Comment devient-on une congrégation enseignante ? Le cas de Notre-Dame de Sion

Abstract

Despite a charisma directed towards the conversion of the Jews, the congregation of Our Lady of Zion acquired rather the reputation of being a full-fledged teaching congregation. This article tries to explain why the sisters of this congregation have built their work around boarding schools, why have they preferred to welcome the young inmates from the local elites and above all, how have they acquired the necessary skills and above all, the diplomas required to teach. The most arduous part of this research consisted in finding the indicators which could have enabled us to identify the educational level of the sisters. The empirical data on this subject are very scarce, since Zion’s sisters did not systematically store in their archives the documents on these subjects, as do the real teaching congregations. Only an extensive research on letters and diaries, and above all, in the contents of inscription books and menologies, allowed us to learn which sisters were entitled to an specific training and on which factors did their diplomas depend.

Keywords

• Congregation
• Our Lady of Zion
• Boarding Schools
• Teaching
• Education
• Diplomas