TRAPPIST ORDER, TrrE, celebrated among the religious orders of the Roman Catho lic church for its extraordinary austerities, is so called from La Trappe, an abbey of the Cistercian order founded in the middle of the 12th century. The discipline of this monastery, in common with many others of the more wealthy monastic bodies, espe cially of those which, by one of the corruptions of the period, were held in eommendam, had become very much relaxed; and in the 17th c. but little trace of the ancient relig ious obs•:rvance remained. In the first half of that century the abbey of La Trappe fell, with other ecclesiastical preferments, to the celebrated Armand Jean he Bouthelier de Rance. The circumstances which led this remarkable man to undertake a reform of his monastery, and in the end the establishment of what was equivalent to a new relig ious order, have been already detailed in the article Rance (q.v.). It was in the year 1662 that he entered in earnest upon his duties, and commenced his reforms. At first he encountered decided, arid even violent opposition from the brethren; but his firm ness and vigor overcame it all. He himself, as an evidence of a complete change of life, entered upon a fresh novitiate in the year 1E63; and in the following year made anew the solemn profession, and was reinstalled as abbot. From this time may be dated the introduction of the new austerities which have characterized the order. The monks were forbidden the use of meat,' fish, wine, and eggs. All intercourse with externs was cut off, and the old monastic habit of manual labor was revived. The reform of De Rance is founded on the principle of perpetual prayer and entire self-abnegation. By the Trap pist rule, the monks are obliged to rise at two o'clock A.M. for matins in the church, which lasts till half-past three; and, after an interval occupied in private devotion, they go at half-past five to the office of prime, which is followed by a lecture. At seven they engage in their several daily tasks, indoors or cut, according to the weather. At half after nine they return to the choir, for the successive offices of terce, sext, and none; at the close of which they dine on vegetables dressed without butter or oil, and a little fruit. This meal is succeeded by manual labor for two hours, after which each monk occupies an hour in private prayer or reading in his own cell until four o'clock, when they again assemble in the choir for vespers. The supper consists of bread and water, and, after a short interval of repose, is followed by a lecture. At six o'clock they recite complin in
choir, and at the end spend half an hour in meditation, retiring to rest at eight o'clock. The bed is a hard straw mattress, with a coarse coverlet; and the Trappist never lays aside his habit, even in case of sickness, unless it should prove extreme. Perpetual silence is prescribed, unless in cases of necessity. The minor practices and observances are devised so as to remind the monk at every turn of the shortness of life and the rigor of judg ment; and the last scene of life is made signal in its austerity by the dying man being laid during his death-agony upon a few handfuls of straw, that he may, as it were, lay aside upon the very brink of the grave even the last fragment of earthly comfort to which the necessities of nature had till then compelled him to cling.
The reformed order of La Trappe scarcely extended beyond France iu the first period of its institution. The inmates of La Trappe shared, at the revolution, the common fate of all the religious houses of France; they were compelled to quit their monastery; but a considerable number of them found a shelter at Valsainte, in the canton of Freiburg in Switzerland. In the vicissitudes of the revolutionary war, they were driven from this house; and a community numbering about 250, together with a large number of nuns, who had been established for purposes of education, found refuge at Constance, at Augsburg, at Munich, and eventually, under the czar Paul, in Lithuania and White Russia. Later in the course of the war, small communities obtained a certain footing in Italy, Spain, America, England, and, notwithstanding the prohibitory law, even in France, at Mont Genevre. After the restoration they resumed. by purchase, possession of their old home at La Trappe, which continues up to the present time to be the head mon astery of the order, and numbers nearly 200 members. During the course of the last 50 years they-have formed many establishments in France; a few in Germany; a very con• siderablc one at mount Mclleray, near Cappoquin, in the county of Waterford, Ireland; and others, with still more extensive territory annexed, in Kentucky, Illinois, and other states of North America. A modification of the Trappist order, called " Trappist preachers," was established about 30 years since, at Pierre-qui-Bire, near Avallon.—See Trappistes; ou C Ordre de Citeaux an 10 Siecles(Paris, 1844).