Reglement de l'Hôtel-Dieu d'Alençon

£1,500 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

An unrecorded pamphlet, containing the rules and regulations governing the charitable Hôtel-Dieu of the city of Alençon, and outlining the dismissal of nine women and widows for neglecting their care-giving roles at the charity. We have found no other record of it as a whole, or of its constituent parts. Collated here are five related documents on the administration of the Hôtel-Dieu: the XXXIV reglement , or Rules, for its running and provision from 1677; the 1676 ‘Contrat d’establissement de huit filles de la Charité’, contracting eight ‘Grey sisters’, members of the order of the Daughters of Charity, to take on the roles of the dismissed women; the Approbation from the Bishop of Sées, 1678; the 1685 Royal Letters Patent confirming the reglement; and finally, an up-to-date ‘Nomination’ of the presidents and administrators of the Hôtel-Dieu for 1705, and the two years following. From as early as the twelfth century in France, Hôtels-Dieu were charitable institutions established by the Catholic Church to provide care for the local poor. That in Alençon, per this pamphlet, provided care for 28 elderly patients - ‘vieillards vieilles femmes’ - and 23 children; however, as the opening to the reglement explains, the care received by those residents has been severely lacking. Elisabeth d’Orleans, Duchess d’Alençon has been made aware of numerous abuses, ‘plusieurs Abus’ at the Hôtel-Dieu that require addressing, prime among them, the nine girls and widows’ - chosen ‘pour s’appliqu

• Year: 1705

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