Canonesses of St. Augustine of the Mercy of Jesus
Catholic female religious order
The Canonesses of St. Augustine of the Mercy of Jesus (Augustinian Hospitallers) are a Roman Catholic religious order of canonesses who follow a semi-contemplative life and are also engaged in the ministry of caring for the sick and needy, from which they were also known as the "Hospital Sisters".
History
The canonesses' origins were in the 13th century, when a group of women in France joined together to assist the Augustinian Hermit friars who cared for the poor and the sick at the Hôtel-Dieu of the fishing port of Dieppe. Known originally as the "Hermit Sisters of St. Augustine", they formed a lay confraternity following the Rule of St. Augustine, wore a black habit, lived on goods held in common and on alms, and under a set of constitutions drawn up for their use. They cared for victims of scurvy, plague, leprosy and fever prevalent in the overcrowded town. Apart from the services they rendered to the Hôtel-Dieu, they were also employed in assisting the sick poor in all quarters of the city. They would visit and care for the destitute living in their hovels, or even lodging in caves hollowed into the cliffs of the region.
In 1625 they were formed into a religious congregation under the spiritual authority of the friars.
“Canonesses of St. Augustine of the Mercy of Jesus” enters the record as catholic female religious order. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Canonesses, Augustine and Mercy can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Canonesses of St. Augustine of the Mercy of Jesus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.