CELESTINES

A religious order of Christians, which derives its name from its founder, Pietro de Morone, afterwards Celestin V., a hermit, who followed the rules of St. Bennet, who founded the order in 1254, and got the institution confirmed by Pope Urban VIII. in 1264, and by Gregory X. in 1273, at the second general Council of Lyons: this order soon multiplied in Italy, and was brought into France in 1300, by Philip the Fair, who sent to Peter of Sorrel, a singer of the Church of Orleans, or according to others, of that of Amiens, his amba ador then at Naples, to beg of the abbot-general of it twelve of this order, to be sent into France. When they were arrived, the king gave them two monasteries, one in the forest of Orleans, at a place called Ambert, and the other in the forest of Compiegne, in Mount Chart res. Charles, dauphin and regent of France, in 1352, while King John, his father, was prisoner in England, sent for six of these monks of Mount Chart res, to establish them at Paris, at a place called Barrez, where there was, till the Revolution, a monastery of that order: and that prince, in 1356, gave them every month a purse under the seal of the chan celery, which gift was confirmed by a patent in 1361, at King John’s return. When Charles came to the crown himself, he made them a gift of a you sand livres of gold, with twelve acres of the best timber in the forest of Moret, to build their church with, whereof he himself laid the first stone, and had it consecrated in his presence. After which he settled a considerable parcel of land upon the same monastery. The Celestines were called hermits of St. Damian before their institutor became pope. Their first monastery was at Monte Majella, in the kingdom of Naples.