Carmelite Chronicles
The Hermits of Mount Carmel
Chapter 1
“Every Order taketh its name either from a place or from a saint,” writes John Baconthorpe, 14th century English Carmelite; “from a place, like the Cistercians who are called after Citeaux, and our Order after Carmel.” As a matter of fact, it is to Mount Carmel, a mountain in Palestine on the Bay of Haifa, that the Carmelite Order traces its origin. The date of its origin, the subject of an age-old controversy, can now be ascertained with relative accuracy.
From The Mirror of Carmel by Joachim Smet, O. Carm.
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Fr. Joachim Smet, O.Carm. (1915-2011) was one of the leading historians of the Carmelite Order. In addition to being a founding member and President of the Institutum Carmelitanum in Rome and editor of Carmelus, a journal of Carmelite Studies, Fr. Joachim was a gifted writer. he is well-known for his four-volume work The Carmelites and his Life of Saint Peter Thomas. Among his other works: Familiar Matter of Today-Poems (2007), The Mirror of Carmel: A Brief History of the Carmelite Order, (2011), various publications on Carmelite Nuns, Carmelite Liturgy, Carmelite Libraries of Spain and Portugal and the Carmelites of Medieval England.
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I thought the Cistercians were given that name after Cisterns! I feel so embarassed now.