louise de marillac

History of the Daughters of Charity

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Matthieu Brejon de Lavergnée : Histoire des Filles de la Charité. La rue pour cloître (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècle), Paris, Fayard, 2011, 690 pages, with a preface of Pr. Dominique Julia, 30 €.

 

 

The Company of the Daughters of Charity is the most important female and catholic congregation in the world. There were 40.000 sisters at its height in the 1960’, 20.000 today set up in almost 100 countries. Therefore, the history of this congregation has never been written.

This book is based on the French DC’ private archives in Paris which had never been opened before, and the public ones seized during the French Revolution (Archives nationales).

It includes eleven chapters. The first four chapters present the founders and the founding events: 1. Vincent de Paul and Châtillon (1617). 2. Louise de Marillac and Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs (1623). 3. Marguerite Nezot between Suresnes and Paris (1633). 4. A new community (1634-1642). The following four chapters present one of the most important secular congregations of the Ancien Régime: 5. Official agreements. 6. Authorities. 7.Vocations. 8. Spirituality. Three chapters lead the reader to the charitable world of the Daughters of Charity, varying on large or small-scale as micro-history likes to do : 9. Royaume de France’s scale. 10. The Head Office in Paris. 11. Poor Relief : hospitals, schools and parishes.

The book includes an important iconography, several maps and many graphs.

 

 

Writing the history of the Daughters of Charity

 

This study was necessary because the few summary books existent are out-of-date because of their apologetic tone[1]. So, the Lazarist Alfred Milon who wrote the first essay in 1927, thought that “during the period going from the death of the founder, Saint Vincent de Paul, to the French Revolution, nothing important happened: it is just a period of ordinary growth.”[2] From this point of view, the history of the “sœurs grises” (grey sisters) really begins with the fabulous rise of the « cornettes » in the 19th Century.

The first period, from the beginning of the Company in 1633 to the death of its founders in 1660, seems to be the best known. Pierre Coste and his successors’ positivist and erudite work, the wish of Vatican II Council to come back to the  “original spirit” of the founders (Perfectae caritatis, 1965 ; Ecclesiae Sanctae, 1966), enabled to find many documents. Internal studies (Élisabeth Charpy, DC[3]) or scholar ones (Susan E. Dinan[4]) are based on this archival material. However, Louise de Marillac is far less known than Vincent de Paul. The gap between their two memories took place since the 18th Century because of the beatification and the canonization of M. Vincent.

More generally, the Ancien Régime period, from the 1660’ to the French Revolution, is still poorly known. It is fundamental not only for itself but also to understand the rise of the 19th Century. The Daughters of Charity are already popular on the point of the French Revolution because their action matched with the care service model produced by the Lumières. It explains why they were the first to be re-established by Napoléon. It enabled them to highly contribute to change the religious way of life: the cloistered nuns, prevailing under the Ancien Régime, give way to the sisters living in open communities (Claude Langlois ; Marie-Claude Dinet-Lecomte[5]).

 

A propitious historiographic context

 

For a long time, French historiography opposed Women history and Religious history for ideological reasons. Today, they meet more and more with one another thanks to the impulse given by the English and American historians. Many works focused on nuns history (Bernard Hours ; Bernard Dompnier et Dominique Julia ; Gwénaël Murphy ; Elizabeth Rapley[6]) and, in this case, on the institutes of apostolic life in a gender perspective (Laurence Lux-Sterritt ; Querciolo Mazzonis ; Silvia Evangelisti ; Carmen M. Mangion ; Sioban Nelson[7]).

French scientific journals echoed these researches, particularly about the question of the monastic enclosure[8]. The Daughters of Charity have contributed to impose a new religious way of life for women: neither wife, neither nun, but secular, which is a sort of ambiguous “third status” (Gabriella Zarri)[9]. Gender studies seem to be an interesting way to examine religious congregations and laywomen such as the “dames de charité”[10]. But it is not the only one. Other exist such as social history (recruitment, sisters’ geographical and social origins, vocations), spiritual history (the « École française » so important for the founders, jansenist influences during the 18th Century, devotion to Virgin Mary…), professional practices (hospital sisters and teaching sisters[11]), economical history (what is charity’s cost ?), political history…

This book is an essay of “histoire totale” as Fernand Braudel wished. A second volume will take over during the next years concerning 19th and 20th Century. An international approach will be fundamental. I am interested in all archives you can keep.

