The Carmelite Order began when a group of hermits settled in a regulated community on Mt Carmel in the kingdom of Jerusalem in the first decade of the 13th century. As the hermits began to found new houses across Christendom, they adopted mendicant practices and developed legendary traditions designed to extend their putative history back before 1200. The Carmelite historical legendary sought to associate generic eremitical monasticism and its Old Testament precursors with the Carmelite Order in order to claim that the Order, founded by Elijah, represented the oldest form of monasticism.