Port Royalists
Port Royalists
Name applied to a group of thinkers, writers, and educators, more or less closely connected with the celebrated Cistercian Abbey of Port Royal near Paris, which during the seventeenth century became the most active center of Jansenism and, to a certain extent, of Cartesianism in France. The Port Royalists were distinguished by the severity and austerity of their moral code and by their new educational methods which greatly promoted the advance of pedagogy. The most noted among them were Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, abbot of Saint Cyran (1581-1643), Antoine-le grand Arnauld (1612-1694), and Pierre Nicole (1625-1695). Cf. Sainte-Beuve, Port-Royal. — J.J.R.