Bethlehemites

The author of an article in the 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia says that, in his Grande Chronique, Matthew Paris mentions that Henry III of England authorized an order of Bethlehemites to open a house in a suburb of Cambridge in 1257; but he leaves us in complete ignorance as to their founder, where they originated, and their history.

We only know that their habit was similar to that of the Dominican order and that a red star, whose five rays emanated from an azure center (in reference to Matthew 2:1–11), decorated the breast of their cape.

The white costume worn by the members was decorated with a red cross and the rule prescribed for them was very similar to that of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem.

He alluded in a bull to this foundation and the bravery of its knights, but the second capture of Lemnos by the Turks rendered the institution useless.

It was the first to be founded in the Americas, and the last religious order with solemn vows to be approved anywhere by the Church before the changes introduced by the 1917 Code of Canon Law.

[6] The Monastic Family of Bethlehem, of the Assumption of the Virgin and of Saint Bruno (or simply Monks and Sisters of Bethlehem) is a Roman Catholic religious order with Carthusian spirituality founded on November 1, 1950, at Saint Peter's Square, Rome, following the promulgation of the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven, by the inspiration of a small group of French pilgrims.