Hippolyte Hélyot (January 1660 – 5 January 1716) was a

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent Religious institute, religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor bei ...

friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders in the Catholic Church. There are also friars outside of the Catholic Church, such as within the Anglican Communion. The term, first used in the 12th or 13th century, distinguishes the mendi ...

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 deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

of the Franciscan Third Order Regular and a major scholar of

church history 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 side of t ...

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

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

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 may ...

of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis, founded in Picpus – now part of Paris – by his uncle, Jérôme Hélyot, a

canon regular The Canons Regular of St. Augustine are Catholic priests who live in community under a rule ( and κανών, ''kanon'', in Greek) and are generally organised into religious orders, differing from both secular canons and other forms of religiou ...

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 Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

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

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

; 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 Canad ...

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 5 January 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 subgroup within a larger confessional community with a distinctive high-religiosity lifestyle and clear membership. Religious orders often trace their lineage from revered teachers, venerate their Organizational founder, ...

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 plates exhibiting the

religious habit A religious habit is a distinctive set of 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 Hermit, eremitic and Anchorite, anchorit ...

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, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

(1737) and into

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

(1753). The material was arranged in an

alphabet An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...

ical

dictionary form In morphology and lexicography, a lemma (: 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'' are forms of the ...

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 ...

'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