Ursuline Monastery National Historic Site of Canada
Designated
1972
The Ursuline Convent of Quebec City, (French: Couvent Ursulines de Québec), founded in 1639, is the oldest institution of learning for women in North America. Today, the convent operates an historical museum[1] and teaching centre.[2]
The Viceroyalty of New France was the area colonized by France in North America starting with the exploration of the Saint Lawrence River by Jacques Cartier in 1534. The French explorer Samuel de Champlain founded the city of Québec in 1608 among the Algonquin people as the administrative seat for New France. Colonization was slow and difficult. Many settlers died early, because of harsh weather and diseases. In 1630, there were only 103 colonists living in the settlement, but, by 1640, there were 355.
History
Blessed Marie of the Incarnation, O.S.U., Foundress of the Ursuline Monastery of Quebec
The Ursuline Sisters were the first Catholic nuns to land in the new world. The history of the Ursulines in Quebec begins on 1 August 1639, when its first members landed in Canada. The convent was established under the leadership of Mother (now Blessed) Marie of the Incarnation (1599–1672), an Ursuline nun, and Madame Marie-Madeline de Chauvigny de la Peltrie (1603–1671), a rich widow from Alençon in Normandy. The letters royal sanctioning the foundation are dated 1639. [5]
When they arrived in the summer of 1639, they studied the languages of the native peoples and then began to educate the native children.[6] They taught reading and writing as well as needlework, embroidery, drawing and other domestic arts.[7][8] The Ursuline convent in Quebec City is the oldest educational institution for women in North America.[9]
After three years spent in the Lower Town of Quebec City, the nuns moved to a convent built on ground ceded to them by the Company of New France. Their first pupils were Indian girls, with whom they succeeded better than the Jesuits with their native boys. The first convent was burned in 1650, but was soon rebuilt.[5] The convent was threatened by the Iroquois in 1661-2, when one of its chaplains, the Sulpician Vignal, was slain and devoured[10] near Montreal.
The Constitutions, written by Father Jérôme Lalemant (1593–1673), uncle of the Jesuit martyr Gabriel Lalemant, combined the rules of the two Congregations of Paris and Bordeaux, and were observed until Bishop François de Laval decided in 1681 in favor of the former, which binds its members by a fourth vow to teach girls.[5]
François de Laval, first bishop of New France (1659-1684)
The convent underwent the siege and bombardment of Quebec by Phips in 1690, and a second siege by Wolfe in 1759. After the battle of 13 September 1759, where the garrison of Quebec was defeated by Wolfe's army, the French governor, Montcalm, was buried by night in the convent chapel. The first English governor, Murray, used part of the monastery as his headquarters. On that occasion the rations served to the nuns for nursing the wounded and sick saved them from perishing of starvation.[11] The governors and viceroys, both English and French, were always friendly to the institution.
The Quebec convent founded convents at Three Rivers in 1697, Roberval in 1882, Stanstead in 1884, and Rimouski, with a normal school, in 1906, besides sending missionaries to New Orleans in 1822, Charlestown (Boston) in 1824, Galveston in 1849 and Montana in 1893.[11]
Development and expansion
The monastery of Quebec, established in 1639, founded the following monasteries and convents which were autonomous until 1953:
Monastery of Trois-Rivieres: (1697)
Waterville, 1888-1892
Skowhegan, 1899-1900 (Maine, USA)
Grand-Mère, 1900-1972
Shawinigan, 1908-1977
Trois-Rivières, Christ-Roi Monastery, 1939-1996
Monastery Of Roberval: 1882-2002. (Residence since 2002 at the Augustines de la Miséricorde de Jésus in Roberval; and other foundations)[12]
Monastery Of Stanstead: 1884-2004. (Residence in Magog since 2004)
Monastery of Rimmouski: 1906-1970, the Ursuline Monastery became the Université du Québec à Rimouski
Monastere De Gaspe: in 1924-1970,
St-Simon, 1951-1970
Anses-aux-Gascons, 1950 -1964
Monastère d'Amqui, 1946-1972
Hakodate, Japan, 1948,
Hachinohe, 1950
Matane, 1950
St-Léon-le-Grand, 1952
Maillardville, B.C., 1952-1968
Sendai, Japan, 1936
Tamonoki , 1967
Tokyo, 1972
Yagi, 1974-2004
Loretteville: Boarding School, 1941-1997; Day School 1941
In 1953 the monasteries of Quebec, Trois-Rivières, and Rimouski formed the Canadian Union. In 2008 the three provinces regrouped to form the single Province of Quebec. The Canadian Union also has provinces in Japan and Peru which developed from missions established from Quebec and Rimouski. The Japan Province also has a presence in the Philippines.[13]
Notable people
Marie-Marguerite d'Youville (1701–1771), founder of the Grey Nuns
Marie de l'Incarnation, the foundress, practiced devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and had established it in the cloister years before the revelation to the blessed Margaret Mary (1647–1690). The first celebration of the feast in the New World took place in the monastery 18 June 1700. The register of the Confraternity of the Sacred Heart begins in 1716. Pope Clement XI (1718) enriched it with indulgences. She mastered the local languages and composed dictionaries in Algonquin and Iroquois, a sacred history in Algonquin, and a catechism in Iroquois.
The first superior elected (1760) after the conquest was Esther Wheelwright, a New England captive,[14] rescued from the Abenakis by the Jesuit Bigot, and a protégée of the first governor, Vaudreuil. The Irish, Scottish and American elements in Canada have given distinguished subjects to this cloister, prominent among whom was mother Cecilia O'Conway of the Incarnation, the first Philadelphia nun, one of Mother Seton's earliest associates. The list of alumnae includes Jeanne Le Ber (1662–1714)), the saintly "recluse of Montreal", and Saint Mother D'Youville(1701–1771), foundress of the Grey Sisters at Montreal.
The convent has many of its original walls intact and houses a little chapel and a museum. It is located at 12 Rue Donnacona in the middle of the historical district of Quebec City, which is recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage District. The associated school has two campuses. In the Quebec City campus, there are more than four hundred girls enrolled from pre-school through primary school (5 to 12 years). There is also a coeducational campus in Loretteville. The Ursulines also conduct schools in Peru and Japan.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. ((cite encyclopedia)): Missing or empty |title= (help)
