By: Pilar Abellán OV
Lorenzo Alcina titled his important article published in the Yermo magazine in 1964 “Fray Lope de Olmedo and his controversial monastic work”. We have already seen that both he and his monastic project were discussed by his many detractors.
The case is that it seems to be a common case in religious foundations of a founder of great charisma and observance, after whose death it is difficult for another person of equal strength to take over. The same, in fact, that occurred with the male monastery of San Jerónimo in Bethlehem, of which, after Jerome’s death in the year 419 or 420, we only know of one successor, Saint Eusebius of Cremona. For that reason the recommendations of Fray Lope de Olmedo to his monks on his deathbed about the future of his order turned out to be prophetic: “entrusting to their consciences the observance of the Rule and the Constitutions, on which the subsistence of the Religion in its first and most decorous state depended. Otherwise, their negligence and the faults committed in their office would have been the fatal cause of the fall of the Religion” (Caymi, chap. X book III).
After Lope’s death, his order immediately relaxed its customs. The Council of Basel was being held in 1433 and a delegation of Fray Lope’s monks requested the pope to return to the rule of Saint Augustine, arguing that the Fourth Council of Lateran (1215) had prohibited new monastic rules. It is a betrayal of the spirit of the founder and the evident cause of its rapid decline, although it survived for several more centuries. Lorenzo Alcina narrates it in a lapidary manner: “But (the Congregation) did not remain faithful to the guidelines of its founder” (Alcina, L., Op. Cit., p. 52). In his article recently published in the Studia Monastica magazine (2025, pp. 12 and 13), Peru Amorrortu states that “the effect of the approval of the Rule (of Saint Jerome in 1428) was not too positive for the Order, as the majority of the monks did not accept with pleasure the much stricter way of life that the zealous Lope intended to impose on them, and they rebelled after his death, taking their complaints to the Council of Basel, which endorsed them (Rubio González, L. “The Order of Saint Jerome in Spain”, Estudio Agustiniano: Revista del Estudio Teológico Agustiniano de Valladolid 11.2 (1976)).
Thus, immediately after the death of Fray Lope de Olmedo and despite his recommendations, the Order of the Hermit Monks of Saint Jerome returned to living according to the rule of Saint Augustine, just like the Order of Saint Jerome in Spain.
Let us briefly review the course of the order from then on.
In Spain, the order had, at Lope’s death, as already mentioned, two houses in the Archdiocese of Seville: San Isidoro del Campo and San Jerónimo de Acela. The latter did not have a life as a Jeronymite hermitage of more than 20 years. Apparently, in the 1440s it was abandoned by the monks and from the 1470s it is documented as the well-known Charterhouse of Cazalla. From the monastery of San Isidoro del Campo, on the other hand, other houses were indeed founded as Lope wanted: small (12 monks) and with very low incomes, to ensure an austere and penitential life for the monks. In this way, Santa María de Barrameda (near Medina Sidonia) and San Miguel de los Reyes (four leagues from Seville) were founded, as well as Santa Ana de Tendilla (1473).
Father José de Sigüenza, ordinarily so adverse to the Observants, has praised the “utmost poverty” and the “equal example” of those monks, who sustained themselves “with bread and water, some vegetables from the poor garden and, at most indulgence, some slices of bread fried in oil”; among them there were “men of great spirit”; most wore rough hairshirts, slept on the ground or on some mat, hay or twigs. They punished their bodies with very harsh disciplines, and at least it is known that it was necessary to put a limit on these asperities; of the fasts there is no need to make mention, because their whole life was a strict fast, and even in this they tightened more (note #90, Sigüenza, volume I). The Congregation also possessed in Spain: Santa Quiteria de Jaén; Nuestra Señora de Gracia, in the town of Carmona, a monastery founded in 1477 by Queen Isabella, and Nuestra Señora del Valle de Écija, opened to Jeronymite life in 1486.
At the beginning of the 16th century these monasteries were going through various difficulties; there were certain dissensions among them. They were, as Sigüenza narrates, “with the sole exception of San Isidoro del Campo, of very little estate”; and if we are to believe the Jeronymite chronicler, “nor do they have scholars or preachers, nor even books and after that, few friars for governance”.
