Augustinian Order

Augustinians, i.e., individuals who follow the Rule of St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) in one or another of its formulations, may belong to any one of a number of different groups.

• The Augustinian Canons - sometimes referred to as Austin Canons or Black Canons - were established in the 11th century. Living together in community under the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, they are priests who minister to the laity outside their communities. (There are also Augustinian Canonesses, who, like the Canons, live a simple life in community and work outside their communities, characteristically in education.)

• The Augustinian Order is a mendicant order, i.e., an order of friars (sometimes referred to as Austin Friars). The order was established in its present form, by amalgamating a number of different groups of Augustinians, in 1256 in the reign of Pope Alexander IV (reigned 1254-1261), who together with his predecessor Innocent IV (reigned 1241-1254) wished to curtail the influence of the recently established Dominican and Franciscan Orders by creating a religious order which had a concern for the interests of the papacy and was more amenable to papal control. Nowadays there are three distinct branches of the Order, namely, the Calced Augustinian Hermits, the Discalced Augustinian Hermits, and the Recollects of St. Augustine. (There are Augustinian nuns as well as Augustinian friars.) Famous members of the Augustinian Order include Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380-1471), the probable author of The Imitation of Christ (De Imitatione Christi), one of the great works of Christian spirituality; Desiderius Erasmus (?1466-1536), the Dutch scholar and humanist; Martin Luther (1483-1546), the German leader of the Protestant Reformation; and Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), the Austrian geneticist.

• Besides the orders already mentioned there are other orders which follow the rule of St. Augustine, for example, the Lateran Congregation, the Norbertines, and the Gilbertines.