CARMELITES, or ORDER OF OCR LADY OF 3101:NT CARMEL. A monastic order about whose origin there has been no little controversy. At cne time it was piously believed / have been founded by the prophet Elijah; but this belief was dissipated by the learned editors of the Acta ,Sonetorum, who were able to demonstrate that it owed its origin to the crusader Bertrand. Count of Limoges. Ile had become a monk in Calabria in fulfillment of a vow made on the eve of a battle in which he was victorious. In 1156, with ten companions. he took up Ills abode on Mount Carmel; their first definite rule was given them in 1208 by Albert, patriarch of Jerusalem. In 1240 the pressure of Mohammedan domination induced them to abandon their set tlement. Offshoot,: had already (1238) been founded in Cyprus and Alessina : and now some went to Provence and some to England. Inno cent 1V., in 1245, sanetioned the change from a hermit to a community life. and ranked them with the mendicant orders. At a general chap ter held at Aylesford. in Kent. the same year. an Englishman, Saint Simon Stock, was elected the first general. Under his leadership the or der, with some moditicatibus adapting it to climatic and other differences. spread through
out central and western Europe. It is to him that the Virgin Mary is said to have revealed in a vision the scapula)' which became a dis tinctive mark of the order and those who were affiliated to it. From the white cloak which they wore. they received the popular name of Friars. The rigidity of their rule was some what relaxed by Eugenics IV. in 1431 ; but some communities, objecting to this change, ad hered to the stricter rule, and were known as Observantines, while the more lax were called The most thorough-going reform was that instituted by Saint Theresa (q.v.). who bevanie a Carmelite novice in 1531, and labored unceasingly for a stricter discipline among the nuns. With the aid of Saint John of the Cross, she thus affected the male members of the order also. At her death, in 1582. there were seven teen houses of women and fifteen of men who followed the stricter rule. and were known as Disealeed or Barefooted Carmelites. The order had fifty-two houses in England nt the time of the dissolution of the unmasteries. In 190 1 there were fifty-one Carmelite fathers in the United States and Canada.