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AUGUSTINIAN HERMITS, or FRIARS

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Originally appearing in Volume V02, Page 911 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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AUGUSTINIAN HERMITS, or FRIARS , a religious See also:

order in the See also:Roman See also:Catholic See also:Church, sometimes called (but improperly) See also:Black Friars (see FRIARS). In the first See also:half of the 13th See also:century there were in central See also:Italy various small congregations of hermits living according to different rules. The need of co-ordinating and organizing these hermits induced the popes towards 1250 to unite into one See also:body a number of these congregations, so as to See also:form a single religious order, living according to the See also:Rule of St See also:Augustine, and called the Order of Augustinian Hermits, or simply the Augustinian Order. See also:Special constitutions were See also:drawn up for its See also:government, on the same lines as the See also:Dominicans and other mendicants—a See also:general elected by See also:chapter, provincials to rule in the different countries, with assistants, definitors and visitors. For this See also:reason, and because almost from the beginning the See also:term " hermits " became a misnomer (for they abandoned the deserts and lived conventually in towns), they ranked among the friars, and became the See also:fourth of the mendicant orders. The observance and manner of See also:life was, relatively to those times, mild, See also:meat being allowed four days in the See also:week. The See also:habit is black. The See also:institute spread rapidly all over western See also:Europe, so that it eventually came to have See also:forty provinces and 2000 friaries with some 30,000 members. In See also:England there were not more than about 30 houses (see Tables in F. A. Gasquet's See also:English Monastic Life). The reaction against the inevitable tendencies towards mitigation and relaxation led to a number of reforms that produced upwards of twenty different congregations within the order, each governed by a See also:vicar-general, who was subject to the general of the order.

Some of these congregations went in the See also:

matter of austerity beyond the See also:original See also:idea of the institute; and so in the 16th century there arose in See also:Spain, Italy and See also:France, Discalced or Barefooted Hermits of St Augustine, who provided in each See also:province one See also:house wherein a strictly eremitical life might be led by such as desired it. About 1500 a See also:great See also:attempt at a reform of this See also:kind was set on See also:foot among the Augustinian Hermits of See also:northern See also:Germany, and they were formed into a See also:separate See also:congregation See also:independent of the general. It was from this congregation that See also:Luther went forth, and great See also:numbers of the See also:German Augustinian Hermits, among them See also:Wenceslaus See also:Link the provincial, followed him and embraced the See also:Reformation, so that the congregation was dissolved in 1526. The Reformation and later revolutions have destroyed most of the houses of Augustinian Hermits, so that now only about a See also:hundred exist in various parts of Europe and See also:America; in See also:Ireland they are relatively numerous, having survived the penal times. The Augustinian school of See also:theology (Noris, Berti) was formed among the Hermits. There have been many convents of Augustinian Hermitesses, chiefly in the Barefooted congregations; such convents exist still in Europe and See also:North America, devoted to See also:education and See also:hospital See also:work. There have also been numerous congregations of Augustinian See also:Tertiaries, both men and See also:women, connected with the order and engaged on charitable See also:works of every kind (see TERTIARIES). See See also:Helyot, Hist. See also:des ordres religieux (1792), iii. ; Max Heimbucher, Orden and Kongregationen, i. (1896), § 61-65; Wetzer and Welte, Kirchenlexicon (and ed.), See also:art " Augustiner "; See also:Herzog, Realencyklopadie (3rd ed.), art. " Augustiner." The See also:chief See also:book on the subject is Th. Kolde, See also:Die deutschen Augustiner-Kongregationen (1879).

(E. C.

End of Article: AUGUSTINIAN HERMITS, or FRIARS

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