{sfn|Farmer|1997|p=96}}

With the approval of the [[Count of Geneva|Countess of Geneva]] and the aid of the [[Franciscan]] itinerant preacher, [[Henry de Beaume]] (her [[confessor]] and [[spiritual director]]), Colette began her work at [[Beaune]], in the [[Roman Catholic Diocese of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg|Diocese of Geneva]]. She remained there only a short time. In 1410, she opened her first monastery at [[Besançon]], in an almost-abandoned house of Urbanist Poor Clares. From there, her reform spread to [[Auxonne]] (1412), to [[Poligny, Jura|Poligny]] (1415), to [[Ghent]] (1412), to [[Heidelberg]] (1444), to [[Amiens]], to [[Pont-à-Mousson]] in [[Lorraine (duchy)|Lorraine]], and to other communities of Poor Clares. During her lifetime 18 monasteries of her reform were founded. For the monasteries which followed her reform, she prescribed extreme poverty, going barefoot, and the observance of perpetual fasting and [[abstinence]].<ref name=bihl>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04099b.htm Bihl, Michael. "St. Colette." The Catholic Encyclopedia] Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 16 Apr. 2013 {{PD-notice}}</ref>

In addition to the strict rules of the Poor Clares, the Colettines follow their special [[Constitutions]], approved in 1434 by the [[Minister General]] of the friars, William of Casale, and approved in 1448 by [[Pope Nicholas V]], again in 1458 by [[Pope Pius II]], and in 1482 by [[Pope Sixtus IV]].

Colette died at [[Ghent]] in March 1447.<ref name="Oxford Dictionary of Saints" />

==Veneration==
Colette was [[beatified]] 23 January 1740 by [[Pope Clement XII]] and was [[canonized]] on 24 May 1807 by [[Pope Pius VII]].<ref name=foley>[http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/Saints/saint.aspx?id=1284 Foley O.F.M., Leonard. ''Saint of the Day, Lives, Lessons, and Feast'', Franciscan Media] {{ISBN|978-0-86716-887-7}}</ref> She is invoked by childless couples desiring to become parents and is also the patroness of expectant mothers and sick infants.<ref name=pcb>{{Cite web |url=http://www.poorclares-belleville.info/colette/index.htm |title="Saint Colette of Corbie", Poor Clares, Belleville, Illinois |access-date=2015-08-16 |archive-date=2015-07-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150709142732/http://www.poorclares-belleville.info/colette/index.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>[https://thepoorclares.org/news/our-second-mother-st-colette-of-corbie-1381-1447 "St. Colette of Corbie (1381-1447)", Maria Regina Mater Monastery, Kokomo, Indiana]</ref>

==Legacy==

===Colettine nuns===
Colettine [[nuns]] are found in France,<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/topic/Poor-Clares Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Poor Clare". ''Encyclopedia Britannica'', 17 Aug. 2023]</ref> Ireland, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

===Colettine friars===
Together with friar Henry of Beaume, Colette also inaugurated a reform among the Franciscan friars (who were known as the ''Coletans''), not to be confounded with the Observants. These friars formed a unique branch of the [[Order of Friars Minor]] under Henry's authority but remained obedient to the authority of the [[Provincial Superior|Minister Provincial]] of the Observant Franciscan friars in France and never attained much importance, even there. In 1448, they had only thirteen friaries, all attached to monasteries of the Colettine nuns. Together with other small branches of the Friars Minor, they were merged into the wider Observant branch in 1517 by [[Pope Leo X]].

==Miracles==

According to biographers, Colette performed numerous miracles, including multiplication of food or wine and effecting cures, partly after her death.<ref>Holy Feast and Holy Fast, Caroline Walker Bynum, p. 138</ref>

===Helping a mother in childbirth===
While traveling to Nice to meet Pope Benedict, Colette stayed at the home of a friend. His wife was in labor at that time with their third child, and was having major difficulties in the childbirth, leaving her in danger of death. Colette immediately went to the local church to pray for her.

The mother gave birth successfully and survived the ordeal. She credited Colette's prayers for this. The child born, a girl named Petronilla, later entered a monastery founded by Colette. She would become Colette's secretary and biographer.

===Saving a sick child===
After the pope had authorized Colette to establish a regimen of strict poverty in the Poor Clare monasteries of France, she started with that of Besançon. The local populace was suspicious of her reform, with its total reliance on them for the sustenance of the monastery. One incident helped turn this around.

On another occasion, she revived a [[stillbirth|stillborn]] child, taking off the veil given to her by the Pope, when he gave her the [[religious habit|habit]] of the Second Order, and wrapping the child's body in it.<ref>[https://newdailycompass.com/en/saint-colette-of-corbie-1-1 "Saint Colette of Corbie", ''Daily Compass'', June 3, 2022]</ref>

== Pictures ==
<gallery>
File:HabijtColeta 28-04-2009 15-02-57.JPG|[[religious habit|Habit]] of Saint Colette<br> Ghent, Belgium
File:GrafsteenColeta 28-04-2009 14-59-12.JPG|Remains of Saint Colette Ghent, Belgium
File:CRAUCK Complet.JPG|''Saint Colette''<br> by Charles Crauk
</gallery>

==See also==
*[[Colettine Poor Clares]]

==References==
{{reflist}}
{{Catholic|wstitle=St. Colette}}

==Bibliography==
*{{cite encyclopedia |title=Colette |last=Farmer |first=David |dictionary=Oxford Dictionary of Saints |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1997 }}
*{{cite book |title=Order and Disorder: The Poor Clares Between Foundation and Reform |first=Bert |last=Roest |publisher=Brill |year=2013  }}
* ''Colette of Corbie (1381 - 1447): Learning and Holiness'', Franciscan Institute Publications, 2010.  {{ISBN|978-1-57659-217-5}}

==External links==
{{commons category|Saint Colette}}
{{Wikisource|Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)}}
*[https://christianapostles.com/st-colette/  Prayers to Saint Colette]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20161220131705/http://users.bart.nl/~roestb/franciscan/franauth.htm#HenricusdeBeaume Blessed Henry of Beaume]

{{Subject bar |portal1=Saints |portal2= Biography |portal3= Catholicism |portal4= France}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Colette of Corbie}}
[[Category:1381 births]]
[[Category:1447 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Amiens]]
[[Category:Beguines and Beghards]]
[[Category:Franciscan hermits]]
[[Category:Members of the Third Order of Saint Francis]]
[[Category:Founders of Catholic religious communities]]
[[Category:Poor Clare abbesses]]
[[Category:Medieval French saints]]
[[Category:14th-century Christian saints]]
[[Category:15th-century Christian saints]]
[[Category:Christian miracle workers]]
[[Category:Female saints of medieval France]]
[[Category:Belgian Roman Catholic saints]]
[[Category:French Roman Catholic saints]]
[[Category:Franciscan saints]]
[[Category:Canonizations by Pope Pius VII]]
[[Category:Beatifications by Pope Urban VIII]]
[[Category:14th-century French nuns]]
[[Category:French Roman Catholic religious sisters and nuns]]
[[Category:French hermits]]