Constance de Rabastens (13??–1386) was one of the female visionaries who concerned herself with politics in the late fourteenth century.: Many visionaries emerged in the late fourteenth century that predicted the future of the Church. Visionaries often claimed that their visions came from God and that the Church should listen to what is being told. Unlike Catherine of Siena and Marie Robine, other visionaries of the Great Schism, Constance was denied any official recognition and Constance at one point had to extract herself from an inquisitorial interrogation only with great difficulty. During the Great Schism there were multiple popes, the pope and the antipope, and Constance's denial of any official recognition was because she endorsed the "wrong" pope through her divinely inspired prophetic pronouncements. Little is known about Constance's life as her confessor, Raymond de Sabanac (law professor at the University of Toulouse), decided not to write about her life and decided to only write about her visions. Although there are not much known about Constance's life, there are documents about her visions and the letters she wrote to the inquisitor of Toulouse that are preserved in a Catalan translation in Bibliothèque nationale de France. Most of Constance's visions were put together by her confessor, Raymond de Sabanac, but some series of visions were transmitted to Raymond by Constance's son.
Personal life
Constance de Rabastens was from a small town about half-way between Toulouse and Albi. She had a series of dramatic visions between 1384 and 1386 and attempted to intervene in the politics of her time. The turning point of Constance's life was when she took a trip to Toulouse. Leaving Rabastens and taking a trip to Toulouse made herself known to the ecclesiastical authorities that became aware of her visionary activities. Unfortunately, there are no traces of herself other than her visions and the letters she wrote to the inquisitor of Toulouse. There are no documents mentioning her and there are no traces of her in the works of other authors. The little we know about Constance is that she had a daughter, a son who is a Benedictine monk in Toulouse, and a husband. Constance became a widow as she lost her husband during her early forties and, at one point, she was in prison. There is nothing more heard of Constance after 1386.
One aspect of Constance's life is the relationship with her confessor, Raimond de Sabanac. Raimond was who put together all of Constance's visions as he transcribed the visions for her. At one point in their relationship, Raimond stopped transcribing for Constance. Constance articulated this problem in one of her letters to the inquisitor of Toulouse as she asked for a secretary that can transcribe her visions. As Constance's visions became more public and known to the authorities of the church, they were ordered to cease the visions and the transcriptions. Despite Raimond's best efforts, Constance refused to be the perfect visionary and her headstrong support of the "wrong" pope, Pope Urban VI, could not be considered orthodox. Searching for an answer, Raimond asked God for a sign whether he should write or not, such as taking away his eyesight. Raimond only resumed to write for Constance as he was struck by an illness that the Voice identified as a sign from God.
Education
There seems to have been no information about Constance's education or background but according to the visions she had, she admitted to not knowing the Book of Revelation. Constance never indicated she did any particular reading and any literacy Constance admits seems to have been of miraculous origin. Most of the thirteenth-century saintly women often claimed ignorance and often professed unlearnedness to emphasize that the source of the visions was divine and not human.