ORDERS, RELIGIOUS, associations, the members of which band themselves to lead strict and devotional lives, and to live separate from the world. Prior to their formation there were only the hermits or anchorites (see MONASTERY). The entry into religious orders from their foundation to the present time, is preceded by the taking of the monastic vow, which enjoins residence in a mon astery, celibacy, renunciation of worldly pleasures, the duty of prayer, fasting, and other austerities, and unconditional obedience to superiors. The first prop erly constituted religious order was founded in the 4th century by St. Basil, now chiefly confined to the Greek Church in the East. In the time of Justinian (530), St. Benedict established a new order, the Benedictines, under a set of rules based principally on those of St. Basil, and for some 600 years after the greatest number of European monks fol lowed his statutes. According, to some authorities as many as 23 orders sprang from this one. About 1220 the Domini cans and Franciscans originated by tak ing amended rules from their leaders. These rules, especially those of the Dom inicans, were more austere, including perpetual silence, total abstinence from flesh, and the wearing of woolen only, and they were not allowed to receive money, and had to subsist on alms, be ing thus "mendicant" orders. Modified orders of the Benedictines are, for in stance, the Camaldulians or Camaldo lites, the Carthusians, the Celestines, the Cistercians, the Bernardines, Feuillants, Recollets, the nuns of Port Royal, and the Trappists. In the 8th century the monks began to be viewed as members of the clerical order, and in the 10th, by receiving permission to assume the ton sure, they were formally declared clergy men. The Praamonstratenses, Servites,
Augustine% Hieronymites or Jerony mites, Jesuits, and Carmelites are regu lar orders, according to the rules of St. Augustine. Suborders of the Francis cans are the Minorites, Conventuals, Ob servatines, Fraticelli, Cordeliers, Capu chins, Minims, etc. As the secluded life of the monks, soon after the origin of monasteries, had given rise to similar as sociations of pious females, so nuns com monly banded together as new orders of monks arose, and formed societies under similar names and regulations. Thus there were Benedictine, Camaldulian, Carthusian, Cistercian, Augustine, Prx monstratensian, Carmelite, Trinitarian, Dominican, Franciscan nuns, and many other orders of regular canonesses. There were also congregations of nuns who united with certain orders of monks without adopting their names. The Ursuline and Hospitaller nuns, or Sisters of Mercy, are female orders existing in dependently of any male orders, and living according to the rules of St. Augustine. The orders first established governed themselves in an aristocratico republican manner. The Benedictine monasteries were long independent of one another. The Cistercians obeyed a high council made up of the superior, and other abbots and counsellors, and these were again responsible to the general chapters. The four mendicant orders, the Dominicans, Franciscans, Augus tines, and Carmelites, at their very com tnencement placed themselves in a much more intimate connection with the Popes.