This History of the Augustinian Order

This section addresses the decisive shift toward mendicant life in medieval Europe and situates the Augustinian Order within this broader movement. The emergence of mendicantism is contrasted with earlier monastic forms, highlighting the new pastoral, urban, and apostolic emphases that defined the thirteenth century. Comparisons will be drawn between the Augustinians and contemporary mendicant orders, particularly the Franciscans and Dominicans.

Attention will also be given to earlier hermitical and semi-eremitical groups, such as: the Bonites, Williamites, and Brittinians, including their founders, and the distinct spiritual charisms they embodied. These disparate movements ultimately converged through a series of papal interventions, leading to the formal establishment of the Augustinian Order. The section culminates in an analysis of the key papal documents that unified these groups, notably Incumbit Nobis (the “Little Union”) and, a decade later, the “Grand Union” under Cum Quaedam Salubria, which definitively constituted the Order as a single mendicant body.