CROSS, ORDER OE THE 11OLY. The name of several monastic or semi-monastic Orders. The rigin of the first community bearing this name is 14,st in obscurity; but leaving aside legendary accounts. we find tho Order definitely established in Italy as early as the accession of Pope Alex ander 111. 1)130). The mother house was at Bologna, and their work was largely the care of the sick. They were confirmed by Urban ITT. in 1187. and spread until they numbered 200 con vents in all parts of Italy; the Order declined Inter, so that Pius V. was obliged to reform it in 1568. and Alexander VII. to suppress it in 1636.
Aloe important is the congregation of canons regular who were known in England as Crutehed or Crossed Friars. This Order was founded by Theodore de Celles at Buy near Liege in 1211 and confirmed by Innocent III. five years later; it followed the rule of Saint assimi lated in many particulars to that7of the Domini cans. It spread rapidly throughout the Nether lands. France. Germany, and England; in the latter country it possessed houses in London (1298), Oxford (1349), Colchester. Honiton. and other places. The Order was reformed from within in 1410. At the present day. while still faithful to its original spirit, it has very few houses. the principal ones being two in Holland and two in Belgium. Consult Hermans. A n n«les ('anmniconunl Regularium Sancti Augustini, Suneter Cruets (3 vole.. Bois-le-Due, 1858).
A third association. the knightly Order bearing this name, is of some importance in the history of Bohemia. ft is distinguished by a red six pointed star in addition to the cross worn on the habit. and was originally an outgrowth of the
Hospitaler brotherhood attached, in the first half of the twelfth century, to the hospital of the Poor Clares in Prague. In 1238 Gregory TX. constituted it a definite Order, under the rule of Saint inf.. It spree d throughout Bohemia and other lands now included in Austria-Hun gary. and was one of the strongest bulwarks of the Chureh against the sectarian movements of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. At the siege of Eger in the Thirty Years' War they veri fied their knightly title by fighting at the head of the people. Their hospital at Prague was always open to new allies, and sheltered the first Jesuits in Bohemia in 1555, the Capuchins in 1599, and the Trinitarians in 1704. From 1561 to 1694 they practically supported the archbishops of Prague. who had been deprived of their posses sions in the wars of religion. making them grand masters during their incumbency of the see. The Order now has less than a hundred members: its library eon-its of 30,000 volumes, including many incunabula. and manuscripts of great value for Bohemian history. Consult Jacksche, Der ritkrliche Orden der Kr( uzherren ?nit dens. rotten Stern (Vienna, 1882).
The name is also borne by a small religious Order in the Episcopal Church in America, founded in New York, 1881, removed in 1392 to Westminster. Md., whose members occupy them selves largely in conducting missions and re treat-..