HIEROGLYPHICS. See Inscriptions, I.

HIERONYMITES, hai"e-ren'i-maits (HERMITS OF ST. JEROME): The name of four religious orders in Spain, Portugal, and Italy, which lived after the rule of the Augustinian canons or hermits.

1. The Spanish Hieronymites were established in the diocese of Toledo about 1370 by Vasco, a Portuguese Franciscan tertiary, and Pedro Fernando Pecha of Guadalajara, chamberlain of Peter the Cruel. The order was confirmed by Gregory XI. in 1374, and spread rapidly through Spain and Portugal, extending even to America. Its chief monasteries in Spain were Santa Maria de Guadelupe, San Yuste, San Isidor in Seville, and the EscoriaI near Madrid. In Portugal it possessed the monastery of Belem, near Lisbon. The habit of the order, whose members were favorite confessors of the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs, is a coarse white cassock with a small black cowl and a black scapular. An order of Hieronymite nuns was founded in 1375 by Maria Garcias of Toledo, but did not take solemn vows until the time of Pope Julius II. Their habit was a white cassock and brown scapular. Their last convents fell in the Carlist struggles of 1835.

2. The Observantine Hieronymites were founded by Lupus Olivetus (Lope d'Olmedo), third general of the Spanish Hieronymites (d. 1433), and were confirmed by Martin V. in 1426. In Spain the order was united with the other Hieronymites in 1595, but in Italy, where it was known as the Congregation of St. Jerome of Lombardy, it possessed monasteries up to the middle of the nineteenth century.

S. The Poor Hermits of St. Jerome were established near Montebello in Italy in 1377 by Pietro Gambacorti or Petrus de Pisis (d. 1435), who formed his community from converted robbers. The rule was exceedingly strict, but was mitigated in 1444 and exchanged for that of St. Augustine in 1568. In the seventeenth century several communities of hermits in Bavaria and the Tyrol joined this order, but it now has only a few monasteries, especially one in Viterbo and one in Rome.

4. The Congregatio Fesulana or Clerici apostolici Sancti Hieronymi Jesuati was established in 1406 at Fiesole by Carlo de Montegranelli. The order was suppressed in 1668 by Clement IX., and most of its members joined the Poor Hermits of St. Jerome.

(O. Zöckler†.)

Bibliography: 1. P. de la Vega, Chronicon fratrum Hiero nymitani ordinie, Complutum, 1539; Helyot, Ordres monastiques, iii. 423-447; Heimbucher, Orden und Kon gregationen, ii. 235-237; KL, v. 2014-15; L. Holstenius, Codex regularum monasticarum at canonicarum, ad. M. Broeltie, vi., Additamenta, i. 10-87, Augsburg, 1759. 2. Eusebio Cremonense, O vero delta vita a progreasi de monachi Gieronimiani, Cremona, 1645; Helyot, ut sup., iii. 447-456; KL, v. 2015-16; Heimbucher, ut sup., ii. 239; L. Holstenius, ut sup., iii., Additamenta, xxvi. 43 sqq. 3. P. Bonnacioli, Pisana Eremus, vita et pests

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eremitarum llieronymi, Venice, 1692: A. M. Bonucci, latoria della vita a miracoli del . . . Pietro Gambocorti, Rome, 1716; Helyot, ut sup., iv. 1-17; Heimbucher, ut sup., ii. 237-239; KL, v. 2016-17. 4. Helyot, iv. 18-25; . Heimbucher, ut sup., ii. 239-240; KL, v. 2017.