rt,
archbishop of Canterbury, and the commissioners of pope Innocent III. in
1201, and he was canonized by that pope the year following. The Statutes
of the Gilbertins, and Exhortations to his Brethren, are ascribed to
him. See his life by a contemporary writer, in Dugdale's Monasticon, t.
2, p. 696; and the same in Henschenius, with another from Capgrave of
the same age. See also, Harpsfield, Hist. Angl. cent. 12, c. 37. De
Visch, Bibl. Cisterc. Henschenius, p. 567. Helyot, &c.

ST. JANE, JOAN, OR JOANNA OF VALOIS,

QUEEN OF FRANCE.

SHE was daughter of king Louis XI. and Charlotte of Savoy, born to 1464.
Her low stature and deformed body rendered her the object of her
father's aversion, who, notwithstanding, married her to Louis duke of
Orleans, his cousin-german, in 1476. She obtained his life of her
brother, Charles VIII., who had resolved to put him to death for
rebellion. Yet {354} nothing could conquer his antipathy against her,
from which she suffered every thing with patience, making exercises of
piety her chief occupation and comfort. Her husband coming to the crown
of France in 1498, under the name of Louis XII., having in view an
advantageous match with Anne, the heiress of Brittany, and the late
king's widow, alleging also the nullity of his marriage with Jane,
chiefly on account of his being forced to it by Louis XI., applied to
pope Alexander VI. for commissaries to examine the matter according to
law. These having taken cognizance of the affair, declared the marriage
void; nor did Jane make any opposition to the divorce, but rejoiced to
see herself at liberty, and in a condition to serve God in a state of
greater perfection, and attended with fewer impediments in his service.
She therefore meekly acquiesced in the sentence, and the king, pleased
at her submission, gave her the duchy of Berry, besides Pontoise and
other townships. She resided at Bourges, wore only sackcloth, and
addicted herself entirely to the exercises of mortification and prayer,
and to works of charity, in which she employed all her great revenues.
By the assistance of her confessarius, a virtuous Franciscan friar,
called Gabriel Maria, as he always signed his name, she instituted, in
1500, the Order of nuns of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin.[1] It
was approved by Julius II., Leo X., Paul V., and Gregory XV. The nuns
wear a black veil, a white cloak, a red scapular, and a brown habit with
a cross, and a cord for a girdle. T