very severe, and enjoined, among other austerities, absolute poverty, the complete seclusion of the monks in separate cells, and total abstinence from flesh-meat.

The order was approved in 1224 by Honorius III. Driven from their monastery by the encroachments of the Saracens, the Carmelites wandered into Europe, where, giving up the life of anchorets, they received from Pope Innocent IV. estates for their use, and by his authority changed their name to Brothers of our Lady of Mount Carmel.

According to a pious legend, Simon Stock,' an Englishman, the sixth general of the order, received from the Blessed Virgin the scapular (scapulare), so called from being worn upon the shoulders, with the promise that whosoever should have it on when dying would escape eternal punishment.

In 1245 the Carmelites became one of the Mendicant orders, but after Pope Eugene had so modified their Rule (A. D. 1431) as to adapt it to the climate and changed circumstances of the West, they split into two divisions—one of which called themselves the Conventuals, or the Shod, and the other the Observants, or the Unshod. They subsequently coalesced with similar orders of nuns and with numerous confraternities of the Scapular, who specially aimed at honoring the Blessed Virgin, and devoted themselves to works of charity.

Very similar to these was the order of Fontevrault, whose members dedicated themselves in a special sense to the honor and glory of the Queen of Heaven.2 They were founded by Robert of Arbrissel in 1094. Robert in his youth entered enthusiastically into the religious and scientific movement of his age, and having gone through his course of studies with great credit to himself, at Paris, became a professor of theology in that city, and was distinguished by his correct and ascetical life. The Bishop of Rennes, who was himself identified with the movement in favor of reform, made the young professor his coadjutor (A. D. 1085).

In his new position Robert showed great capacity, and was

1 Launoy, Diss. V. de Simon. Stockii visu, de Sabbathinae bullae privil. et Scapularis Carmelitar. sodalitate (Opp., T. II., Pt. II.)

2 Mabillon, Annal., T. V., p. 314 sq. Bolland. Acta SS. mens. Febr., T. III., p. 593. Helyot, Vol. VI., p. 98 sq.

extremely zealous in his efforts to reform the morals of the clergy, to enforce the rule of celibacy, and to suppress simony. But after the death of this bishop, he gave up his efforts in despair, and took a professorship in the city of Angers, which, however, he soon threw up, and consecrated himself to a life of penance and self-denial in the forest of Craon. Roots and herbs were his food, and his couch the bare ground. His retreat was soon invaded by many desirous of sharing his mode of life, and they finally became so numerous that, as he himself informs us, he was obliged to make three divisions of them, distributing them in the neighboring forests. He next had a number of small cells built at La Roe (A. D. 1093), and gave their occupants the rule of St. Augustine for their guidance. Urban II. ordered him to preach the Crusade, and his words of burning eloquence fired all hearts. His preaching seems to have had a strange and magnetic influence. Young and old of both sexes, after listening to him, gave up their vicious habits, confessed their sins, and entered upon a new life.1

In the year 1100 he founded two houses at Fontevrault (Fons Ebraldi), not far from the town of Candes, in Poitouthe one for men and the other for women-which were soon too small to accommodate the crowds that flocked thither, and new ones had to be erected. The order was approved by Pope Paschal II. in 1106, and again in 1113.

Following the example of our Divine Savior, who, when dying, committed St. John, the well-beloved disciple, to the care of His mother, Robert placed all his convents, both of‘ men and women, in the keeping of the Blessed Virgin, and made them all subject to the Abbess of Notre-Dame-de-Fontevrault.2 Finally, he assigned them the difficult and delicate mission of reclaiming vicious women and leading them back to a life of virtue; and to this work, with a disregard for his own good name bordering on recklessness, did he devote the best energies of his life. He died in 1117.

1 The biography of Bishop Balderic, in Bolland. d. 25 mens. Feb.

2 Dissertationes de subjectione virorum etiam sacerdotum ad mulierem, etc., Paris, 1612; ed. II. as Clypeus Font. Ebrald. ordinis, Paris, 1692, 3 T. Conf. Schels, The Modern Religious Communities, Schaffhausen, 1857, p. 74 sq.

"How happy are you," said the faithful interpreter of the sentiments of his age, on beholding a young maiden enter the cloister, "how happy are you in that you have given up the sons of men and now chosen as your bridegroom the Son of the Most High! You shall be dear to him in proportion as your apparel is poor and your virginity spotless. You have done well to trample under foot the fleeting riches and insidious treasures of the world. From this time forth have no part with it; offer yourself, wholly and without reserve, as a sacrifice to your heavenly Bridegroom."

§ 245. Anthonists, Trinitarians, and Humiliati.

There is no disease so loathsome, so repugnant to man's nature, or so offensive to his senses, that Christian charity may not be found warm and courageous enough to minister to such as are stricken with it. Hence, in those terrible days when appalling epidemics swept over Europe, scourging and desolating whole provinces, religious associations sprung up whose special purpose it was to minister to the corporal and spiritual wants of the sick and the pest-stricken. Besides the terrible plague of the leprosy, which had been brought into Europe from the East, there was another, known as the Sacred Fire, or St. Anthony's Fire, which carried off multitudes after they had suffered the most frightful pains; and those who were fortunate enough not to succumb to it were left either mutilated or incurably lame for the remainder of their days.

