Museum Visit Musée des Soeurs Hospitalières 2018
October 17th, 2018Students will have a guided tour of the museum and then they will explore the exhibition. The objective is to analyze some of the artifacts on display and reflect on their historical meaning. For instance, the museum displays the admission book where we can read the names of the women admitted as postulants, their age, where they were from, father’s profession, whether they provided a dot (dowry) or not, and their future role in the congregation. This document enables students to reflect on the age the women decided to enter the congregation (not all of them were teenagers; some were in their 30s), the social origins of these novices and the clear distinction between potential regular sisters and converse sisters. Converse sisters were not allowed to pronounce their vows and remained in domestic services. This is one example of the many artifacts they have to reflect on. There are many others, such as the refectory; the counter where the apothecary prepared her medicines– bottles of herbs, recipes, etc.)
Project Update
The students met at the Musée des Hospitalières on 17 October, 2018. They had a guided tour for an hour or so and then they filled out questionnaires which required them to observe the different artifacts carefully.