Gabrielle de Coignard

Who was Gabrielle de Coignard?

Gabrielle de Coignard was a French poet, born in Toulouse, France, to John de Coignard and Louise de Baulac. She married a prominent statesman, Pierre de Manescal, in 1570, and was widowed three years later, with two young daughters, Jeanne and Catherine. She turned to writing spiritual verse to help her spiritual and physical struggles.

Eight years after her death, her daughters decided to publish her poems under the title Œuvres chrestiennes. The poems in this volume include 129 "spiritual sonnets," as well as other poems of varying length, including a long poem on the triumph of the deuterocanonical heroine Judith. Catholic spirituality is the focus of Coignard's work, as it is in the work of her contemporary, Anne de Marquets, who wrote on many of the same subjects.