Philip II asked the general chapter of the Order of Saint Jerome, gathered in 1567 under the presidency of Fray Francisco del Pozuelo, to admit into its bosom the seven monasteries of the Observants in Spain. The chapter fathers did not hurry to accept them for several reasons that deserved examination and discussion. Sigüenza lists some: the purity of blood, so regarded in the OSH because of the controversy with the converts; the Lutheran focus in San Isidoro in 1557; the poverty of the Observant monasteries and how little these were going to appreciate “the participation in an Order so extended and esteemed”.
“But after much discussion – Sigüenza continues -, moved by obedience to Pope Saint Pius V and respect for the king, and to remedy the unrest of the Olmedist monasteries, the union was decided. The unrest was due, according to Sigüenza, to the fact that their general prior resides in Italy and that “the provincials who are here are absolute, treat the friars basely, have little charity with them”. The monks of the Jeronymite Order, on the other hand, feel obliged by the charity they owe to a religion born from theirs and whose monks were no less sons of Saint Jerome than themselves.
The union was finally carried out on September 14, 1567. On this day, two religious of the OSH presented themselves in each of the Observance monasteries with the charge of taking possession of them. It is curious to know that they were accompanied by the vicar general of the respective dioceses and that the monks were dressed as laymen, “because that is how His Majesty (Philip II) had ordered it, warned by some of them that they would resist”. But “they were mistaken”: there was no resistance at all, but rather “they obeyed at once”. Here ends the history of the Order of the Hermit Monks of Saint Jerome in Spain.
From these words of Fray José de Sigüenza it seems to emerge that in the monasteries of the Order of the Hermit Monks of Saint Jerome the penitent and poverty identity that Fray Lope de Olmedo wanted to imprint was indeed maintained, as well as the characteristics of the Observant monasteries of small communities, composed of twelve monks. And Sigüenza adds – quoted by Lorenzo Alcina – this appreciation of a zealous monk: “if it had not been for the relaxation and negligence of the superiors (…), without a doubt it would have been one of the strictest religions for the flesh among all those in the Church of God”. After the probationary year, the Congregation founded by Lope de Olmedo was definitively incorporated into the Order of Saint Jerome. At that time the Observance had about a hundred monks. From then on – the chronicler concludes -, “the Order has always taken care to caress them and honor itself with them and treat them as was right” (Sigüenza, volume II).
In Italy (Alcina, L., 1964. Op cit. pp. 54ss), Lope’s work had a longer life than in Spain. The center of the congregation was located in the Roman monastery of San Alejo. There, Fray Enrique de Alemania succeeded Fray Lope as prior in 1431, who was replaced in 1433 by Fray Lupino de España, elected by the first general chapter of the congregation, held in the monastery of Castellazo, extramural to Milan (note #95, Narini, pp. 303-308).
Over four centuries, the Congregation came to have about twenty monasteries in Italy, named in footnote #96 of Lorenzo Alcina:
- San Pedro de Ospedaletto
- San Pedro ad Vincula
- San Alessio en Roma
- Quarto, en Génova
- San Pablo de Albano
- San Jerónimo de Castellazzo, en Milán
- San Cosme y san Damián, en Milán
- San Carpóforo de Como
- San Jerónimo de Novara
- San Jerónimo de Biella
- Santa María de Caromagna
- San Barbaciano de Bolonia
- San Savino de Plasencia
- San Miguel de Brembio
- San Segismundo de Cremona
- Santa María de Biadena
- San Jerónimo de Mantua
- San Martín de Pavía
- Santos Gervasio y Protasio, de Montebello
- Santa María della Campora o del Santo Sepulcro, de Florencia
Alcina states that at the end of the 16th century the monks in Italy began to use the monastic title of Dom and their superiors, despite being triennial, to call themselves abbots. The general abbots resided in the monastery of San Pietro d´Ospedaletto, in the province of Lodi (Lombardy) and enjoyed the privileges of using pontifical ornaments and conferring orders, graces granted to them by Popes Paul V and Urban VIII (note #97: Helgot y Bullat, p. 468).
Sadly, Alcina narrates, “the Congregation of Fr. Olmedo was no longer by then, as a 16th-century Italian historian says, “the daughter and image of Jerome” (“the daughter and image of Jerome”; note #98, Rossi, oc p. 267). When the Spanish monasteries separated from it (1567) it began to be called the Jeronymite Congregation of the Observance of Lombardy (note #99), and in the 17th century it was called the Congregation of Monks of Saint Jerome of Italy (Note #100: Nerini, op. cit. pag XXIX: approval of the work by “Dom Theodorus Maria Veggi, Congregationis Monachorum Sancti Hieronymi in Italia, Abbas Generalis”).
