Carmelites

Carmelites, the monastic order of "St. Mary of Mount Carmel." It was founded as an association of hermits by Berthold, count of Limoges, about 1156, on Mount Carmel, and received its first rule in 1209 from Albert, patriarch of Jerusalem, to whose diocese Mount Carmel belonged, which rule was sanctioned by Pope Honorius III in 1224. The rule was founded on that of St. Basil, and enjoined that the prior be elected unanimously or by majority; to have places in deserts, separate cells, common refectory; all to remain in their cells meditating by day and night, excepting when at fit hours, in church, etc.; to have all things common; no flesh allowed save to the sick; fast from Holyrood to Easter everyday except to the sick; to observe chastity, to labor, and to keep silence from after Compline till Prime. The habit was at first white, as well as the mantle, of which the bottom was laced thick with yellow bands, an ornament suppressed by Honorius IV. They then assumed the robe of the Minims, and a white mantle. The Carmelites were also known by the name of Barred or Barry Friars (Freres Barrez), because of the barred dress of black and white which the Saracens, when they took possession of the East, compelled them to wear, instead of the white dress, white being with them a mark of distinction. They came to Europe in 1238, and had seven establishments in England. The first General Chapter was held in 1245 in England, after which, through the activity of their general, Simon Stock, and the protection of Innocent IV, they spread with great rapidity. From Innocent IV they received, in 1247, a new rule, which was better suited for their new situation, and which classed them among the mendicant orders. Instigated by the desire to excel their rivals, they invented the most absurd legends. They pretended that the prophet Elijah had been the founder of their order and the Virgin Mary a member, wherefore they called themselves Fratres Beatce Mariae de Monte Carmelo. The succession of the generals of the order, according to their historians, has never been interrupted since the prophet Elijah. They were duly castigated and ridiculed for such pretensions by the Jesuits, and particularly by the learned Bollandist Papebroch. Still the Church never decided against them; Pope Innocent IV imposed silence on both parties, and the fables of the Carmelites can be read in their liturgical books to this day.

The great schism of the 14th century split also the order of the Carmelites, and completed their corruption and disorganization. Several attempts at a reformation were made, of which that of Thomas Conneece, who laid the foundation of the Congregation of Mantua, was the most successful. Thomas himself (a celebrated penitentiary in France and in the Netherlands) was burned in Rome as a heretic, but his congregation soon extended widely, and received the privilege of electing a vicar general. Pope Eugenius IV mitigated the rule of Innocent IV in 1431, and endeavored to unite all the Carmelites, except the Congregation of Mantua, on this mitigated rule as a new basis. For the same purpose, the general received from Pius II, in 1459, the authority to proceed with regard to fast- days according to their own judgment. In 1462, general John Soreth tried to introduce a greater strictness of the rule into the whole order. His plans were approved by Pope Paul II, but the author was poisoned by discontented monks in 1471. The same Soreth established, in 1452, the first convent of Carmelite nuns. In 1476 Sixtus IV established the Tertiarians of the order. They received a rule in 1635, which was reformed in 1678.