Four History students from the University of Navarra have advanced their knowledge of Archival Science by collaborating with the Provincial Archive at the Marcilla convent, where they have resided from June to August.
The University of Navarra and the Archive of the Province of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine of the Order of Augustinian Recollects, based at the Marcilla convent (Navarra, Spain) signed an agreement for academic internships for History students. Four students have participated in this experience from the beginning of June to mid-August, with the collaboration of two religious tutors.
The main task consisted of classifying, ordering and describing the archival material, taking into account its origin, in such a way that it reflected the organization chart of the Province at each period and facilitated the search for researchers.
Following these criteria, the students classified speeches, sermons, spiritual exercises and other manuscripts, generally anonymous, from the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, by various authors such as Toribio Minguella (1836-1920), Victorino Capánaga (1897-1983), Fabián Otamendi (1897-1962) and other famous Recollect preachers of their time.
They then organized and described in a generic way the documentation belonging to the Apostolic School of Saint Joseph in Lodosa, Navarra, which was the minor seminary of the Province of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine between 1925 and 2001. It was, without a doubt, one of the most arduous tasks due to the disorder in which the documents were found.
The students in practice dedicated the last month of their work to describing and labeling the non-official manuscript books of the Province in a database.
Positive experience
For the university students, this experience meant an encounter with a way of life and spaces that were unusual for them: consecrated life, a convent and the historical archive of a missionary Order with almost five centuries of history.
During these days they lived in the convent and shared with the community not only work time, but also other more relaxed moments. They knew how to adapt and the experience was positive for everyone.
They were happy with their learning and with the grade of the evaluation that rounds off their curriculum. On the part of the Archive, it has advanced in the ordinary work process that the Archive generates and the custody of so much historical documentation.
Throughout the period they had the opportunity to make some visits to significant places for the history of religious life and of the Augustinian Recollects in the area, such as the Cistercian monastery of La Oliva and the Recollect convent of Monteagudo.
Among the many discoveries that made them especially excited, are the recipes of Brother Mariano Aramendia to make jams from different fruits. Under the guidance of Maribel Landívar, they made fig jam, a hundred jars, since it was a record year for the harvest of the fig trees that the venerable Mariano Gazpio had planted in his day.
Such a production allowed them to share fig jam with other Recollect communities in Spain, the benefactors of the local community, the relatives of the venerable friar Mariano Gazpio and those close to his cause for Canonization.
