nder this form the Carmelites
spread all over western Europe and became exceedingly popular, as an
order closely analogous to the Dominicans and Franciscans. In the course
of time, further relaxations of the rule were introduced, and during the
Great Schism the Carmelites were divided between the two papal
obediences, rival generals being elected,--a state of things that caused
still further relaxations. To cope with existing evils Eugenius IV.
approved in 1431 of a rule notably milder than that of 1247, but many
houses clung to the earlier rule; thus arose among the Carmelites the
same division into "observants" and "conventuals" that wrought such
mischief among the Franciscans. During the 15th and 16th centuries
various attempts at reform arose, as among other orders, and resulted in
the formation of semi-independent congregations owing a titular
obedience to the general of the order. The Carmelite friars seem to have
flourished especially in England, where at the dissolution of the
monasteries there were some 40 friaries. (See F.A. Gasquet, _English
Monastic Life_, table and maps; _Catholic Dictionary_, art.
"Carmelites.") There were no Carmelite nunneries in England, and indeed
until the middle of the 15th century there were no nuns at all anywhere
in the order.

Of all movements in the Carmelite order by far the most important and
far-reaching in its results has been the reform initiated by St Teresa.
After nearly thirty years passed in a Carmelite convent in Avila under
the mitigated rule of 1431, she founded in the same city a small convent
wherein a rule stricter than that of 1247 was to be observed. This was
in 1562. In spite of opposition and difficulties of all kinds, she
succeeded in establishing a number, not only of nunneries, but (with the
co-operation of St John of the Cross, q.v.) also of friaries of the
strict observance; so that at her death in 1582 there were of the reform
15 monasteries of men and 17 of women, all in Spain. The interesting and
dramatic story of the movement should be sought for in the biographies
of the two protagonists; as also an account of the school of mystical
theology founded by them, without doubt the chief contribution made by
the Carmelites to religion (see MYSTICISM). Here it must suffice to say
that the idea of the reform was to go behind the settlement of 1247 and
to restore and emphasize the purely contemplative character of primitive
Carmelite life: indeed provision wa