Published: 2024-06-30

First Constitutions of the Nuns of the Order of St. Mary Magdalene of Penance: Rule of St. Sixtus

Piotr Stefaniak
Studia Teologiczno-Historyczne Śląska Opolskiego
Section: Articles
DOI https://doi.org/10.25167/sth.5292

Abstract

Due to the activity of Canon Rudolf of Worms, monasteries
of penances, self-established in Western and Central Europe, were in 1227 joined into a new order in the Church: Order of Saint Mary Magdalen of Penance, (Ordo Sanctae
Mariae Magdalenae de Poenitentia). Initially, the nuns followed the Benedictine rule in the Cistercian version. However, due to the specificity of the calling, it was necessary to change the law. Pope Gregory IX did this in 1232, thus giving the nuns the so-called rule of St Augustine and the constitutions of the Dominican nuns (the so-called Rule of Saint Sixtus). Although a copy of the original bull of Gregory IX has not been found, Hubertus Ermisch published its text with the Rule of St. Sixtus in the Document Collection of the City of Friborg in Saxony in Leipzig in 1883. Besides, the papal bull with the text of The Rule of St. Sixtus is known from the Bullarium Ordinis Praedicatorum (ed. by Antonio Bremond Romae, 1729). The oldest document containing the Rule of St. Sixtus is kept at the State Archives in Breslau, in the set of files Naumburg a. Queis. We present a Polish translation of the preserved text of the rule from the Naumburg Monastery. It remains the common heritage of both Magdalene sisters and Dominican nuns.

Keywords:

Gregory IX, The Rule of St Sixtus, St Dominic, Dominican Nuns, Sisters of Penance, monastery of St Sixtus in Rome

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Citation rules

Stefaniak, P. (2024). First Constitutions of the Nuns of the Order of St. Mary Magdalene of Penance: Rule of St. Sixtus. Studia Teologiczno-Historyczne Śląska Opolskiego, 44(1), 131–153. https://doi.org/10.25167/sth.5292

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