Carmelites

Carmelites, or ORDER OF OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL, a monastic order founded as an association of hermits on Mount Carmel by Berthold, a pilgrim or crusader from Calabria about 1156. A legend, however, ascribes the foundation of the order to the prophet Elijah; and another makes the Virgin Mary to have been a Carmelite nun. They received the rule of their order from the patriarch Albert of Jerusalem in 1209, and it was confirmed by Pope Honorius III. in 1224. Driven out by the Saracens, they settled first in Cyprus (1238), then in various parts of Western and Southern Europe, and at their first general chapter held at Aylesford in England in 1245, they elected as their head Simon Stock, under whom they were changed into a mendicant order by Pope Innocent IV. in 1247. From that time they shared in the usual vices of the mendicant orders. They subsequently divided into several branches, more or less rigid in their rules, one distinguished by walking barefooted. They exist at the present day in many Roman Catholic countries, and have charge of the Casa Santa at Loreto. Their distinctive dress is a scapulary of gray cloth. In 1880, 176 Carmelites were banished from France.—The order of Carmelitesses, or Carmelite Nuns, was instituted by the Carmelite general Soreth in 1452, and is very numerous in Italy. It played a considerable part in France in the last century, and counted among its members La Vallière and the daughter of Louis XV.