GRANDMONTINES, a religious order founded by St. Stephen of Thiers in Auvergne towards the end of the 11th cen tury. St. Stephen was so impressed by the lives of the hermits whom he saw in Calabria that he desired to introduce the same manner of life into his native country. A few disciples gathered round him, and a community was formed. The rule was not re duced to writing until after Stephen's death, 1124. The life was eremitical and very severe in regard to silence, diet and bodily austerities. About 1150 the hermits, being compelled to leave Muret, settled in the neighbouring desert of Grandmont, whence the order derived its name. Louis VII. founded a house at Vin cennes near Paris, and the order had a great vogue in France, as many as sixty houses being established by 117o, but it seems never to have found favour out of France. Later centuries witnessed mitigations and reforms in the life, and at last the order came to an end just before the French Revolution.
See art. "Grandmont, order of" in the Catholic Encyclopaedia; Max Heimbucher, Orden and Kongregationen (1896) , i. § 31 ; and the art. in Wetzer and Welte, Kirchenlexicon (ed. 2), and in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopiidie.