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CISTERCIANS

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Originally appearing in Volume V06, Page 395 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CISTERCIANS , otherwise Gxey or See also:

WHITE MONKS (from the See also:colour of the See also:habit, over which is worn a See also:black scapular or See also:apron). In ro98 St See also:Robert, See also:born of a See also:noble See also:family in See also:Champagne, at first a See also:Benedictine See also:monk, and then See also:abbot of certain hermits settled at Molesme near See also:Chatillon, being dissatisfied with the manner of See also:life and observance there, migrated with twenty of the monks to a swampy See also:place called Citeaux in the See also:diocese of Chalons, not far from See also:Dijon. See also:Count See also:Odo of See also:Burgundy here built them a monastery, and they began to live a life of strict observance according to the See also:letter of St See also:Benedict's See also:rule. In the following See also:year Robert was compelled by papal authority to return to Molesme, and Alberic succeeded him as abbot of Citeaux and held the See also:office till his See also:death in 1109, when the Englishman St See also:Stephen See also:Harding became abbot, until 1134. For some years the new See also:institute seemed little likely to prosper; few novices came, and in the first years of Stephen's abbacy it seemed doomed to failure. In 1112, however, St See also:Bernard and See also:thirty others offered themselves to the monastery, and a rapid and wonderful development at once set in. The next three years witnessed the See also:foundation of the four See also:great " daughter-houses of Citeaux "—La Ferte, Pontigny, See also:Clairvaux and Morimond. At Stephen's death there were over 30 Cistercian houses; at Bernard's (11.54) over 28o; and by the end of the See also:century over Soo; and the Cistercian See also:influence in the See also:Church more than kept See also:pace with this material expansion, so that St Bernard saw one of his monks ascend the papal See also:chair as See also:Eugenius III. The keynote of Cistercian life was a return to a literal observance of St Benedict's rule—how literal may be seen from the controversy between St Bernard and See also:Peter the See also:Venerable, abbot of See also:Cluny (see See also:Maitland, Dark Ages, § xxii.). The Cistercians rejected alike all mitigations and all developments, and tried to reproduce the lire exactly as it had been in St Benedict's See also:time, indeed in various points they went beyond it in austerity. The most striking feature in the reform was the return to See also:manual labour, and especially to See also:field-See also:work, which became a See also:special characteristic of Cistercian life. In See also:order to make time for this work they cut away the accretions to the divine office which had been steadily growing during three centuries, and in Cluny and the other Black Monk monasteries had come to exceed greatly in length the See also:regular canonical office: one only of these accretions did they retain, the daily recitation of the Office of the Dead (Edm.

See also:

Bishop, Origin of the Primer, See also:Early See also:English See also:Text Society, See also:original See also:series, 109, p. See also:xxx.). It was as agriculturists and See also:horse and See also:cattle breeders that, after the first blush of their success and before a century had passed, the Cistercians exercised their See also:chief influence on the progress of See also:civilization in the later See also:middle ages: they were the great farmers of those days, and many of the improvements in the various farming operations were introduced and propagated by them; it is from this point of view that the importance of their See also:extension in See also:northern See also:Europe is to be estimated. The Cistercians at the beginning renounced all See also:sources of income arising from benefices, See also:tithes, tolls and rents, and depended for their income wholly on the See also:land. This See also:developed an organized See also:system for selling their See also:farm produce, cattle and horses, and notably contributed to the commercial progress of the countries of western Europe. Thus by the middle of the 13th century the export of See also:wool by the English Cistercians had become a feature in the See also:commerce of the See also:country. Farming operations on so extensive a See also:scale could not be carried out by the monks alone, whose See also:choir and religious duties took up a considerable portion of their time; and so from the beginning the system of See also:lay See also:brothers was introduced on a large scale. The lay brothers were recruited from the peasantry and were See also:simple uneducated men, whose See also:function consisted in carrying out the various field-See also:works and plying all sorts of useful trades; they formed a See also:body of men who lived alongside of the choir monks, but See also:separate from them, not taking See also:part in the canonical office, but having their own fixed See also:round of See also:prayer and religious exercises. A lay See also:brother was never ordained, and never held any office of superiority. It was by this system of lay brothers that the Cistercians were able to See also:play their distinctive part in the progress of See also:European civilization. But it often happened that the number of lay brothers became excessive and out of proportion to the resources of the monasteries, there being sometimes as many as 200, or even 300, in a single See also:abbey. On the other See also:hand; at any See also:rate in some countries, the system of lay brothers in course of time worked itself out; thus in See also:England by the See also:close of the i4th century it had shrunk to relatively small proportions, and in the 15th century the regime of the English Cistercian houses tended to approximate more and more to that of the Black Monks. The Cistercian polity calls for special mention.