Among those attacked by this disorder was one Guerin, the son of a wealthy nobleman by the name of Gaston, who had also been stricken by it. Both had recourse to St. Anthony, and obtained their recovery. Out of gratitude for this blessing, the two made a pilgrimage to Didier-la-Mothe, where the saint was particularly venerated, and there consecrated their entire fortune to the foundatiou of an order whose work was to consist in serving and caring for those who were stricken with this and similar maladies. They were approved in 1096 by Pope Urban II., after which they took the name of Anthonists, or Hospitalers. Their habit was black, having an Egyptian cross (T) on the breast. The order, which was at first composed entirely of laymen, but subsequently, by permission of Boniface VIII., included canons, observed the rule

1 Petr. Bles., ep. 55.

of St. Augustine, under the direction of a superior called a Master (magister). There was also another society of laymen and ecclesiastics devoted entirely to the laudable and laborious work of serving lepers.

"These brothers," says James of Vitry, a contemporary († c. A. D. 1240), "by forcing themselves to it, endure, amidst filth and offensive odors, such intolerable hardships for Christ's. sake, that it should seem no sort of penitential exercises imposed by man upon himself could for a moment be compared with this holy martyrdom, so precious in the sight of God.” John of Matha, a theologian of Paris, but a native of Provence, and Felix of Valois had simultaneously the same dream, and as Innocent III., in interpreting it, directed their thoughts toward the redemption of Christian captives taken by the Saracens, he may be regarded as the founder of the order of Trinitarians2 (A. D. 1198), and did, in fact, draft its Rule. It was called, from its object, Ordo de Redemptione Captivorum, but its members were more generally known as Trinitarians. They wore a white habit, having a red and blue cross on the breast. They were well received in France, where they had originated, were the recipients of large sums of money to be devoted to the objects of the order, and had large accessions to their number, among whom were many distinguished by ability and profound learning.

In the year 1200 the first company of ransomed captives arrived from Morocco, and one may easily imagine their joy on again regaining their freedom and beholding once more their friends and native land.

The members of this order were sometimes called Mathurins, from the title of the first church occupied by them in Paris. They spread rapidly in Southern France, through Spain, Italy, England, Saxony, and Hungary, and foundations

1 Bolland. mens. Jan., T. II., p. 160. Kapp, de Fratrib. S. Antonii, Lps. 1737, 4to.

2 Bonaventura Baro, Annal. ordin. S. Trin., Rom. 1684; regula, in Holsten., T. III., p. 3 sq. See Helyot, Vol. II., p. 366 sq. Hurter, Vol. IV., p. 213 sq. Henrion-Fehr, Vol. I., p. 132 sq. *Dr. Gmelin, The Trinitarians or White Spaniards in Austria, and their activity in behalf of the liberation of Christian slaves from Turkish captivity (Austr. Quart. of Theol. 1871, nro. 3). same, Bibliography for a history of the order of Trinitarians, Serapeum, 1870.

The

of a similar kind were also opened for women. Cerfroid, in the diocese of Meaux, where the first house of the order was opened, became the residence of the General (minister generalis). There was a fine field for their labors in Spain, where the Moors were constantly at war with the Christians.

Another order having the same object in view, but differing somewhat in its constitution, was founded by Peter of Nolasco, a distinguished Frenchman, and Raymond of Pennaforte, in 1218, and, in consequence of a vision, placed under the special protection of the Blessed Virgin, and called the Order of the Blessed Virgin of Mercy (Ordo B. Mariae de Mercede). Its members bound themselves by vow to give their fortunes, to serve as soldiers, and, if necessary, to make a sacrifice of their very persons, as Peter actually did in Africa, for the redemption of Christian captives. Hence their members were divided into Knights, who wore a white uniform, and Brothers, who took orders and provided for the spiritual wants of the community. Gregory IX., admiring the heroic devotion of these intrepid men, approved the order.

The Humbled (Humiliati)1 occupied, as it were, an intermediate position between the world and the cloister. They were at first composed of a small number of families which Henry II., at the opening of the eleventh century, drove from the city of Milan and conducted as exiles into Germany, and of other gatherings drawn together for devotional purposes. On the return of the Milanese exiles to their native city, they continued, from choice, the mode of religious exercise they had adopted from necessity while abroad; and so popular did these little communities become, that within a very short time they were to be found scattered in every considerable town throughout Lombardy. One of the primary rules of the society being that each member should earn his bread by the labor of his hands, its ranks were chiefly recruited from the mechanic class, and almost exclusively from those engaged in the preparation of wool and in the manufacture of woolen fabrics. Their dress was simple and mod

1 Tiraboschi, Vetera Humiliator. monum. Mediol. 1766 sq., 3 T. 4to. Hurter, Vol. IV., p. 235 sq.