 

Matthieu Brejon de Lavergnée, PhD

Member of the « Centre de recherches en histoire du XIXe siècle » (Paris Sorbonne)

 

bdelavergnee@hotmail.com


[1] Les Filles de la Charité de Saint Vincent de Paul, Paris, Letouzey et Ané, coll. « Les ordres religieux », 1923 ; Léonce Celier, Les Filles de la Charité, Paris, Grasset, coll. « Les grands ordres monastiques », 1929 ; Pierre Coste, Charles Baussan, Georges Goyau, Trois siècles d’histoire religieuse, Les Filles de la Charité, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1933.

[2] Annales de la congrégation de la Mission, 92, 1927, p. 738.

[3] Small books on Louise de Marillac (Élisabeth Charpy, Un chemin de sainteté. Louise de Marillac, Paris, Compagnie des Filles de la Charité, 1988, 243 p. ; id., Petite vie de Louise de Marillac, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1991, 125 p.) and manly the edition of the Marillac’s Écrits spirituels (éd. É. Charpy, Paris, Compagnie des Filles de la Charité, Tours, impr. Mame, 1983, 920 p.) and Documents sur la Compagnie des Filles de la Charité aux origines(éd. É. Charpy, Paris, Compagnie des Filles de la Charité, 1989, 1111 p.).

[4] Women and Poor Relief in Seventeenth-Century France. The Early History of the Daughters of Charity, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2006.

[5] Le Catholicisme au féminin. Les congrégations françaises à supérieure générale, Paris, Cerf, 1984 ; Les Sœurs hospitalières en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. La charité en action, Paris, H. Champion, 2005.

[6] Carmes et carmélites en France du XVIIe siècle à nos jours, Paris, Cerf, 2001 ; Visitation et Visitandines aux XVIIeet XVIIIe siècles, Saint-Étienne, Université de Saint-Étienne, 2001 ; Le peuple des couvents. Poitou, XVIIe-XVIIIesiècle, La Crèche, Geste éditions, 2007 ; A Social History of the Cloister. Daily life in the teaching monasteries of the Old Regime, Montreal, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001.

[7] Redefining Female Religious Life. French Ursulines and English Ladies in seventeenth-century Catholicism, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2005; Spirituality, Gender, and the Self in Renaissance Italy. Angela Merici and the Company of St Ursula (1474-1540), Washington, The Catholic University of America Press, 2007; Nuns. A History of Convent Life, 1450-1700, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007, chap. 7 “Open communities for Women”; Carmen M. Mangion, Contested Identities. Catholic women religious in nineteenth-century England and Wales, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2008; Say Little, Do Much. Nurses, Nuns and Hospitals in the Nineteenth Century, Philadelphia, Univeristy of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.

[8] For instance : Clio. Histoire, Femmes et Sociétés, special issues : « Femmes et religions », 1995 ; « Chrétiennes », 2002 ; « Clôtures », 2007. See http://clio.revues.org

[9] Gabriella Zarri « The Third Status », in Anne Jacobson Schutte, Thomas Kuehn, Silvana Seidel Menchi (ed.), Time, Space, and Women’s Lives in Early Modern Europe, Kirksville, Truman State Univ. Press, 2001, p. 181-199. See also: Camilla Russel « Convent culture in Early-Modern Italy : Laywomen and Religious Subversiveness in a Neapolitan Convent », in Megan Cassidy-Welch, Peter Sherlock (ed.), Practices of Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Turnhout, Brepols, 2008, p. 57-76.

[10] Barbara B. Diefendorf, From Penitence to Charity. Pious Women and the Catholic Reformation in Paris, New York, Oxford University Press, 2004; Ulrike Strasser, Gender, Religion, and Politics in an Early Modern Catholic State, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2004; Kathleen Sprows Cummings, New women of the old faith. Gender and American catholicism in the progressive area, The University of North Carolina Press, 2009.

[11] See for instance Laurence Brockliss and Colin Jones (The medical world of early modern France, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1997) who put back the Daughters of Charity inside a vast social history of medecine.

Research Resource: Mission et Charite

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Mission et Charite was a publication undertaken by the scholarly Andre Dodin, C.M., (1911-1996), with the help of his close friend and colleague, Maurice Vansteenkiste, C.M., (1915-2007), trained in biblical studies.  Its purpose was highlighted on its nearly invariable cover, “Doctrine, Action.” Similar to the Petites Annales published 1900-1903, this journal sought to explore the dynamism of the teaching of Vincent de Paul.  Coming after the celebration of the tercentenary of the deaths of Saints Louise de Marillac and Vincent de Paul, it intended to continue the interest and advances made at that time.  Also like the Petites Annales, its purpose was not to supplant the Annales de la Congregation de la Mission, but to supplment that publication.  In fact, however, the Annales ceased publication in 1963.

