AU'GUSTIN'IANS, or AU'GUSTINES. The name given to several religious bodies in the Roman Catholic Church. Although Saint Augus tine never framed any formal rule of monastic life, one was deduced from sermons attributed to him, and was adopted by as many as 30 monas tic fraternities, of which the chief were the Canons Regular, the Knights Templar (see TEMPLARS, KNIGHTS), the Begging Hermits, the Friar Preachers or Dominicans (q.v.), and the Premonstratensians (q.v.). The Canons Regu lar of Saint Augustine, or Austin Canons, appear to have been founded or remodeled about the middle of the Eleventh Century. Their disci pline was less severe than that of monks, but more rigid than that of the secular or parochial clergy. They lived together, having a common refectory. Their habit was a long cassock, with a white rocket over it, all covered by a black cloak or hood, whence they were often called Black Canons. In England, where they were established early in the Twelfth Century, they had about 170 houses at the time of Henry VIII.'s dissolution of the monasteries, the earli est, it would seem, being at Nostell, near Ponte fract, in Yorkshire. In Scotland they had about 25 houses; the earliest, at Scone, was founded in 1114, and filled by canons from Nostell; the others of most note were at Inchcohn, in the Firth of Forth. Saint .Andrews. Holyrood, Cam buskenneth, and Incbaffray. In Ireland they had 223 monasteries and 33 nunneries.
The Begging hermits, Hermits of Saint Augus tine, or Austin Friars. were a much mom austere order, renouncing all property, and vowing to live by the voluntary alms of the faithful. They are believed to have sprung from certain societies of recluses who, in the Eleventh and Twelfth centuries. existed especially in Italy without any regulative constitution. At the instigation, as is alleged, of the rival fraternities of Dominicans and Franciscans. Pope Innocent IV., about the
middle of the Thirteenth Century, imposed on them the rule of Saint Augustine, whom they claimed as their founder. In 1256 Pope Alexan der IV. placed them under the control of a superior or president, called a 'general.' In 1287, a code of rules or constitutions was compiled. by which the Order long continued to be governed. About 1570, Friar Thomas of Jesus. a Portuguese brother of the Order, introduced a more austere rule, the disciples of which were forbidden to wear shoes, whence they were called discalocuti, or 'barefooted friars.' At the time of the elks" Mimi of the monasteries of Henry VIII.. they had 32 houses in England. NOW there is one, and there are 12 in Scotland. There are 16 convents and houses in the United State..
The degeneracy of the Order in the Fourteenth Century called into existence new or reformed Augustinian societies, among which was that Saxon one to which Luther belonged. After Luther had abandoned the Order. and entered upon his course of opposition to the Catholic Church, he did not spare his denunciations of Lis former brethren. After the French Revo lution the Order was wholly suppressed in France, Spain, and Portugal, and partly in Italy and southern Germany. It has diminished even in Austria and Naples, but is still powerful in America.
The name of Augustinians was given also to an order of nuns who claimed descent from a convent founded by Saint Augustine at. Hippo, of which his sister was the first abbess. They were vowed to the care of the sick and the ser vice of hospitals. For the English Augustin inns consult: Clark, Customs of the Augustin ian Canons (Cambridge, Eng., IS97) ; tl arms iiniaa Priories of ;taint Giles and mint Andrea) at Barnwell. rambridgeshire, Observances There (London, 1897).