Rancé, Armand Jean le Bouthillier de (1626-1700). French monastic reformer. A godson of Richelieu, when 12 years old he was already commendatory abbot of five religious houses, including the Cistercian abbey of La Trappe in Normandy. By the 1650s he was a wealthy, worldly cleric. Between 1657 and 1660, however, he underwent a profound religious conversion. He then disposed of many of his possessions, resigned his multiple benefices, and placed himself under the direction of Arnauld d'Andilly. In 1663 he accepted a monastic vocation in the Cistercian order, underwent a year's strict novitiate, and became the regular, resident abbot of La Trappe, where he introduced austere reforms, becoming widely influential as the leading figure among Cistercians of the Strict Observance. Rancé believed that monastic life should be restricted to prayer and manual work. His De la sainteté et des devoirs de la vie monastique (1683) rejected learning and scholarship in the cloister, leading eventually to an extended but courteous debate with the Maurist Mabillon. Major contributions to the argument include Mabillon's Traité des études monastiques dans les cloîtres (1691), Rancé's Réponse au Traité des études monastiques (1692), and Mabillon's Réflexions sur la réponse de M. l'abbé de la Trappe (1693). He was the subject of Chateaubriand's swan-song, La Vie de Rancé (1844).

— John Cruickshank

(ärmäN' zhäN lə būtēyā' də räNsā') , 1626–1700, French religious reformer, founder of the Trappists. He was of a noble family, was well educated, and lived at court as a worldly priest. In 1664 he retired to the Cistercian abbey at LaTrappe, where he was already abbot in commendam (i.e., he received its revenues, but performed no duties). There, as regular abbot, he established a discipline stricter than the primitive Benedictine rule. In a few years LaTrappe was famous, and its reform spread; out of the movement came the Trappists.