Mission et Charite began publishing in January 1962 and continued until its final number in June 1970.  Scheduled to appear four times a year, it often managed to publish only three times a year, but in this case two issue numbers simultaneously.  In general, it averaged about 100 pages per issue.  The final number had been pllaned as 19-20, for 1965, but delays kept it unpulished until it came out as the issue for January-June 1970.  Its special importance is that it collected and published materials that supplemented the edition of the correspondence, conferences and documents of Saint Vincent de Paul published by Pierre Coste, 1920-1925.

Later issues concentrated on themes, such as the work of Pere Pouget, or on other topics of the day, many of which were being discussed at the Second Vatican Council: famine, peace, renewal, ecumenism, tradition. Father Dodin sought authors amongs his confreres in the Congregation, as well as from friends in the scholarly world.  One name that appears occasionally is Jules Melot, a pseudonym for Raymond Chalumeau, C.M. To help researchers, the text is available electronically.  In addition, there are two indices. The first was a work of Vansteenkiste.  It consists of a list of articles, arranged thematically, appearing at the end of numbers 35-36.  The second, by Francois Garnier, is a privately made index, typewritten and corrected by hand.  In a separate file, it consists principally of names of persons and places mentioned in 36 numbers of Mission et Charite.

John E. Rybolt, C.M., December 2008

http://via.library.depaul.edu/mission_charite/

VHRN Book of the Week

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From Penitence to Charity, By Barbara B. Diefendorf, 368 pages; 7 halftones; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; ISBN13: 978-0-19-509583-8ISBN10: 0-19-509583-9

Winner of the J. Russell Major Prize of the American Historical Association

Description
From Penitence to Charity radically revises our understanding of women’s place in the institutional and spiritual revival known as the Catholic Reformation. Focusing on Paris, where fifty new religious congregations for women were established in as many years, it examines women’s active role as founders and patrons of religious communities, as spiritual leaders within these communities, and as organizers of innovative forms of charitable assistance to the poor. Rejecting the too common view that the Catholic Reformation was a male-dominated movement whose principal impact on women was to control and confine them, the book shows how pious women played an instrumental role, working alongside–and sometimes in advance of–male reformers. At the same time, it establishes a new understanding of the chronology and character of France’s Catholic Reformation by locating the movement’s origins in a penitential spirituality rooted in the agonies of religious war. It argues that a powerful desire to appease the wrath of God through acts of heroic asceticism born of the wars did not subside with peace but, rather, found new outlets in the creation of austere, contemplative convents. Admiration for saintly ascetics prompted new vocations, and convents multiplied, as pious laywomen rushed to fund houses where, enjoying the special rights accorded founders, they might enter the cloister and participate in convent life. Penitential enthusiasm inevitably waned, while new social and economic tensions encouraged women to direct their piety toward different ends. By the 1630s, charitable service was supplanting penitential asceticism as the dominant spiritual mode. Capitalizing on the Council of Trent’s call to catechize an ignorant laity, pious women founded innovative new congregations to aid less favored members of their sex and established lay confraternities to serve society’s outcasts and the poor. Their efforts to provide war relief during the Fronde in particular deserve recognition.

Reviews
“From Penitence to Charity is an important work that goes far to explain the intense religious enthusiasm of the first half of the century of the saints and that shows the crucial role that elite women played in helping to define this spiritualityIt furthers our understanding of the roles that women played in early modern European society and reinforces our view of the Catholic Reformation as a movement profoundly shaped by lay involvement rather than engineered and imposed by clerics.”–Journal of Modern History

“Barbara Diefendorf’s new book on the leading role played by aristocratic and bourgeois women in the French Catholic revival marks the triumphant completion of a trilogy of books transformed our understanding of Paris in the era of the Catholic and Protestant Reformations. Diefendorf’s lucid and straightforward prose will ensure that the books becomes essential reading to students and scholars of the Counter-Reformation. This is women’s history at its best; rather than apply anachronistic interpretative models to slippery evidence, she builds strong narrative by letting female actors speak for themselves and in so doing she permits us to get as close as we can to their world, their experiences, and to the possibilities of female agency in the early modern public sphere.” —The Sixteenth Century Journal

“Relying on an impressive abundance of primary sources, printed and manuscript, Diefendorf identifies several developments during and just after the French wars of the later decades of the 1500s. This book will be very significant for historians of early modern France and for scholars interested in the interactions of religion, gender, and culture.”–Theological Studies

“From Penitence to Charity is one of the most important studies of the Catholic Reform to date. This book will change our understanding of the reform movement and gender.”–Renaissance Quarterly

“This book will be very significant for historians of early modern France and for scholars interested in the interactions of religion, gender, and culture.”–Theological Studies

