Grandmontines

The order was named after its motherhouse, Grandmont Abbey in the eponymous village, now part of the commune of Saint-Sylvestre, in the department of Haute-Vienne, in Limousin, France.

[2] The founder, St. Stephen of Muret (Étienne in French; also called 'of Thiers') was so impressed by the lives of the hermits whom he saw in Calabria that he desired to introduce the same manner of life into his native country.

[4] The Order of Grandmont has been claimed by both Benedictines and Canons Regular as a branch of their respective institutes, although the Grandmontines always maintained that they were hermits.

[1] The life was eremitical and very severe in regard to silence, diet and bodily austerities; it was modelled after the rule of the Camaldolese, but various regulations were adopted from the Augustinian canons.

[1] So concerned were the Grandmontines regarding simoniacal entry that in the customary composed about 1170, it was forbidden to ask a candidate seeking to join, about bringing money, or buying clothes, or equipment for a horse.

[8] After the founder's death in 1124, sometime around 1150, having been compelled to leave Muret due to disputed ownership, the hermits settled in the neighboring desert of Grandmont, whence the order derived its name.

Under Étienne de Liciac the order spread rapidly, and in 1170 numbered sixty monasteries, mostly in Aquitaine, Anjou and Normandy.

Henry II of England had the monastery rebuilt, and King St. Louis IX of France erected a Grandmontine house at Vincennes near Paris.

[10] The system of lay brothers was introduced on a large scale, and the management of the temporals was in great measure left in their hands; the arrangement did not work well.

Gradual relaxation of the rules of poverty led to great possessions, and thus increased the importance of the lay brothers, who now claimed equality with the choir-monks.

[1] In 1317 Pope John XXII, sometimes said to have been a Grandmontine monk, issued the papal bull Exigente debito to save the order from complete destruction.

[1] These vigorous measures brought about a slight recovery, but in spite of the vigilance of the Holy See and the good administration of the first abbots, the improvement was of short duration.

[1] In 1643 Abbot Georges Barny (1635–1654) held a general chapter, the first for 134 years, at which Charles Frémon was authorised to found the Strict Observance of the Order of Grandmont.

[1] The original habit of Grandmont was a coarse tunic with scapular and hood, brown in the early days but changed later to black.

)[clarification needed] The Grandmontines featured in an episode of the popular BBC TV drama Bonekickers entitled Army of God.