When an order of Emperor Joseph II disclaustrated the Jeronymites of Lombardy in the second half of the 18th century and the Congregation was reduced to the monasteries it owned in the Papal States and in the Duchy of Parma, it adopted the name of Roman-Parmesan Congregation of Jeronymite Monks. In the meantime, important changes had taken place in the structure of the institute. Since 1584, instead of holding a general chapter annually, as prescribed by the constitutions drafted by Fray Lope de Olmedo, it was held every three years (Nerini, p. 306). In 1611, with authorization from Pope Paul V, they replaced the Constitutions of Fray Lope de Olmedo with new ones.
We base ourselves on the cited article by Lorenzo Alcina to narrate how, “during the 18th century the Italian Congregation had its disputes with other religious Orders regarding the antiquity of the Jeronymite Order, in the same way that the Spanish Jeronymites had had them in the 17th century. Its defender was none other than the general abbot Dom Félix María Nerini, who, like Fr. Hermenegildo de San Pablo in Spain, claims that the order derives directly from the monasteries of Bethlehem (note #103: Nerini, Hieronymianae familiae vetera monumenta, Placentiae, 1754. See also Dom Pier Luigi Galletti, osb, Lettera intorno la vera e sicura origine del Venerabile Ordine dei PP Girolamini, Roma, 1755).
The Italian Jeronymite Congregation always felt great affection toward the Spanish and Portuguese Jeronymites. Dom Nerini writes that the great work of Fray Lope de Olmedo was to implant in Italy the monasticism of Saint Jerome although there are few of its houses; but Dom Nerini consoles himself by saying that “by the grace of God this order has spread with much greater splendor in Portugal and Spain, possessing in these nations nearly 80 monasteries, among them the famous ones of Santa María de Belén, in Lisbon, and San Lorenzo del Escorial. However, contrary to what the historian Bonanni claims (note #105: Filippo Bonnanni, S.J., Catalogo degli Ordini Religiosi della Chiesa Militante, Roma, 1714, 2ª ed, parte I, cap CXIX), the Spanish generals never intervened in the affairs of the Italian Jeronymites.
And we arrive at the end of the disfigured existence of the Order founded by Fray Lope de Olmedo. A mortal blow to its existence – affirms Lorenzo Alcina – were the Napoleonic wars. On that occasion, some of its monasteries were closed forever, so that it was soon reduced to that of San Alejo, in Rome, and a few more, like San Pablo de Albano and San Savino de Plasencia. At the beginning of the 19th century the Pope appointed a new superior and apostolic visitor, Cardinal Leonardo Antonelli, undoubtedly with a view to reorganizing it. But nothing could be achieved. And in 1834 a decree of Gregory XVI ordered the few Jeronymites who still remained to vacate the monastery of San Alejo, although later papal benevolence allowed them to stay in it until 1846. In this year the Regular Clerics of Somasca took possession of the building. Dom Hipólito de Monza was the last Jeronymite abbot of the monastery of San Alejo, and at the same time, the last general abbot of the congregation.
We conclude with the accurate words of Lorenzo Alcina, whose article provides such valuable information: “Thus ended that Jeronymite Observance founded with such zeal by Fray Lope de Olmedo in the first half of the 15th century. The bones of the reformer still rest in the church of San Alejo awaiting the last and universal judgment. Men have judged his monastic work differently. But, what does the judgment of men matter? Dom Pío Rossi, osh, distant biographer and spiritual son of Fray Lope de Olmedo, writes these lines with which I want to end the present work: “Fortunato Lupo, che può esser lodato in Dio, e di cui non tace Iddio istesso le giuste lodi. Che giova l´essere lodato da alcuno, se´l Signore di tutte le cose vitupera? Io no so stima, disse San Paolo, d´esser giudicato dagli huomini, perche´l mio Giudice e Dio: ne potrò essergli fedele servitore se piacerò agli huomini del Mondo” (.Rossi, p. 487).
“Fortunate Lope, who can be praised in God, and of whom God Himself does not silence the just praises. What does it serve to be praised by someone, if the Lord of all things insults him? I do not know how to esteem, said Saint Paul, being judged by men, because my Judge is God: I cannot be His faithful servant if I please the men of the World”.