New manuscript of statutes for a banned convent.

[Manuscript] / [Nuns]. Statuten voor de Zusters van het Derde ordre der penitentie van onsen H. Vader Franciscus in ens Clooster genaemt St. Agnetedael tot Arendonck 1728. S.l. [Arendonk]: s.n., [1728]. 4to [18.7 x 16.3 cm], [24] ff. manuscript. Bound in contemporary vellum consisting of recycled manuscript leaf, remnants of ties. Rubbing, staining and edge wear to vellum, book block loosening, contemporary ownership inscription inside upper cover. Neatly written and perfectly legible throughout, only the very minor occasional stains, stamp reading “Ex Libris Prov. S. Joseph Belgio,” several cancel slips updating rules are affixed with stick pins.
 
 
Flemish manuscript of the ‘Statutes/Rule’ of the Penitent Sisters of Third Order of St. Francis written for the use of the convent of Sint-Agnetendal in Arendonk. The statutes are dated 1728, which was just after the sisters arrived in Arendonk, having been expelled by troops of Protestant Netherlands from their centuries-long home at Agnetendal in Dommelen.
 
The manuscript carries an early ownership inscription of a certain Chatrine Van den Broek (“Ce Livre Appartien à Chatrine vandenbroeck L’an 1748 le 9 Maij”), likely one of the sisters at Sint-Agnetendal in Arendonk. It is also very likely that the book was written out by one of the sisters.
 
At several places early updates/corrections to the text have been made by affixing written slips with stick pins.
 
The text describes the work of the convent, including the acceptance of novices, profession & investiture of nuns, the Holy Office (here there is a pinned in note addressing how nuns who do not know Latin should confront the breviary), private prayer, communal life, confession, fasting, silence, dormitory & refectory,  work house & chapter house, the cloister, the infirmary, comportment while eating, letters & mail, poverty, obedience, etc.
 
In 1798 Sint-Agnetendal in Arendonk was again suppressed, but it opened 20 years later and operated with few interruptions until it was permanently dissolved in 2002.
 
 
*Floris Prims, Sint-Agnetendal te Arendonk.