Pratiques de l’espace hospitalier par les religieuses au XIXe siècle dans les hôpitaux parisiens : préserver un entre-soi religieux et féminin ?

Separated from the world because of their religious vows, hospital nuns were nevertheless in daily contact with men and lay people, be they patients, hospital staff, or priests. This article shifts attention from the more familiar topic of clausura and the spatial location of nuns within the hospital to examine how they used this space and how these practices allowed them to maintain their distinctive group identity as a female religious order. Through a case study of the Sisters of Sainte-Marthe, we will study how a conflict about their space, which exacerbated a religious disagreement with the hospital chaplain, enabled the nuns to assert their distinctive collective identity in La Pitié hospital. Following the paths of these nuns reveals how Third Republic secularizing measures in the last part of the XIXth century challenged anew the strength of nuns’ religious identity in contrast to their identity as hospital workers