Hippolyte Hélyot

Who was Hippolyte Hélyot?

Friar Hippolyte Hélyot, T.O.R., was a Franciscan friar and priest of the Franciscan Third Order Regular and a major scholar of Church history, focusing on the history of the religious Orders.

He was born at Paris 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 of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis, founded in Picpus-—now part of Paris—-by his uncle, Jérôme Hélyot, a canon regular 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 on business of the Order afforded him the opportunity of traveling over most of Italy; and after his final return he saw much of France, while acting as secretary to various provincial superiors 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 was published as a five-volume work, from 1714 until 1721.