Joseph-Marie Canivez Explained

Dom Joseph-Marie, born Ovide Ernest Ursmer Ghislain Canivez (1878–1952), was a Belgian historian of the Cistercian order and a monk of Scourmont Abbey.

Life

Canivez was born in Binche on 20 November 1878. He was educated at Bonne-Espérance junior seminary (in the former Bonne-Espérance Abbey) and in September 1899 entered the Trappist monastery at Scourmont, taking the name Joseph-Marie.^[1] In 1905 he made his final vows on 25 April and was ordained priest on 8 October. In 1913-1914 he studied canon law in Rome.^[1]

In 1926 he began to publish historical research into the history of his order, particularly in Belgium. He died at Scourmont Abbey in Forges-lez-Chimay on 24 November 1952.^[1]

Writings

Canivez contributed 351 entries to the Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, including those on Bernard of Clairvaux and Cîteaux Abbey, and was also a contributor to the Dictionnaire de droit canonique. His other works include:

• L'Ordre de Cîteaux en Belgique des origines (1132) au XXe siècle (Forges-lez-Chimay, 1926).
• "Auctarium D. Caroli De Visch ad Bibliothecam scriptorum Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis", Cistercienser Chronik, 38 (1926), pp. 153-232.
• Nicolas Tillière, Histoire de l'abbaye d'Orval, 3rd edition revised by Joseph-Marie Canivez (Gembloux, 1927)
• as editor, Statuta capitulorum generalium ordinis Cisterciensis ab anno 1116 ad annum 1786 (8 vols., Louvain, 1933-1941)
• "Étonnantes concessions pontificales faites à Cîteaux", in Miscellanea historica in honorem Alberti de Meyer, vol. 1 (Louvain, 1946), pp. 505-519.
• "Le rite cistercien", Ephemerides liturgicae, 63 (1949), pp. 276-311.

Notes and References

1. Emile Brouette, "Canivez (Ovide-Ernest-Ursmer-Ghislain)", Biographie Nationale de Belgique, vol. 37 (Brussels, 1971), 117-120.