Instruction for Novice Nuns
SAINT-FRANÇOIS, Hugues de.
Les actions religieuses et exercices de devotion et de vertu pratiquez en esprit interieur. Par les dames religieuses de l’ancienne et illustre abbaye de Nostre Dame de la Charité du Ronceray ... Angers, Pierre Avril, 1648.
8vo, pp. [32], 357, [1 (blank)]; without final blank leaf, with additional engraved title-page by ‘Theodorus van Meerle’, woodcut ‘IHS’ device to title, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces; some marginal worming throughout, some light damp-staining; else a good copy in contemporary stiff vellum; some staining, some wear to corners, wanting free endpapers; ink note in a later seventeenth-century hand to rear pastedown.
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Les actions religieuses et exercices de devotion et de vertu pratiquez en esprit interieur. Par les dames religieuses de l’ancienne et illustre abbaye de Nostre Dame de la Charité du Ronceray ...
A rare manual of spiritual instruction written by the Carmelite prior Hugues de Saint-François (d. 1667) for the nuns of the Benedictine abbey of Ronceray in Angers dedicated to Our Lady of Charity, with an engraved title-page depicting the nuns themselves.
The text begins with an interesting preface to the young novices of the nunnery by the then Abbess Yvonne de Maillé Brezé, whose arms are shown on the engraved title. Outward displays of faith are all well and good, she writes, ‘but the whole becomes tarnished and tiresome if the heart and the tongue, the soul and the voice do not work together in concert in all their parts, and if interior faith does not give it lustre’ (trans.).
Lamenting the showy piety of the times, with its ‘pompous display of convoluted words’, the author offers a spiritual directory in simple language expressed in devout, familiar, and vigorous style. The instruction here provided includes advice on appropriate comportment during mealtimes and in the parlatory, and on manual work.
The engraved title by Theodor van Merlen shows nuns kneeling before the Virgin Mary, who stands with children at her feet, including the infant John the Baptist. As noted in the imprint, Pierre Avril (d. 1676) was printer and bookseller to the university of Angers.
No copies traced outside France.