one of the four orders of mendicant friars, who derive their appellation from Mount Carmel. Their annalists not only attribute the origin of their order to the prophet Elias, but enumerate among their members all the prophets and holy persons mentioned in the Scriptures from Elias to Christ, and likewise include Pythagoras and the ancient Druids. Phocos, a Greek monk, relates that in his time, A.D. 1185, Elias's cave was still extant on the mountain, and near it were the remains of an ancient monastery, at which some years previous a monk of Calabria, by revelation as he pretended from the prophet Elias, had fixed his abode with ten brethren. In 1209 Albert, the patriarch of Jerusalem, gave the solitaries a rigid rule, which was afterwards printed by the Jesuit Papebroch. This was confirmed in 1224 by Pope Honorius III. It contained sixteen articles, by which they were confined to their cells; enjoined to continue day and night in prayer; prohibited from holding property; enjoined fasting from the feast of the holy cross till Easter, except on Sundays, and abstinence at all times from flesh. They were also obliged to labour, and to observe a strict silence from vespers till tierce the next day.

On the peace concluded by the Emperor Frederic II. with the Saracens, the Carmelites were expelled from the Holy Land. Some took refuge in 1238 at Cyprus, and founded a monastery in the forest of Fortania; some of the Sicilian brothers returned to their own country, and founded a monastery at Messina. Several of the English brothers retired to England for the purpose of establishing monasteries; and those of Provence, in 1244, founded one in the desert of Aigualates, about a league from Marseilles. Thus the number of their monasteries rapidly increased, and they held their European general chapter in 1245 at their monastery at Aylesford in England. The order continued to flourish till it had thirty-eight provinces; besides the congregation of Mantua, in which were fifty-four monasteries, under a vicar-general; and the congregations of Barefooted Carmelites in Italy and Spain, which had their peculiar general.

After the establishment of the Carmelites in Europe, their rule was in some respects altered. Innocent IV. added to the first article a precept of chastity, and relaxed the 11th, which enjoins abstinence at all times from flesh, permitting them, when travelling, to eat boiled flesh. This pope likewise gave them leave to eat in a common refectory, and to keep asses or mules. Their rule was again mitigated by Eugenius IV. and Pius II. Hence the order became divided into two branches, viz. the Carmelites of the ancient observance, who wore shoes; and those of the strict observance, who are the barefooted Carmelites—a reform insti- tuted in 1540 by Sta. Theresa, a nun of the convent of Avila in Castile. These last are divided into two congregations—that of Spain, and that of Italy.

The habit of the Carmelites was at first white, and the cloak was edged at the bottom with several lists; but Honorius IV. changed it for that of Minims. They wear a scapulary, of a brown colour, thrown over the shoulders.