Hippolyte Hélyot (1660–1716) was a

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related Mendicant orders, mendicant Christianity, Christian Catholic religious order, religious orders within the Catholic Church. Founded in 1209 by Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi, these orders include t ...

friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the ol ...

and

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...

of the Franciscan Third Order Regular and a major scholar of

Church history __NOTOC__ Church history or ecclesiastical history as an academic discipline studies the history of Christianity and the way the Christian Church has developed since its inception. Henry Melvill Gwatkin defined church history as "the spiritual ...

, focusing on the history of the religious Orders. He was born at

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

in January 1660, supposedly of English ancestry, and christened Pierre at his birth. After spending his youth in study, he entered, in his twenty-fourth year, the

friary A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...

of the

Third Order Regular of St. Francis The Third Order of Saint Francis is a third order in the Franciscan tradition of Christianity, founded by the medieval Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi. The preaching of Francis and his disciples caused many married men and women to w ...

, founded in Picpus-—now part of Paris—-by his uncle, Jérôme Hélyot, a

canon regular Canons regular are priests who live in community under a rule ( and canon in greek) and are generally organised into religious orders, differing from both secular canons and other forms of religious life, such as clerics regular, designated by a ...

of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher. There he took the religious name under which he gained his reputation as a historian. Two journeys to

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

on business of the Order afforded him the opportunity of traveling over most of

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

; and after his final return he saw much of France, while acting as secretary to various

provincial superiors Provincial may refer to: Government & Administration * Provincial capitals, an administrative sub-national capital of a country * Provincial city (disambiguation) * Provincial minister (disambiguation) * Provincial Secretary, a position in Cana ...

of his Order. Both in Italy and France he was engaged in collecting materials for his great work, which occupied him for about twenty-five years. It was titled ''L'Histoire des ordres monastiques, religieux et militaires, et des congregations séculières de l'un et de l'autre sexe, qui ont été établis jusqu'à présent'' (''The History of the Religious and Military Monastic Orders, and of the Secular Congregations of both Sexes, which have been established up to the Present Day''). ''L'Histoire'' was published in eight volumes between 1714 and 1719. Jean-Baptiste Coignard of Paris printed the first two volumes for Joseph Derbais of Douay; Coignard published the remaining six volumes under his own name. Hélyot died on January 5, 1716, before the fifth volume appeared, but his friend and colleague, Friar Maximilien Bullot, T.O.R., completed the fifth volume and authored the remaining three volumes. Hélyot's other noteworthy work is ''Le Chrétien mourant'' (1695). His ''History'' is a work of first importance, being the great repository of information regarding the general history of the

religious order A religious order is a lineage of communities and organizations of people who live in some way set apart from society in accordance with their specific religious devotion, usually characterized by the principles of its founder's religious practi ...

s up to the end of the 17th century. Hélyot gave detailed information about the foundation—and, where appropriate, the decline—of the various groups. It is profusely illustrated by large

plate Plate may refer to: Cooking * Plate (dishware), a broad, mainly flat vessel commonly used to serve food * Plates, tableware, dishes or dishware used for setting a table, serving food and dining * Plate, the content of such a plate (for example: ...

s exhibiting the

religious habit A religious habit is a distinctive set of religious clothing worn by members of a religious order. Traditionally some plain garb recognizable as a religious habit has also been worn by those leading the religious eremitic and anchoritic life, ...

s of the various Orders, and in the edition of 1792 the plates are colored. It was translated into

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

(1737) and into

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

(1753). The material was arranged in an

alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syll ...

ical

dictionary form In morphology and lexicography, a lemma (plural ''lemmas'' or ''lemmata'') is the canonical form, dictionary form, or citation form of a set of word forms. In English, for example, ''break'', ''breaks'', ''broke'', ''broken'' and ''breaking'' a ...

by M. L. Badiche, for inclusion in

Migne Jacques Paul Migne (; 25 October 1800 – 24 October 1875) was a French priest who published inexpensive and widely distributed editions of theological works, encyclopedias, and the texts of the Church Fathers, with the goal of providing a u ...

's ''Encyclopédie théologique'', under the title "Dictionnaire des ordres religieux" (5 vols., 1858).

References

External links

*
Catholic Encyclopedia article
{{DEFAULTSORT:Helyot, Pierre 1660 births 1716 deaths 18th-century French historians 17th-century French Roman Catholic priests 18th-century French Roman Catholic priests Third Order Regular Franciscans Writers from Paris French people of English descent Historians of monasticism French male writers 17th-century French historians