As the Catholic Church sought to establish itself in the Philippines, the mendicant religious orders founded numerous missions and monasteries for male ecclesiastics, but only one convent for women was ever established. The Real Monasterio de Santa Clara, was founded as a Franciscan convent in 1621, exactly a century after the arrival of the Spanish to the Philippines. The reluctance of ecclesiastical and royal authorities to grant licenses for new convents, as well as the restriction of membership to Spanish women, contributed to the dearth of these foundations in the Philippines. With little hope of joining a convent, Manila's women founded beaterios, lay houses of religious retreat whose members took only simple vows and did not live in claustration. Many such institutions also served as schools, teaching young girls Christian doctrine, sewing and embroidery, the basics of reading and writing, and other subjects suitable to their sex.

La Compañia, the foundation for which these Constitutions were written, was the first beaterio in the Philippines established explicitly for native women, Sangleys, and mestizas. It was founded through the efforts of Ignacia del Espiritu Santo (1663–1748), an indigenous-Chinese mestiza born in the predominantly Chinese parish of Binondo. Ignacia and other pious women began to congregate around the Jesuit Church in 1685 and receive instruction from the Jesuit fathers. Unlike other monastic orders, the Jesuit rules preclude the formal participation of women in religious life; though not officially members of the order, nor under Jesuit authority, the beatas still visited the church for mass daily and Jesuit priests served as their spiritual instructors.