A member of the order founded at Mount Carmel in Palestine in the early 13c and approved by the pope in 1226. A *mendicant order which was known as the White Friars; its first members, however, were mostly *her-mits. The first Carmelite house in England was founded at Aylesford, after 1240 and the failure of the *crusades. There was also an order of nuns modelled on the White Friars. Although only formally instituted in 1452, the sisters had first appeared in the 13c. In 1452, the Carmelite Second Order was organised and adopted the same rule as the Carmelite brothers.
Dictionary of Medieval Terms and Phrases. Christopher Coredon with Ann Williams.