Augustinian Monks are divided into two class- es:
I. Canons Regular. — In the year 1038, four can- ons of the Church of Avignon, called Arnaldus, Odelo, Pontius, and Durandus, being desirous of hading a more strictly religious life, betook themselves, with the permission of the bishop Benedict, to a solitude, where they led an ascetic life; and having thus orig- inally been under the canonical institution before the monastic, they acquired the name of " regular canons." A large number of canons, both lay and clerical, in- duced by their example, set themselves to follow this new rule of life, and ere long monasteries wore built in various places, but chief!}' in solitudes, and filled with these new candidates for the regular life, who differed from the monks in name only. At first they appear to have had no rule peculiar to themselves, anil probably followed that of Aix-la-( hapelle (A.D. 81G) ; but subsequently they assumed for their rule that of Augustine (;. e. his letter ad Sanctimomales), adding to it various constitutions taken from the rule of Ben- edict and elsewhere. Stevens says that they did not take any vows until the twelfth centurv, nor do thev Mm
appear to have assumed the name of "Regular Canons of St. Augustine" until Innocent II, at Lateran, in 1139, ordained that all regular canons should be under the rule of St. Augustine, contained in his 100th epis- tle. The dress of the regular canons was usually a long black cassock, and a white rochet over it, and over that a black cloak and hood ; they also wore beards and caps. They were a numerous body in England, where they were probably first settled at Colchester in 1105. They are said to have had 170 houses in England. They were established in Scot- land in 1114, at the desire of Alexander I, and had in that country 28 monasteries, of which the chief were Scone, Loch Tay, Inch Colme, St. Andrew's, Holy- rood, Cambuskcnneth, and Jedburgh. — Dugdale, Mo- nasticon, vi, 37.
II. Hermits, one of the four great mendicant or- ders [see Mendicant Orders] of the Roman Catho- lic Church. The Augustir.ians endeavor to trace their origin back to the time when St. Augustine, after his conversion, lived fcr three years in a villa near Ta- gaste, w holly given up to ascetic exercises. But even the Kcmanist historians generally reject this claim as utterly without foundation. The order originated in 1256, when Pope Alexander IV, in pursuance of a de- cree, compelled eight minor monastic congregations, among which the John-Bonites (founded in 1168 bj' John Bon), the Brittinians, and the Tuscan hermits were the most important, to unite. The united order was called the Hermits of St. August line, because most of the congregations followed the Rule of Augustine, a compilation of precepts taken from two sermons of St. Augustine on the morals of priests and from his letter to the nuns of Hippo. Though now monks, they re- tained the name hermits, because all the congregations had been hermits. In 1257 they were exempted from the jurisdiction of the bishops, and divided into four provinces, Italy, Spain, France, and Germany. Un- like the other mendicant orders, they started with a lax rule, and gross disorders ;.nd immorality grew up among them sooner and mere generally than among the others.
[Jflual Style of the Augustine Hermits. 1. In-doors; '2. Abroad.
Since the fourteenth century many attempts at in- troducing a stricter discipline have been made by zeal- ous members, and have resulted in the formation of a large number of special congregations, of which the con- gregation of Lombardy, with 80 convents, became the most numerous. The congregation of Saxony, which was established in 1498, and with which the convents of Germany generally connected themselves, separa- ted itself entirely from the order, and its superior, John Staupitz, assumed the title of vicar -general. Among the friends of Staupitz was Martin Luther, the most celebrated of all who ever wore the habit of Augustine, and through wbo6e inlluence the majority
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of the convents of the Saxon congregation seceded from the Roman Catholic Church.
The Discalceated or Barefooted Augustini- ans (Observants, Recollects) owe their origin to the! Portuguese monk Thomas a Jesu de Andrade (died in 1582), though their first convent was not organized ■ until after his death, in 1588, by order of the king of Spain. They adopted a rule which in strictness sur- passes the primitive one, and were afterward divided into three separate congregations, the Italian-German, until Hi,")!;, in four provinces, subsequently in seven j (2 of Naples, 2 of Sicily, 1 of Genoa, 1 of Germany, ' 1 of Piedmont), the French in three provinces, and [ the Spanish, the most rigorous of all, which extended I to the East and West Indies, to the Philippine Isl- j ands, to Japan and Rome. They have in every prov- , ince a retired convent, with a hermitage close by, in which monks desirous of a particular ascetic perfec- tion may live.
In the sixteenth century, when Pius V conferred on them the privileges of the other mendicant orders, the Augustinians counted 2000 convents of men and 300 of females, together with 35,000 inmates. The order has fallen in the general suppression of convents in j Portugal, Spain, France, Northern and Western Ger- many, and quite recently in Italy. At the beginning of 18G0, the Augustinian Hermits had 131 convents in J Italy, 10 in Germany, G in Poland, 1 in France, 13 in Great Britain, 1 in Holland, 2 in Belgium, 22 in Mex- ico, 2 in the United States (in the dioceses of Phila- delphia and Albany), 13 in South America, and 1 in the Philippine Islands. The Barefooted Augustinians had 6 monasteries in Italy, 1 in Germany, 2 in South America, and 6 in the Philippine Islands.