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 70 SISTERHOODS toirv des Frnncais (31 vols., 1821-'44; vols xxx. and xxxi. by Amed6e Renee, the last forming a general index) ; Julia Severa, ou Van picture of Gaul during the 6th century (3 vols. 12mo, 1822); " History of the Italian Republics," an eloquent summary of his great work on the same subject, and " The Fall of the Roman Empire," both originally written in Kii-ltsii for Lardner's "Cabinet Cyclopae- di.i" (1832 and 1834), and translated by him- self into French; Etudes sur la constitution l^les Hires (1836 ; enlarged ed., entitled j'jt't'lf* des sciences sociales, 3 vols., 1836-'8); and Precis de fhistoire des Francais (2 vols., 1839), a summary of his larger work, bring- ing it down to the death of Henry IV. See " Political Economy and the Philosophy of Government," selected from his works, with a notice of his life and writings by Mignet (Lon- don, 1847) ; Sismondi, fragments de son journal et de sa correspondance avec Mile, de Sainte- Aulaire (Paris, 1863) ; and his Lettres inedites ime d 1 Albany (1864). SISTERHOODS. I. Human Catholic, associations of women bound together by religious vows, and devoted to works of charity. In this arti- cle only those sisterhoods are mentioned which profess to embrace exclusively or in a very special manner hospital work, and the care of the aged or infirm poor, orphans, and penitent women. The history of religious orders of women whose principal object is the pursuit of ascetic perfection, forms a part of the his- tory of the great contemplative orders on which they depend for their origin, name, and spirit- ual guidance. (See MONACHISM, RELIGIOUS OR- DERS, and special articles on the several orders.) Female congregations whose sole purpose is the instruction of youth, or who embrace at the same time works of public charity, are treated under SCHOOL BROTHERS AND SCHOOL SISTERS. In the 5th century mention is made by ec- clesiastical writers of associations of women at Rome, Milan, and other chief cities of the Roman empire, who gave up their wealth and time to the relief of the suffering poor. Congre- gations of female hospitallers existed through- out western Europe, dependent on the com- munities of canons regular, professing like these the rule of St. Augustine, and subject to the same change* and reforms. The earliest known si>t. rlioods of extensive influence, devoted sole- ly to hospitality or hospital work, are the sis- ters of St. John of Jerusalem and the sisters of / inn. The former had a utility coex- with that of the knightly brotherhood of t!i- same name; the latter especially pro- fessed to care for lopors, incurables, the plague- strirk.-n, and persons afflicted with every form of loathsome disease. The order of St. Laza- rin is contemporaneous with the hospitallers of Jerusalem. A guild of men ftnd w <>f sou-nil kprosy hospitals in that city when it was conquered by the crusaders; they were organized soon afterward into a religious order under the rule of St. Augustine, and their establishments mul- tiplied rapidly both in the East and the West. The first female leprosy hospital in France was founded at St. Denis, near Paris, in 1109, by Louis VI., who also opened several others in various parts of the kingdom, among them one at La Saussaie, near Villejuif, and another at Etampes, besides founding many in the East. The sisterhood was recruited from among the nobility ; and Henry II. of England, in found- ing a hospital for female lepers at Rouvray, near Rouen, stipulated that none but noble ladies of the sisterhood of St. Lazarus should belong to the community in charge of the lepers. The sisterhood also found protectors in Richard I. of England, St. Elizabeth of Hun- gary, Louis VII., Louis VIII., and Louis IX. of France, all of whom encouraged the daughters of the nobility to enter it. The popes bestowed many privileges on the sisters, and they soon spread throughout England, Germany, Poland, Italy, and Spain. Among the most noted Au- gustiuian sisterhoods in France is that of the hospitallers of the Hotel-Dieu in Paris, which existed at least as a guild before Charlemagne, and was formally organized as a religious com- munity under Louis le Debonnaire in 814. Their numbers had to be repeatedly recruit- ed during the " black plague " in 1348. Simi- lar sisterhoods, all governed by the rule of St. Augustine, had charge from the beginning of the other Parisian hospitals, and of those founded since that period in French cities and in all the French colonies. Other nurseries of hospitallers in the 13th century were the ab- bey of Longchamp near Paris, the community of "Quinze Vingts" founded by St. Louis, as well as the Maison Dieu, and the hostelleries des postes for strangers and travellers, all in Paris, besides similar foundations by the same king in other parts of France. From these Augus- tinian communities came the hospitallers of the Hotel-Dieu (1639) and general hospital (1693) in Quebec, as well as those of the Hotel-Dieu of Montreal, founded in 1659 by a colony of nuns from La Fleche. Four sisterhoods devo- ted to hospital work and the care of the poor under the title of the " Presentation " have ex- isted: one founded in 1627 by Nicolas San- guins, bishop of Senlis, approved by Urban VIII., but which only possessed a few establish- ments ; a second in Paris, with the mitigated rule of St. Benedict; a third and more im- portant order, founded by Cardinal Federigo Borromeo (died 1631) at Morbegno in the Val- tellina, living under the Augustinian rule, and very popular in the north of Italy ; and a fourth founded in Ireland and described in the article SCHOOL BROTHERS AND SCHOOL SISTERS. In England, the Gilbertine nuns, founded about 1170 by St. Gilbert of Sempringham, embraced hospital work with every other form of pub- lic charity. They numbered 1,200 in 1189. In the year 1100 arose in France the order of Fontevrault, which united the care of lep- rosy hospitals with that of asylums for fallen