Augustinian nuns

Augustinian nuns are the most ancient and continuous segment of the Roman Catholic Augustinian religious order under the canons of contemporary historical method. The Augustinian nuns, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo (died AD 430), are several Roman Catholic enclosed monastic orders of women living according to a guide to religious life known as the Rule of St. Augustine. Prominent Augustinian nuns include Italian composer Vittoria Aleotti, Italian mystic St. Clare of Montefalco, German mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich and St. Rita of Cascia.

Though Augustine of Hippo probably didn't compose a formal monastic rule (despite the extant Augustinian Rule), his hortatory letter to the nuns at Hippo Regius (Epist., ccxi, Benedictine ed.) is the most ancient example on which the beginnings of this Augustinian Rule are based.

The nuns regard as their first foundation the monastery for which St. Augustine wrote the rules of life in his Epistola ccxi (alias cix) in 423. It is certain that this epistle was called the Rule of St. Augustine for nuns at an early date, and has been followed as the rule of life in many female monasteries since the 11th century. These monasteries were not consolidated in 1256, like the religious communities of Augustinian monks.

Each convent was independent and was not subject to the general of the order. This led to differences in rule, dress, and mode of life. Only since the 15th century have certain Augustinian Hermits reformed a number of Augustinian nunneries, become their spiritual directors, and induced them to adopt the Constitution of their order. Henceforth, there were female members of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine in Italy, France, Spain, Belgium and later in Germany, where, however, many were suppressed during the Reformation, or by the secularizing law of 1803. In the other countries many nunneries were closed in consequence of the French Revolution. The still existing houses in the early 20th century, except Cascia, Renteria (Diocese of Vitoria), Eibar (Diocese of Vittoria) and Cracow, were under the jurisdiction of the bishop of the diocese. Many convents are celebrated for the saints whom they produced, such as Montefalco in Central Italy, the home of St. Clare of the Cross (or St. Clara of Montefalco, d. 1308), and Cascia, near Perugia, where St. Rita died in 1457. In the suppressed German convent of Agnetenberg near Dulmen, in Westphalia, lived Anne Catherine Emmerich celebrated for her visions.

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