French nuns and fallen women: Social control and autonomy in ancien regime convents

This dissertation focuses on the cloister as a source of limited female power, on convent values and their deviation from those of the society at large, and on the eventual decline of the convents in the eighteenth century. Archival sources, which came mainly from the cities of Nancy, Avignon, and Besancon, consisted of convent entry and account books, contracts of reception and profession of vows, memorial biographies of nuns, sentencing documents of fallen women, records of bishops' visits, and various manuscript narratives.An analysis of the possession by the devil of the founder of Notre Dame du Refuge, the widow Elisabeth de Ranfaing, sets the stage. Her possession conferred a power not so available to women in the Enlightenment and after. At least on entry into the convent, rank-and-file nuns seem not to have had as much control over their destinies--many became nuns in order to further family fortunes. Comparison of marriage and convent dowries, in the context of analysis of the social backgrounds of entering nuns, shows that for families of more than modest means placing a daughter in a convent was cheaper than marrying her off. However, once within the convent, nuns enjoyed a certain autonomy and power that was not entirely related to their family status.Values inside the convent--where the mission of conversion of fallen women and emphasis on contemplation were intimately connected--did not always mirror those in the outside world. In the convent nuns transformed and even transmogrified values, at least partially through emphasis on suffering through illness and death (an inverse glorification of the body). Families entered fallen women into the Refuge to protect the family honor and were willing to pay for it. The penitential ideal, which was based on willingness, was in contradiction to this.The eighteenth century brought changes to the convents, such as falling convent population, increasing correlation between convent status and secular status, penury, and loss of mission. These changes were related to changes in the society at large, in particular the conflict between religious and secular values arising with eighteenth century dechristianization.