Assembly, statutes and ordinances

Meaning

In the First Response of 1661, Convent means the fraternity’s assembly, not automatically a monastic convent or an identified building. The appointed conductor is to tell the recipients where it can be found and instruct them in its statutes and ordinances. These rules are presented as obligations to be observed, but their contents are not actually printed here.

The English ‘assembly’ usefully avoids a modern institutional inference. Vnderricht is teaching supplied by the guide, including what the writers say they cannot communicate in writing. The institutional vocabulary therefore marks promised access and dependence on authorized instruction, rather than documenting a verifiable membership system or locating a historical headquarters.