“To say that Barbara Diefendorf’s third monograph is her most significant contribution is saying something indeed. From Penitence to Charity bears all the hallmarks of Diefendorf’s fine scholarly hand: meticulous research, nuanced analysis, and narrative richness. It is, however, a more ambitious project, one that deftly weaves together gender, religion, economics, and politics to explain the spiritual renewal of the seventeenth century. In the process, Diefendorf rewrites the history of the Catholic Reformation in France, and, along with it, the spiritual life of women.”–H-France Review

“The first achievement of this refreshing book is to return to the forefront of scholarly minds the forgotten and overshadowed Parisian women who drove Catholic revival in their city and beyond during and after the Wars of Religion.”–The Journal of Ecclesiastical History

“Diefendorf argues for the enormously positive role of women during the formative years of the Catholic Reformation. She makes her case eloquently and well. Without their collaboration, that Reformation would have been a much different thing.”–The Catholic Historical Review

“[A] significant contribution to the larger story of the “feminization” of religion in France….It could be argued that the Catholic Reformation, instead of being a moment when men controlled and confined women, was a moment when some women imposed their vision of piety upon the church. Diefendorf has composed a very compelling and readable book that offers her audience an understanding of the changing meanings of piety in late sixteenth and early seventeeth-century France.”–American Historical Review

Product Details
368 pages; 7 halftones; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; ISBN13: 978-0-19-509583-8ISBN10: 0-19-509583-9

About the Author(s)
Barbara B. Diefendorf is Professor of History at Boston University

Two recently translated articles by Elisabeth Charpy, DC

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FAMVIN is proud to present two newly translated articles of renowned scholar, Elisabeth Charpy, DC. These articles offer fresh insights into Louise’s relationship with Vincent as well as her relationship with first priests of the Congregation of the Mission. The image of Louise is much different from that of Louise as presented in many circles in the last century.

VINCENT AND LOUISE: ONE AND THE SAME PASSION, THE POOR”’ by Elisabeth Charpy, DC

“Their relationship passed through several phases before becoming one of true friendship. Every relationship evolves and is built up with the passing of the days and years. A passion for the poor can create differences with regard to the way to orient one’s activity … thus misunderstandings can arise.”

LOUISE DE MARILLAC AND THE PRIESTS OF THE MISSION by Elisabeth Charpy, DC

“Louise came to know the first companions of Vincent: M. Portail, a priest for thirty-six years from the Diocese of Arles and two other priests from the Diocese of Amiens, M. François de Coudray (forty years old) and Jean de la Salle (twenty-eight years old). At the end of 1626 Louise met Jean Bécu a priest for ten years from Somme and Antoine Lucas (twenty-six years), a seminarian. Louise was thirty-five years old.” “There was great trust between Vincent, the Missionaries and Louise. Each one recognized and respected the competency of the other.”

An Invitation to Publish with Vincentian Heritage

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Greetings,

 

By way of introduction, my name is Nathaniel Michaud and I serve as Publications Director for the DePaul University Vincentian Studies Institute. We publish the journal Vincentian Heritage, as well as a scholarly monograph series and a variety of special publication projects.

 

For those who may not be familiar with us, the Institute is dedicated to promoting research and a living interest in the historical and spiritual heritage of Saint Vincent de Paul and Saint Louise de Marillac, the patrons of the wide-ranging Vincentian Family including the Congregation of the Mission, the Daughters of Charity, the Ladies of Charity, the Sisters of Charity, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and a number of other congregations, communities, and lay movements who share a common dedication to serving those in need.

 

If you are involved in such research, and are seeking an outlet for possible publication, I would like to take this opportunity and invite you to consider submitting your work to the V.S.I.

 

Vincentian Heritage welcomes manuscripts, poetry, and other expressions of Vincentian themes that meet the publication criteria.  All articles should relate directly to topics of Vincentian interest, and be researched and documented in a scholarly fashion.  Ordinarily, articles should not exceed thirty typewritten pages and should be submitted as a Word Document twelve months prior to anticipated publication.  Publication is subject to the approval of our Editorial Board.

 

We would also welcome recommendations you might have regarding possible article reprints or translations, works you may have found in your research which you feel deserve a wider audience.

 

Finally, if you are working on a book-length manuscript the V.S.I. would certainly welcome proposals which fit within the parameters of our monograph series or our special publications.

 

For more information, including links to our editorial style sheet and monograph series, please click on this link and visit our web site at: The Vincentian Heritage Journal

 

We thank you for considering this possibility and hope to hear from you.

 

If you have any questions, or would like to submit an article or proposal for possible publication, I can be reached at:

 

Mr. Nathaniel Michaud

DePaul University Vincentian Studies Institute

Suite 850F

55 East Jackson Blvd.

Chicago, IL 60604

Email: nmichaud@depaul.edu

Phone: 312-362-6169