Zwarte affidavit van de H. Augustinus

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The Zwartstaers are a Roman Catholic religious order that is at home in nursing. They live according to the rule of St. Augustine and were originally independent monasteries, which in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries developed into congregations in the current sense. One of these congregations are the Zwartsters of Aalst.

History and present

After the city magistrate of Aalst had sent an "invitation" to the Zwartste family of Gent ( mother house Gent ) to establish a branch , the superior Joanna Cupers and the other sisters vander regule ende ordene vanden Augustinen were mentioned in the city on June 24, 1475 . The confirmation of the foundation by the Bishop of Kamerijk followed on June 24, 1475 with a document. In this, the monastery is described as being located on Kapellestraat and the convent has a membership of 12.

After the construction of a chapel had begun in the years between 1480 and 1495, until that time they had a special place in the parish church, the convent strength was increased to 18 members in 1540. The community, which had been going through internal crises since 1610 and which had not yet been resolved in 1621, received new statutes on July 9, 1611, which were renewed again in 1623. We met the monastery, which could be described as poor, in 1660 under the name Bethlehem and in 1668 concluded a contract with the city magistrate, which among other things gave them a monopoly on funerals. When the Cardinal Archbishop of Mechelen visited the monastery on October 29, 1719, which was in constant need of warning instructions, there were 14 sisters in Aalst and two in Ghent.

On November 13, 1745, he granted them the privilege of visiting sick relatives who lived outside the city on their own, i.e. without the company of a fellow sister. After the French rule began, the sisters had to pay a war tax of 1,000 guilders in 1794. But that wasn't enough. After the sisters had refused to take the oath of allegiance to the republic, two officials came to inventory the monastery property.

When the officials entered the monastery at the beginning of 1796 and announced the abolition of their convent to the sisters, they found only three of them who, on top of that, persistently refused to leave their house. The other sisters had already moved into a house on the Pontstraat with most of their property. After the monastery buildings were sold on July 30, 1799, they acquired, with the support of Dean de Hert, in 1806 a house, also located on Kapellestraat, which they were able to move into in 1807. After they were allowed to wear their habit again as early as 1805, the congregation, under episcopal law, received royal approbation on May 14, 1829 and was limited to a maximum of 30 members.

As early as 1838, care was taken over in the municipal hospital in Geraardsbergen and the first branch was established, which was followed by a second in Maldegem in 1878. In Aalst itself, care was taken over in the Godshuis on Kattestraat in 1851. But that wasn't enough. The now blossoming congregation was to establish and lead numerous works of charity in the following years. In 1968 they worked with 110 sisters in five branches, and in 1971 they converted their branch in Ronkenburg into a nursing home for the elderly sisters. Since the monastery buildings on Kapellestraat had become too big, they sold them and moved the motherhouse to a smaller building on Moorselbaan. Four years later, they had four branches with 83 sisters, but in 1987 they gave up one of them.