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Austin Friars
also known as: Hermits of St Augustine; Augustinian hermits; Ordo Eremitarum Sancti Augustini (OESA)
The Austin Friars were the third of four orders of friars and emerged as an order over the period of some twenty years in the mid thirteenth century. The order was a conflation of several hermit groups living in the hills of central and northern Italy. A papal bull of 1256 (Alexander IV) united them under a rule deriving from St Augustine. Their devotion was probably similar to that of the Franciscans and like them they moved in urban areas.
The Austin Friars first arrived in England in 1249 and settled at Clare in Suffolk; four years later they established a house in London and by 1290 there were a dozen communities in the country. The only Welsh house of Austin Canons was at Newport, founded c. 1377.
