Early in the fifteenth century religious women began to be affiliated to the Alexian Brotherhood (see below). These sisters adopted the Rule of St. Augustine and devoted themselves to the same corporal works of mercy as those of the Brothers of St. Alexius, or Cellites. Their habit is black, with a mantle of the same colour and a white cap, whence their common name of "black sisters." The black, or Cellitine, sisters at present have their mother-house at Cologne. They are not represented in the list of religious women established in the United States and Canada.

SCHLOSSER in Kirchenlex.