Augustinian Canons - Canonesses Regular

Canonesses Regular

There are canonesses regular, as well as canons regular; the Apostolic origin is common to both. As Suarez says, with regard to origin and antiquity the same is to be said of orders of women both in general and in particular as of orders of men. The one generally began with the other. St. Basil in his rules addresses both men and women. And St. Augustine founded his first monastery for women in Africa at Tagaste. Most, if not all, of the congregations which go to form the canonical Order had, or still have, a companion congregation for women. In Ireland St. Patrick instituted canons regular, and St. Brigid was the first of numberless canonesses. The monasteries of the Gilbertine Congregation were nearly always double, for men and women. In the tenth and eleventh centuries many of them became canonicae saeclulares and though living in the same house, no longer cherished the spirit of religious poverty or kept a common table.

On the other hand many communities of canonesses willingly took the name and the rule of life laid down for the congregations of regular canons. There still exist in Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, England, Germany, Africa, and America nuns and convents belonging to the Lateran or to some other congregation of canons regular. The contemplative life is represented by such convents as Newton Abbot in England, Sta. Pudenziana at Rome, Sta. Maria di Passione at Genoa, Hernani in Spain, St. Trudo at Bruges. The Hospitalarians were till lately well represented in France with convents of canonesses at Paris, Reims, Laon, Soissons, and elsewhere.

Occupied in the education of children, there are besides some of the ancient convents of canonesses of various congregations, the canonesses of the Congregation of Notre Dame (in full: Congrégation de Notre-Dame de chanoinesses de Saint Augustin), instituted in 1597 at Mattaincourt, in Lorraine, by St. Peter Fourier and the Blessed Alix Le Clerc. This congregation, whose object is the gratuitous education of poor girls, spread rapidly in France and Italy. There are now convents of Notre Dame in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Italy, and Africa. In France alone, until the persecution of 1907, they had some thirty flourishing communities and as many schools for externs and boarders. Driven away from France, some have taken refuge in England, like those of the famous convent of Les Oiseaux, Paris, who are now at Westgate, and those of Versailles who have settled at Hull.

With some modifications the work was soon introduced into the New World in a remarkable way. The canonesses of the convent at Troyes had for some time earnestly desired to carry on their institute in Canada. Circumstances, however, prevented their going, but at their request Marguerite Bourgeoys, the president, of the confraternity attached to their convent, gladly crossed the ocean. In 1657 she opened a school at Montreal, in which, in accordance with the rules laid down by Peter Fourier, the poor were taught gratuitously. The school was a great success. Margaret returned to France to ask for helpers, and found them among her sister, the Children of Mary of Troyes. Returning to Canada with four fellow-workers, and soon followed by others she opened a school for boarders as well as a day school. In 1676 these pious women were formed into the "Congregation of Notre Dame." Margaret died in 1700 and has since been declared venerable. The work she had transferred to Canada is still flourishing. At her death there were ten houses in the Dominion; there are now more than a hundred spread over the whole of North America under a superior general, who resides at the mother-house, Montreal.

In 1809 Bishop George Michael Wittman founded, in Bavaria, the Poor Sisters of the Schools of Notre Dame, and institute similar to that founded by St. Peter Fourier. This association is now widespread in Europe and in America, and has done excellent work in the field of education.

There are English canonesses at Bruges, and at Neuilly, near Paris. In England there is a convent of the Holy Sepulchre at New Hall, with a flourishing school, originally at Liège; also a filiation of that at Bruges, at Hayward's heath, with a large school; at Newton Abbot a numerous community, with a colony at Hoddesdon, devoted to the contemplative life and the Perpetual Adoration. This last convent is, as it were, a link with the pre-Reformation canonesses, through Sister Elizabeth Woodford, who was professed at Barnharm, Priory, Bucks, 8 December 1519. When the convent was suppressed, in 1539, she was received for some time into the household of Saint Thomas More. Later on she went to the Low Countries and was received into the convent of canonesses regular at St. Ursula's, Louvain, of the Windersheim Congregation. So many English ladies, daughters and sisters of martyrs, like Ann Clitheroe, Margaret Clement, Eleanor and Margaret Garnet, followed her that, in 1609, they formed an English community, St. Monica's, Louvain. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, this community of English canonesses returned to England, first to Spettisbury, afterwards to their present home at Newton Abbot. The chronicles of this ancient convent are being published, and two very interesting volumes have already appeared.