Nun ordered to transfer to newly founded convent: 17th-century letter.

[Nuns] / [Manuscript letter]. Frere Robert Vaxius Ministre Provincial de l’Ordre de St. François en la Province de Flandre. A notre chere Soeur en Jesus-Christ Soeur Marie Anne Boux Penitente Recollectine. Salut en notre Seigneur. Liège: signed 14 July 1683. [26.2 x 23.1 cm], [1] f. manuscript on paper, with seal. Folds, minor toning, neatly written and perfectly legible.

Manuscript letter, dated 14 July 1683, written in Liège by frère Robert Vaxius, Provincial Minister of the Order to St. Francis, to the pénitente-récollectine Soeur Marie Anne Boux, instructing her that she is to be transferred to the newly founded convent at Herve. Seventeenth-century manuscript correspondence concerning nuns is rarely encountered today.

Marie Anne Boux’s transfer followed the upheaval at the home convent of the soeurs récollectines in Limbourg, which was destroyed in 1676 by the army of Louis XIV. A portion of the Limbourg sisters moved to Herve in 1676 and in 1678, where they served as teachers for poor children until the convent was constructed in 1683. The present-day Vieux Couvent (Oude Klooster) of Herve was constructed in 1732 on the original site.

*Pierre-Jean Niebes, Les pénitentes-récollectines de la congrégation de Limbourg: Monasticon; N. J. Cornet, Notices historiques sur l’ancienne congrégation des pénitentes-récollectines de Limbourg et sur quelques religieuses qui s’y sont sanctifies.