Orders
RELIGIOUS, associations, the members of which band themselves to lead strict and devotional lives, and to live separate from the world. Prior to formation there were only the hermits or anchorites (see MONASTERY).
The entry into religious orders from their foundation to the present time, is preceded by the taking of the monastic vow, which enjoins residence in a monastery, celibacy, renunciation of worldly pleasures, the duty of prayer, fasting, and other austerities, and unconditional obedience to superiors. The first properly constituted religious order was founded in the 4th century by St. Basil, now chiefly confined to the Greek Church in the East. In the time of Justinian (530), St. Benedict established a new order, the Benedictines, under a set of rules based principally on those of St.
Basil, and for some 600 years after the greatest number of European monks followed his statutes. According to some authorities as many as 23 orders sprang from this one. About 1220 the Dominicans and Franciscans originated by taking amended rules from their leaders. These rules, especially those of the Dominicans, were more austere, including perpetual silence, total abstinence from flesh, and the wearing of woolen only, and they were not allowed to receive money, and had to subsist on alms, being thus "mendicant" orders. Modified orders of the Benedictines are, for instance, the Camaldulians or Camaldolites, the Carthusians, the Celestines, the Cistercians, the Bernardines, Feuillants, Recollets, the nuns of Port Royal, and the Trappists. In the 8th century the monks began to be viewed as members of the clerical order, and in the 10th, by receiving permission to assume the tonsure, they were formally declared clergymen. The Præmonstratenses, Servites, Augustines, Hieronymites or Jeronymites, Jesuits, and Carmelites are regu- ORDERS IN COUNCIL ORDNANCE lar orders, according to the rules of St. tion to sacred orders, according to the Augustine. Suborders of the Francis- general law of the Church, can only take cans are the M Minorites, Conventuals, Ob- place on the Saturdays in the four Emservatines, Fraticelli, Cordeliers, Capu- ber weeks, on the fifth Saturday in Lent, chins, Minims, etc. As the secluded life or on Holy Saturday, and always during of the monks, soon after the origin of mass. Minor orders can be conferred at monasteries, had given rise to similar as- general ordinations, and also on any sociations of pious females, so nuns com- Sunday or holiday, not necessarily durmonly banded together as new orders of ing mass. monks arose, and formed societies under In the United States Protestant similar names and regulations. Thus churches have each their own method of there were Benedictine, Camaldulian, ordination, which is rather a service of Carthusian, Cistercian, Augustine, Præ- consecration than a sacrament impartmonstratensian, Carmelite, Trinitarian, ing special power. The ordination in the Dominican, Franciscan nuns, and many Episcopal Church is patterned largely other orders of regular canonesses. after that of the English Episcopal There were also congregations of nuns Church. who united with certain orders of monks without adopting their names. The Ursuline and Hospitaller nuns, or Sisters of Mercy, are female orders existing independently of any male orders, and living according to the rules of St.
ORDNANCE. Although artillery weapons, equipment, such as wagons, caissons, and limbers, machine guns, rifles, small arms, hand grenades, harness and ammunition of all kinds are in- Augustine. The orders first established cluded in the general class of military governed themselves in an aristocratico- supplies known as ordnance, this article will consider only the features of construction of the artillery weapon and its mount. republican manner. The Benedictine monasteries were long independent of one another. The Cistercians obeyed a high council made up of the superior, and other abbots and counsellors, and these were again responsible to the general type there are various models, the chapters. The four mendicant orders, style, size and power of which are dethe Dominicans, Franciscans, Augus- termined by the use for which the weapon tines, and Carmelites, at their very commencement placed themselves in a much more intimate connection with the Popes.
ORDERS IN COUNCIL, orders by the ruling sovereign with the advice of the privy council. See PRIVY COUNCIL.