Establishment of the Carmelite nuns under the mitigated rule

Although in preceding centuries devout women had sought to enter into intimate contact with this or that house of the Order as recluses who situated their cells near the Carmelite churches, such as Bl. Joan of Toulouse (13th century), it is only in 1453 that the Carmelite nuns were officially founded by Bl. John Soreth with Nicholas V's approbation. The Prior General did not intend to create a new Order; but to confirm the Order's vocation by joining to it a group of members who would be entirely dedicated to its primary end, the contemplative life. The mitigated rule under which he established them was not an obstacle to regular observance, to a poor; solitary life of continuous prayer and union with God. The convent of Couets near Nantes was particularly famous for its good example. Directed in its beginnings by Bl. Frances of Amboise, Duchess of Brittany, whom John Soreth himself admitted to Carmel, it was lived in so fervently after one hundred years of existence that its reputation had reached as far as Spain. No doubt St. Teresa was thinking of Couets when she proposed to leave for a convent in the north in order to live more faithfully according to the traditions of the Order.

The new institution soon spread from the Lowlands and the Rhineland to France, Spain and Italy; at Florence, St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi obtained permission to observe the primitive rigor. The foundations of Bl. Soreth are distinguished by a very special love of simplicity, poverty, solitude and prayer. The cloister was less severe than it would be after the Council of Trent; in the Lowlands and in the Rhineland it was stricter; but in Spain, much more relaxed.