ABSTRACT
In 1577, Teresa of Avila wrote to her superior, seeking permission to admit a seven-year-old girl as a boarder in a Discalced Carmelite convent:
Teresa’s dream of having one ‘little angel’ per convent was never fulfilled. During her lifetime, only five young girls resided in the seventeen Discalced Carmelite convents she helped to found. It is not surprising that the Discalced should eschew the practice, common in many orders at the time, of taking in doncellas (boarders) or educandas (students). For example, at the Convent of the Incarnation of Avila, where Teresa had spent the first twenty-seven years of her life in religion, many girls, some as young as four, lived in multi-room cells with their aunts or sisters.2
