or WHITE FRIERS, are an order of our lady of Mount Carmel, making one of the four orders of mendicants. They pretend to derive their original rules contained fifteen articles, one of which confined them to their cells, and enjoined them to employ themselves day and night in prayer; another prohibited the brethren having any property; another enjoined fasting, from the feast of the exaltation of the holy cross till Easter, excepting on Sundays; abstinence at all times from flesh, was enjoined by another article; one obliged them to manual labour; another imposed a strict silence on them, from vespers till the tierce the next day: However, these constitutions have been in some respects altered.

This order is so much increased, that it has at present thirty-eight provinces, besides the congregation of Mantua (in which there are fifty-four monasteries, under a vicar-general) and the congregation of bare-footed Carmelites in Italy and Spain, which have their peculiar generals.

If a monk of this order lie with a woman, he is prohibited saying mass for three or four years, is declared infamous, and obliged to discipline himself publicly once a week: If he is again guilty of the same offence, his penance is doubled: And if a third time, he is expelled to order.