History of the Augustinian Order

From hermits to mendicants

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, many monks lived in remote places throughout Europe, but especially in Italy, in so-called eremitages. Small groups of monks lived in closed settlements, sometimes even in caves. One of the most famous was the Eremitage of Lecceto near Siena. The protest against an easy and unevangelical lifestyle, and the desire for a deeper spiritual life, was the basis for the creation of these small settlements. In the thirteenth century, the lifestyle of the hermits no longer met the needs of the surrounding world, which required a new monastic form of life.

The social and cultural landscape was greatly changed by the growth of trade, the rise of capitalism, the development of cities, the emergence of the bourgeoisie as a social power and the foundation of universities. Monastic theology had become scholastic theology. While intellectual education had been the domain of the clergy for centuries, it now passed into the hands of laity. In this climate, a large number of movements of voluntary poverty emerged, which adopted a critical attitude towards worldly life in the church. These movements formed the basis for the creation of the mendicant orders: Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites and Augustinians. The church needed them to cope with the new mentality. For that reason, several contemplative groups of hermits also wished to be united in a legal entity. Many of them followed Augustine's Rule. Thus the Order of the Eremites of Saint Augustine came into being, in March 1244 on a small scale, and in 1256 in a larger union approved by Pope Alexander IV. From that moment on they were mainly occupied with work in the cities.

As with most medieval religious orders, we can distinguish five periods.

1350-1538: Decline and observant movements

The zeal for the evangelical life and the commitment to life in community waned. The outbreak of the plague, the Black Death, turned the entire thinking and actions of society at the time upside down. It is estimated that one-third of the population died from it, leaving entire cities, including convents, depopulated. Between 1348 and 1351 the order lost 5,084 members to the Black Death.

There are several reasons for the decline in the strength of the religious orders: weak theological education, weakening of ecclesiastical authority, the gap between higher and lower clergy. In response to widespread spiritual laxity, reform movements emerged in various places within religious orders, especially in the late Middle Ages. Many religious were homesick for the old eremitic lifestyle. The reforms were accompanied by serious tensions between observants, the advocates of innovation, and conventuals, the advocates of the old ways. It usually meant that convents that pursued a more observant lifestyle were placed in their own congregation within the order, but directly under the authority of the general. One of these reformed congregations was the Congregation of Saxony (1438) to which the convent of Martin Luther belonged, the founder of the great German Reformation. Convents in the Low Countries also belonged to this congregation. The order suffered greatly from the consequences of the Reformation. The Augustinian convents in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands were strongly influenced by the Saxon reform. Many friars sided with Luther. As early as 1523 in Brussels, two Belgian Augustinians, followers of Luther's teachings, were burned at the stake as the first martyrs of the Reformation. The Calvinists did the same a few decades later in Ghent with Augustinians who refused to renounce their faith.

1786 -1880: Time of Trial and Destruction

The development of the ideas of the Enlightenment and thus the emergence of an anti-monastic climate and the French Revolution had disastrous consequences for religious life in Europe. Contemplative orders were simply regarded as socially useless. The fact that a large part of the agricultural land was owned by relatively small communities contributed to this. This view initially applied to the contemplative orders, but soon also extended to the active orders and congregations. A wave of repression began under King Louis In 1769 the Augustinians were called together in connection with the abolition of houses, and in 1773 sixty-nine houses were closed. The closures reached a peak during the French Revolution (1789-1801, with consequences until 1811). Closure meant: the confiscation of all church property, the dissolution of religious orders and congregations, and an official ban on taking vows because they were considered against human rights.

The French Revolution was not an isolated event, because the religious also suffered from systematic oppression under the Austrian Emperor Joseph II in 1782. Only outside Europe, in the Augustinian provinces of the Philippines and the United States (founded in 1796), the consequences of the revolution were not felt. During the 19th century, the government also pursued anti-religious policies in other countries such as Spain and Italy. The province of Malta was founded in 1817. During this period, brothers also went to Australia and Augustinians returned to China. The number of Augustinians had fallen to 150 convents and 700 members around the middle of the 19th century.