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Between the 16th and 19th centuries, the duty of a member of the Cistercian Order of monks in Castile was to compile a series of documents where he stated his reasons for abandoning the outside world and adopting monastic life. The purpose of this study is to reconstruct the iter of these documents and to analyse the different types of documents produced, some of which were notarial in nature, while others were written for use within the community. Some were kept in the archives of the monastery, whereas all that remained of others was a reference to them in the archives.

After having analysed the original forms of the rite of Monastic Profession, the study takes into consideration the Profession itself in the Benedictine tradition (professio super altare); Religious Profession in Canonical and Mendicant Orders (professio in minibus) and in the Company of Jesus (professio super hostiam), until analysing the Ordo Professionis Religiosae of the Second Vatican Council. While the ritual of the professio in manibus clearly expresses the character of the profession as a contract between the Religious and the community that receives them (in effect the characteristic gesture of the immixtio manuum has the purpose to adequately illustrate the two aspects of the profession: offer of the hand and the clasp of the hand, that is, the promise and societas). The super-altar professions, on the other hand, contain only a promise from the candidate intended for the community. In the Benedictine tradition, the monastic community does not offer any restipulatio to the novice stipulation (stipulatio); he is offered only a house where he can fulfil his desire to follow Christ more closely. Finally, the super hostiam professio becomes the expression of a strongly individualistic devotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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