History of the Order
Monastic Origins in North Africa
The history of the Order of Saint Augustine is rooted in the life and teachings of its namesake and was formally structured by the Papacy in the 13th century.
​
The Order traces its spiritual ancestry to Saint Augustine, who is recognized as its father, master, and spiritual guide. Inspired by the early Christian community of Jerusalem, Augustine established a form of religious life characterized by communion of life and the sharing of goods. He practiced this ideal first as a layman at Tagaste and later as a priest and bishop at Hippo. This way of life, documented in his Rule and other writings, spread throughout Roman Africa before being passed down through the centuries.
​
​
Saint Augustine in His Study by Sandro Botticelli, 1494, Uffizi Gallery. Photo: Creative Commons
13th Century
On December 16 of the year 1243, Pope Innocent IV issued the bull Incumbit nobis calling on several eremitical communities in Tuscany to unite themselves into a single religious order with the Rule and way of life of St. Augustine. The following March 1244, the hermits held a founding chapter in Rome under the guidance of Cardinal Richard Annibaldi and put the union into effect. Thus began the history of the Order of St. Augustine.
The pope directed the Tuscan hermits to elect for themselves a prior general and to draw up a set of constitutions. From then on they became known as the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine.
Present city of San Gimignano in the region of Tuscany, Italy (2025).
The Grand Union of 1256
Further development took place on 9 April 1256 with the bull Licet Ecclesiae Catholicae of Pope Alexander IV. The pope confirmed the integration of the Hermits of John the Good (Rule of St. Augustine, 1225), the Hermits of St. William (Rule of St. Benedict), the Hermits of Brettino (Rule of St. Augustine, 1228), the Hermits of Monte Favale (Rule of St. Benedict), and other smaller congregations with the Tuscan Hermits into "the one profession and regular observance of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine".
The Grand Union was made at the Tuscan hermits' foundation of Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome, again under the direction of Cardinal Annibaldi, with delegates coming from each hermitage. Lanfranc Septala of Milan, previous superior of the Hermits of John the Good, became the Prior General of the Order comprising 180 religious houses in Italy, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the Low Countries, France, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Bohemia and England. The Union of 1256 was an important step in the Church's reform of the religious life. By it the pope intended to end the confusion arising from the excessive number of small religious groups and to channel their spiritual forces into an apostolate of preaching and pastoral care in the rising cities of Europe. The Augustinians thus took their place as mendicant friars alongside the Dominicans, the Franciscans, and, were followed soon after by the Carmelites.
The Mendicant Movement of the thirteenth century was a revolutionary response to a revolutionary situation. The Church's unity was being threatened anew by heresy. Fresh challenges were evolving out of economic and intellectual changes in society. The friars were sent directly into the developing commercial centers to preach to the growing educated classes and to bring the spirituality of the Gospel to the people.
Thus, the spiritual identity of the Order had two foundations. The first was the person of St. Augustine from whom it received its concept of religious life, in particular the importance of the interior search for God and community life. The second was the Mendicant Movement by which the Order of St. Augustine became an apostolic fraternity.