Mendicants

The Carmelite Order is one of the four great Mendicant Orders of the Roman Catholic Church, dating to the Middle Ages. Our Carmelite spirituality is very much influenced by the notion of 'mendicancy', a term which comes from the Latin word mendicare meaning beggars.

The Mendicant Orders are, primarily, certain Christian religious Orders that have adopted a lifestyle of poverty, traveling, and living in urban areas for purposes of preaching, evangelization, and ministry, especially to the poor.

The Mendicant Orders surviving today are the four recognized by the Second Council of Lyon (1274): Dominicans, Franciscans, Augustinians (Augustinian Hermits), and Carmelites, as well as Trinitarians, Mercedarians, Servites, Minims, Hospitallers of St. John of God, and the Teutonic Order.

The Carmelites were able to settle in cities and towns, undertake the ministry of mendicants, especially preaching and the hearing of confessions.  The Order quickly clericalized for these ministries, but was slower to move into academics.

Originally a group of hermits, apparently European, living on Mount Carmel in Palestine, the Carmelites established themselves in the Latin West as an order of itinerant mendicants.