Nunez-Vela, BLASCO

d. 1546. Viceroy of Peru 1544; defeated by G. Pizarro, and murdered. retirement of women, the head of the house being called Nunnery, or CONVENT. Establishment for the religious Mother Superior or Reverend Mother. The Benedictines and Cistercians applied the terms Monastery, Abbey, and Priory both to the houses devoted to monks and those devoted to nuns, the Abbe and Priore being the heads of their respective houses. The first monastery was a collection of huts near Memphis, Egypt, founded by Antony of Thebes, St. Antony, ab. 305; and his first disciple, Pachomius, ab. 350, built, for his sister and her friends, the first convent, on an island in the Nile. The great accumulation of wealth by these R. C. institutions in England caused their suppre ion and confiscation, which was commenced by Cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII., and completed 1539, the properties pa ing to the crown, the nobility, and the gentry, a small proportion being devoted to Protestant church purposes. The monastic institutions were suppre ed in France at the Revolution, in Spain 1835, in Portugal 1834, in Italy 1866-70, and in Pru ia 1875, except those devoted to nursing, but in 1887 the last permitted some reestablishment. After the Restoration in France many orders were revived, but in 1880 unauthorized orders were suppre ed, including 14,000 monks and nuns out of a total of 25,000. There are many establishments in Austria, Belgium, and Switzerland, and in Great Britain and U. S. they have made much progre ; in the latter country there are 50 orders. The Benedictines were founded 529, Cistercians 1098, Ursulines 1537, Sisters of Charity 1629, and Sisters of Mercy 1827.