From Alms to Investments : Monastic investment strategies in 18th century Paris (original) (raw)
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French Historical Studies, 2001
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The re-use(s) of a Cistercian Monastery in Lisbon
Architecture Civil Engineering Environment, 2013
The Monastery of Our Lady of Nazareth of Mocambo in Lisbon, usually known as Bernardas’ Convent, was a Cistercian foundation. After the extinction of the religious orders, in 1834, the Monastery had several uses. In order to understand the Bernardas’ Convent (or Monastery of Our Lady of Nazaré of Mocambo) we must keep in mind that the monastic space can become a territorial organism which appropriates the territory, modelling and altering it according to its needs. A city consists of complex relationships between both material and immaterial elements. These relationships give life and existence to the city, sometimes through submission and sometimes as a result of reactions because the city is coexistence.
Thesis, 2020
Monastic life in France arose from the ashes of the Revolution following the fall of Napoleon and the restoration of a French monarchy sympathetic to Catholicism in 1815. The Trappists led the return of contemplative monastic orders despite cultural changes that had undercut traditional monastic functions, despite the loss of monastic property and sources of income, and despite the continued refusal of the state to authorize contemplative monasticism. This thesis argues that the Trappists succeeded by adopting a new form of monasticism that valorized manual labor while emphasizing asceticism and poverty. This allowed the Trappists both to reestablish monastic life without the rents and tithe rights available to ancien régime monasteries and to prove themselves useful in a changed society that no longer valued a life dedicated solely to prayer. The geography of religion also played a role in the monastic revival. French monasteries succeeded in the first half of the nineteenth century by locating in areas where religious observance was relatively strong. The return of monasteries, this thesis goes on to argue, formed the vanguard of a religious revival in France. It cut across the grain of predominant cultural trends toward individualism and materialism. At the same time, the monastic revival fit within the current of nineteenth-century French romantic and utopian ideas displayed by other groups who also bridled against the predominant trend of materialistic individualism. This thesis explores the Trappist revival by focusing on two examples, both in western France: the women's monastery Notre-Dame des Gardes during the Restoration (1815-1830) and the men's monastery of Melleray during the July Monarchy (1830-1848).
The Monastery of Our Lady of the Assumption in Brussels (1599-1794)
English Benedictine History Symposium, 1999
After 1558 new institutions of and for English Catholics were slow to be established. The first was the English College founded at Douai in 1568, one of the first Tridentine seminaries, but only re-established at Douai in 1593, after years at Rheims. The second was the English Jesuit college founded at St Omer in 1592. Both the seminary and the Society of Jesus were self-consciously modern institutions. The third Continental foundation for English Catholics, that of the English Benedictine nuns in Brussels, was quite different: a deliberate return to the monasticism which "lay at the heart of early English Christianity". 2 Interest in
'Nuns' Funds. The 1874 and 1925 Accounts of the Carmel of 's-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands', in Roumen Avramov et al. (eds.), Monastic Economy Across Time. Wealth Management, Patterns and Trends (Sofia 2021), 197-217, 2021
The flourishing of Roman Catholic religious life in the Netherlands in the nineteenth and twentieth century was the result of many factors. Finances were an important aspect: the rise of religious institutes cost money, and religious devised various ways of generating revenue. Historians have studied the business model of active congregations, but have given much less attention to that of contemplative religious. These nonetheless also experienced both numerical and financial growth during this period. This paper will inquire into the costs and revenues of the contemplative life by looking at two snapshots from the financial history of the Carmel of ’s-Hertogenbosch. This convent (1872-1971) was the first of the Order of Discalced Carmelite Nuns to be founded in the Netherlands after the French Revolution, and it was long the country’s most prominent Carmel. Close inspection of its annual accounts for the years 1874 and 1925 can reveal much about how the contemplative life was financed at a time of new beginnings and of expansion. The paper will be based on the convent’s archives and diocesan archives, and on additional material relating to other Carmels in the Netherlands. It will examine the case of this Carmel using the framework of the ‘Economics of Providence’ that Maarten Van Dijck and Jan De Maeyer outlined in their eponymous 2012 volume. An extended, Dutch-language version of this paper is due to be published in a collection of essays in the Netherlands in 2019; the current contribution seeks to make the results available to an international audience. Translated and abridged version of my chapter in Marie-Antoinette Willemsen (ed.), Werven en derven. De financiële grondslag van kloostergemeenschappen in de Lage Landen (Hilversum: Verloren, 2019).
Accounting History, 2006
This article firstly presents the sophisticated bookkeeping system used by the Benedictine monks of the Monastery of Silos (Spain) during the eighteenth century, the procedures for which were set down in the Constitutions of 1701 of the Congregation of Saint Benedict of Valladolid. In the light of these regulations and the bookkeeping records that are still preserved to this day at the monastery, the activities that sustained the economic life of the monastery and led to the accumulation of its patrimony are examined. The study includes an itemized breakdown of the different types of income: capital rents, rents from land and livestock, ecclesiastical dues, and retributions for religious services. Similarly, the use made of the financial flows arising from the income is also analysed and a summary of the results is presented for the period under analysis (1694–1801), which sheds light on the role of the monastery as an administrator of its assets and its rights. Both sections lead t...