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 HERMITS

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HERMITS

that of Our Lady of the OUves, at Naples, which was soon followed by others at Home and elsewhere. As early as 1624 Pope Urban VIII permitted the division of the Italian congregations of Barefooted Augustin- ians into four provinces (later, nine). In 1626 a house of this congregation was founded at Prague and an- other at Vienna, in 1631, of which the celebrated Abraham a Sancta Clara was a member in the eigh- teenth century. In France, Fathers Francois Amet and Matthew of St. Frances, of Villar-Benoit, completed the reform of the order in 1596. The French Congre- gation of Discalced Augustinians comprised three provinces, of which all the houses were destroyed dur- ing the French Revolution. As the only convent of Calced Augustinian Hermits, St. Monica, at Nantes, is at present untenanted, there is now not a single Augustinian convent in France. The Italian Congre- gation of Di.scalccd Augustinians in Italy possess seven houses, six in Italy and one in Austria (Schliis- selburg, with a parish in the Diocese of Budweis). The cliief house of this congregation is that of St. Nicholas of Tolentino in Rome (Via del Corso 45). Including the scattered members of the Spanish Con- gregation in the Philippine Islands and South Amer- ica, the Discalced Augustinians still number about 600 members. They are independent of the Augustinian general and are divided into two congregations, under two vicars-general.

Organization of the OnoEn. — The Augustinian Hermits, while following the rule known as that of St. Augustine, are also subject to the Constitutions drawn up by Bl. Augustinus Novellus (d. 1309), prior general of the order from 129S to 1300, and by Bl. Clement of Osimo. The Rule and Constitutions were approved at the general chapters held at Florence in 1287 and at Ratisbon in 1290. A revision was made at Rome in 1895. The Constitutions have frequently been printed: at Rome, in 1581, and, with the commentary of Girolamo Seripando, at Venice, in 1.549, and at Rome, in 1553. The newly revi.sed (Constitutions were published at Rome in 1895, with additions in 1901 and 1907.

The government of the order is as follows: At the head is the prior general (at present, Tomds Rodri- guez, a Spaniard), elected every six years by the gen- eral chapter. The prior general is aided by four assistants and a secretary, also elected by the general chapter. These form the Curia Gc.neraUtia. Each province is governed by a provincial, each commis- sariate by a commissary general, each of the two con- gregations by a vicar-general, and every monastery by a prior (though the monastery of Alt-Briinn, in Moravia, is under an abbot) and every college by a rector. The members of the order are divided into priests and lay brothers. The Augustinians, like most religious orders, have a cardinal protector (at present, Mariano Rampolla del Tindaro). The choir and out- door dress of the monks is of black woollen material, with long, wide sleeves, a black leather girdle, and a long pointed cowl reaching to the girdle. The indoor dress consists of a black habit with scapular. In many monasteries white was formerly the colour of the house garment, also worn in public, in places where there were no Dominicans. Shoes and (out of doors) a black hat complete the costume.

The Discalced .\ugustinians have their own consti- tutions, differing from those of the other Augustinians. Their fasts are more rigid, and their other ascetic exercises stricter. They wear sandals, not shoes (and are therefore not strictly di.icalced). They never sing a high Mass. As an apparent survival of the hermit life, the Discalced Augustinians practise strict silence and have in every province a house of recollection sit- uated in some retired place, to which monks striving after greater perfection can retire in order to practise severe penance, living only on water, bread, fruits, olive oil, and wine.

Privileges of the Order. — Privileges were granted to the order almost from its beginning. .Alex- ander IV freed the order from the jurisdiction of the bishops; Innocent VIII, in 1490, granted to the churches of the order indulgences such as can only be gained by making the Stations at Rome; Pius V placed the Augustinians among the mendicant orders and ranked them ne.xt to the Carmelites. Since the end of the thirteenth century the sacri.stan of the papal palace has always been an Augustinian. This privi- lege was ratified by Pope .\lexandcr VI and granted to the order forever by a Bull issued in 1497. The pres- ent holder of the office is Guglielmo Pifferi, titular Bishop of Porphyra, rector of the Vatican parish (of which the chapel of St. Paul is the parish church). To his office also belongs the duty of preserving in his oratory a consecrated Host which must be renewed weekly and kept in readiness in ca.se of the pope's ill- ness, when it is the privilege of the papal sacristan to administer the last sacraments to His Holiness. The sacristan must always accompany the pope when he travels, and during a conclave it is he who celebrates Mass and administers the sacraments. He lives in the Vatican with a sub-sacristan and three lay brothers of the order (cf. Rocca, " Chronhistoria de .Vpostolico Sacrario", Rome, 1605). The Augustinian Hermits always fill one of the chairs of the Sapienza Univer- sity, and one of the consultorships in the Congregation of Rites.

The work of the Augustinians includes teaching, scientific study, the cure of souls, and missions. The history of education makes frequent mention of Augustinians who distinguished themselves particu- larly as professors of philosophy and theology at the great universities of Salamanca, Coimljra, Alcala, Padua, Pisa, Naples, Oxford, Paris, Vienna, Prague, Wiirzburg, Erfurt, Heidelberg, Wittenberg, etc. Others taught successfully in the schools of the order. The order also controlled a number of secondary schools, colleges, etc. In 1685 the Bishop of Wiirz- burg, Johann Gottfried II, of Guttenberg, confided to the care of the .\ugustinians the parish an<l the gym- nasium of Mimnerstadt in Lower Franconia (Bavaria), a charge which they still retain. Connected with the monastery of St. Michael in that pl.ace is a monastic school, while the seminary directed by the .Augustin- ians forms another convent, that of St. Joseph. From 1G9S to 1805 there existed an .Augustinian gymnasium at Bedburg in the district of Cologne. The order also possesses altogether fifteen colleges, academies, and seminaries in Italy, Spain, and .America. The chief institutions of this kind in Spain are that at Valladolid and that in the Escorial. As a pedagogical wTiter, we may mention the general of the order .'Egidius of Co- lonna, also called iEgidius Romanus, who died Arch- bishop of Bourges in 1316. .'Egidius was the preceptor of the French king, Philip IV, the Fair, at whose re- quest he wrote the work " De regimine Principum ". (.An extract from this book " on the care of parents for the education of their children" will be found in the "Bibliothek der katholischen Padagogik", Freiburg, 1904.) Jacques Barth(?lemy de Buillon, a French .A>i- gustinian exiled by the Revolution, fled to Munich and began the education of deaf and dumb children. .Egidius of Colonna was a disciple of St. Thomas Aquinas, and founded the school of theology known as the Augustinian, which was divided into an earlier and a later. .Among the representatives of the earlier -Augustinian school (or .'Egidians), we may mention besides .^5gidius himself (Doctor fundntiaintmis) Thomas of Strasburg (d. 1357), and Gregory of Rimini (d. 1358), both generals of the order, and .Augustine Gib- bon, professor at Wiirzburg (d. 1676). The later Augustinian school of theology- is represented by Cardi- nal Henry Noris (d. 1704), Fred. Nicholas Gavardi (d. 1715),' Fulgentius Bellelli (d. 1742), Petrus Manso (d. after 1729), Joannes Laurentius Berti (d. 1766),