The Carmelite Order has a handbook in Joachim Smets' work "The Carmelites: A History of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel," which can be regarded as a classic representation of the history of the Order. The four volumes – with the third volume divided into two parts – are the result of his more than forty years of research. His account covers the history from the beginnings of the hermits at the source of Elijah on Mount Carmel in the 12th century to the year 1950. In the first volume, presented here in German translation of the second edition of the English original, Smet outlines the origins of the hermit order in Palestine, the migration to Europe, and its development into a mendicant order. Another focus is an overview of the renewal of religious life in the late Middle Ages, where he discovers the "return to the spirit of the origins" with the protagonists of the order reform. A chapter on the Carmelites at the Council of Trent concludes the volume. For this original English edition published in 1988, as well as for the subsequent volumes, updates on the state of research, comments, and references to more recent literature were deemed necessary. An image appendix, which references Smet's account, complements the text.