URSULINES, Vr'siu-laina: A Roman Catholic female order for the instruction and education of girls, established at Brescia in Italy in 1535 in honor of St. Ursula (q.v.) by Angela Merici (q.v.). Her rule is tertiary in type, and provides for the care of the sick and the instruction of the young, as well as for personal development and sanctification. The members of the new order resided with parents or kinsfolk, the discipline regarding fasts and medi tations was not strict, nor was the vow of celibacy required, though the three monastic vows were rec ommended. A "mother" was to be chosen for life, eight "matrons" were to preside over the eight dis tricts of Brescia, eight teachers were to be subordi nate to the matrons, and eight supervisors to the teachers. In the course of time the Ursulines became a formal order living according to the rule of St. Augustine, the first step in this direction being the bull of confirmation of Paul III. (June 9, 1544). The spread of the Ursulines in Italy was due espe cially to the patronage of Cardinal Borromeo, who, in 1581, secured a reconfirmation of the order from Gregory XIII. In 1574 the Ursulines entered south ern France, beginning monastic life in 1594. Thence in 1608 they extended to the Parisian suburb of St. Jacques, where a second large nunnery was built for them in 1611, the rule of which, drawn by Jesu its, served as the model for all regular Ursulines. It required a fourth vow of instruction of young girls. The habit was black with a leathern girdle, a black veil lined with white linen and a long veil of thin black material, and, in church, a black sleeve less mantle; and the discipline was mild. The order spread to Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and Hungary. In the second half of the eighteenth cen tury convents were founded at Pereira in Portugal and Cork in Ireland, and in 1670 there was a Greek convent at Naxos. Meanwhile the order had en tered America-Quebec (1639), New Orleans (1727), and Brazil (1751). At the time of their greatest ex pansion, early in the eighteenth century, the Ursu lines had 20 independent congregations with 350 nunneries and between 15,000 and 20,000 nuns. There were also tertiary Ursulines in Italy and Switzerland without solemn vows, but still more un der the influence of the Jesuits than the regulars. The Revolution destroyed all the Ursuline con vents in France, though in 1806 Napoleon restored them as an educational society. A new series of congregations soon arose, among them the Saeurs de St. Roche, with their mother-house at Felletin, and the Ursulines of Jesus with 400 sisters and over fifty daughter-houses. The Bavarian convents were secularized, though those at Landshut, Straubing, and Würzburg were revived. In Prussia the most of the nunneries were destroyed by the SevenYears' War, the Napoleonic wars, and by secularization. During the Kulturkampf the Ursulines were driven from Prussia, but were readmitted in 1887. There are now 36 Ursuline convents in Germany and 28 in Austro-Hungary, where they are the strongest female congregation. The 134 Ursuline convents in France were suppressed by the Associations Law of 1904. The order has two nunneries in Switzerland, 24 in Belgium, 15 in Holland, 8 in Great Britain, 2 in Spain, 3 in Portugal, and 17 in Italy, 24 in North America, 5 in South America, 3 in Asia and Java, 2 in Africa, and one in Australia. The total number of sisters is about 4,500.

(G. Grützmacher.)

Bibliography: Bides the literature under Merici, Angela, consult: (Paula de Pomereu), Chroniques de Z'ordre des Uraulinea, 3 vols., Paris, 1673 sqq.; Journal des illustrea religieusea de l'ordre de St. Ursine, 5 vols., ib. 1884; M. Hamel, L'Aun6e spirituelle historique . . des . . Uraulines , ib. 1689, ed. Clermont-Farrand, 1894; C. St. Foix, Annales de l'ordre de S. Ursule, ed. Clermont-Ferrand, 5 vols., ib. 1858; idem, Vie des premieres Uraulines de France, ed. the same, 2 vols., ib. 1856; Die ersten Schwea tern der Ursulinerennen, Paderboln, 1897; Haidbuch der Kloaterfrauen aus der Gesellschaft der heiligen Ursula, 2d ed., Breslau, 1904; Helyot, Ordres monastiques, iv. 150 sqq.; Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen, ii. 273-287.