The Monastic Republic of Letters of the Belgian Visitandines in the Late Seventeenth Century

Epistolary exchange within the monastic sphere found close parallels in the secular world in the late seventeenth century. This paper analyzes the Visitandine (the Visitation Order) circular letters in Brussels, 1668-1710. I argue that letters circulated among Visitandine houses created a monastic Republic of Letters, in which the act of writing became a discursive practice that fostered a sense of community within a well-defined institution. While convent writings have been studied mainly for spirituality or the social history of the cloister, this paper emphasizes the self-regulatory and normalizing effects in nuns’ epistolary exchange.

Founded in 1610, Visitandine spirituality favored the “little virtues” in life – gentility, graciousness, and meekness – over the intense asceticism that characterized most contemplative orders. Specifically, these “little virtues” supplied the elite notion of honnêteté with spiritual substance. The circular letters were the Order’s prescribed media for Visitandine houses throughout Europe to connect and communicate with each other. They were largely formulaic in style and content. The Brussels Visitandines’ circulars exuded civility and politesse that were central to seventeenth-century “polite conversation.” They recounted the mundane routines in the convent and life-stories of recently deceased nuns with well-balanced sincerity and formality.

I argue that the Visitandines’ public display of conformity to rules of “polite conversation” launched a self-sustaining mechanism that reinforced codes of conduct as well as fostered a sense of community. The monastic processes of identity-formation were strikingly similar with those found within other corporate bodies. With a focus on how writing shaped the concept of community, my paper brings Catholic religious women into a recently renewed discussion about the reciprocal relationship between the individual and community in the early modern period. My analysis also sheds light on the broader cultural significance as well as historical relevance of female monasticism.