Grand Union - 01

In what is called the Grand Union of the year 1256, Pope Alexander IV amalgamated a number of specifically-nominated religious groups into what was officially called the Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine.

Pope Alexander IV was Reginaldo dei Conti di Segni, an uncle of Cardinal Richard Annabaldi.

The decree of the Pope named Licet ecclesiae catholicae on 9th April 1256 formally approved the Grand Union of the Order of Saint Augustine that had taken place with papal authorisation at the General Chapter conducted in the previous weeks.

Woodcut (above): This is one of the earliest attempts to picture the Grand Union, about which not many historical details are available.

The formation of these mendicant orders was partly the consequence of a reform program called for by Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. It desired to put an end to groups of preachers and religious lay groups who formed spontaneously and then operated without much structured control by the Church.

It also desired to make more stable and effective the positive values that these new groups of preachers were trying to adopt, i.e., community life, poverty and official public ministry in the cities that were then rapidly increasing in size.

(Continued on the next page.)

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Grand Union - 01

History: bibliography