Cellites or Celliive

Cellites or Celliive. This name, derived from cella, a cell, was given in early days to a class of monks midway between hermits and cenobites. They lived alone like hermits, but, unlike them, repaired at festivals to the church of the monastery to which they had attached themselves. In the Middle Ages the name was applied to a religious order, founded in 1300, which had houses at Antwerp, Louvain, Malines, Cologne, and other German towns; their special work was to nurse the sick poor and to bury the dead. They are sometimes called Alexians, from their founder, Alexius, a Roman, but they were a branch of the -Beghards (q. w.).