St Charles Borromeo
SISTERS OF CHARITY OF
Burning with Compassionate Love
of Jesus Christ Crucified
Exhibition 'Special Charters from the Saint-Servatius Chapter'
From 5 to 21 June 2025, our monastery hosted a unique exhibition of centuries-old charters.
It was an overview of 13 papal, royal and episcopal charters dating from before 1300 AD. Charters from that time are the equivalent of today's notarial deeds. They were used to record agreements on parchment. This was usually done by ecclesiastical authorities, as they were the ones who could read and write. The charters were also usually kept in ecclesiastical archives. In addition to ecclesiastical matters, legal and economic documents were also recorded in this way. The charters always had a number of seals attached to them to guarantee their authenticity.
This exhibition was organised as part of the 2025 Holy Pilgrimage, with the theme “Be a bridge builder”.
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The location in our monastery was not chosen at random; it is the original site of the Provost's Office of the Servatius Chapter and the place where the charters were kept at that time. During the French occupation in 1798, all the archives of the now defunct chapter were brought together and stored in our building.
During the opening days, almost 1,000 visitors came to see these special charters, which were carefully displayed under glass covers.
All 410 charters can be viewed on the website www.vanwaarakte.eu, 13 of which were on display in our monastery.