Its lines were adumbrated by Alberic, but it received its final See also:

form at a See also:meeting of the abbots in the time of Stephen Harding, when was See also:drawn up the Carta Caritatis (See also:Migne, See also:Patrol. See also:Lat. clxvi. 1377), a document which arranged the relations between the various houses of the Cistercian order, and exercised a great influence also upon the future course of western monachism. From one point of view, it may be regarded as a See also:compromise between the See also:primitive Benedictine system, whereby each abbey was autonomous and isolated, and the See also:complete centralization of Cluny, whereby the abbot of Cluny was the only true See also:superior in the body. Citeaux, on the one hand, maintained the in-dependent organic life of the houses—each abbey had its own abbot, elected by its own monks; its own community, belonging to itself and not to the order in See also:general; its own See also:property and finances administered by itself, without interference from outside. On the other hand, all the abbeys were subjected to the general See also:chapter, which met yearly at Citeaux, and consisted of the abbots only; the abbot of Citeaux was the See also:president of the chapter and of the order, and the visitor of each and every See also:house, with a predominant influence and the See also:power of enforcing everywhere exact conformity to Citeaux in all details of the exterior life—observance, See also:chant, customs. The principle was that Citeaux should always be the See also:model to which all the other houses had to conform. In See also:case of any divergence of view at the chapter, the See also:side taken by the abbot of Citeaux was always to prevail (see F. A. Gasquet, See also:Sketch of Monastic Constitutional See also:History, pp. See also:xxxv-xxxviii, prefixed to English trans. of See also:Montalembert's Monks of the See also:West, ed. 1895). By the end of the 12th century the Cistercian houses numbered Soo; in the 13th a See also:hundred more were added; and in the 15th, when the order attained its greatest extension, there were close on 750 houses: the larger figures sometimes given are now recognized as apocryphal.

Nearly See also:

half of the houses had been founded, directly or indirectly, from Clairvaux, so great was St Bernard's influence and See also:prestige: indeed he has come almost to be regarded as the founder of the Cistercians, who have often been called Bernardines. The order was spread all over western Europe,—chiefly in See also:France, but also in See also:Germany, England, See also:Scotland, See also:Ireland, See also:Sweden, See also:Poland, See also:Hungary, See also:Italy and See also:Sicily, See also:Spain and See also:Portugal,—where some of the houses, as Alcobaca, were of almost incredible magnificence. In England the first foundation was See also:Furness (1127), and many of the most beautiful monastic buildings of the country, beautiful in themselves and beautiful in their sites, were Cistercian,—as Tintern, See also:Rievaulx, Byland, Fountains. A hundred were established in England in the next hundred years, and then only one more up to the See also:Dissolution (for See also:list, see table and See also:map in F. A. Gasquet's English Monastic Life, or See also:Catholic See also:Dictionary, See also:art. " Cistercians "). For a hundred years, till the first See also:quarter of the 13th century, the Cistercians supplanted Cluny as the most powerful order and the chief religious influence in western Europe. But then in turn their influence began to wane, chiefly, no doubt, because of the rise of the mendicant orders, who ministered more directly to the needs and ideas of the new See also:age. But some of the reasons of Cistercian decline were See also:internal. In the first place, there wasthe permanent difficulty of maintaining in its first fervour a body embracing hundreds of monasteries and thousands of monks, spread all over Europe; and as the Cistercian very raison d'etre consisted in its being a " reform," a return to primitive monachism, with its field-work and severe simplicity, any failures to live up to the ideal proposed worked more disastrously among Cistercians than among See also:mere See also:Benedictines, who were intended to live a life of self-denial, but not of great austerity.. Relaxations were gradually introduced in regard to See also:diet and to simplicity of life, and also in regard to the sources of income, rents and tolls being admitted and benefices incorporated, as was done among the Benedictines; the farming operations tended to produce a commercial spirit; See also:wealth and splendour invaded many of the monasteries, and the choir monks abandoned field-work.

The later history of the Cistercians is largely one of attempted revivals and reforms. The general chapter for See also:

long battled bravely against the invasion of relaxations and abuses. In 1335 Benedict XII., himself a Cistercian, promulgated a series of regulations to restore the primitive spirit of the order, and in the 15th century various popes endeavoured to promote reforms. All these efforts at a reform of the great body of the order proved unavailing; but See also:local reforms, producing various semi-See also:independent offshoots and congregations, were successfully carried out in many parts in the course of the 15th and 16th centuries. In the 17th another great effort at a general reform was made, promoted by the See also:pope and the See also:king of France; the general chapter elected See also:Richelieu (commendatory) abbot of Citeaux, thinking he would protect them from the threatened reform. In this they were disappointed, for he threw himself wholly on the side of reform. So great, however, was the resistance, and so serious the disturbances that ensued, that the See also:attempt to reform Citeaux itself and the general body of the houses had again to be abandoned, and only local projects of reform could be carried out. In 1598 had arisen the reformed See also:congregation of the Feuillants, which spread widely in France and Italy, in the latter country under the name of " Improved Bernardines." The See also:French congregation of See also:Sept-Fontaines (1654) also deserves mention. In 1663 de See also:Rance reformed La Trappe (see See also:TRAPPISTS). The See also:Reformation, the ecclesiastical policy of See also:Joseph II., the French Revolution, and the revolutions of the x9th century, almost wholly destroyed the Cistercians; but some survived, and since the beginning of the last half of the 19th century there has been a considerable recovery. They are at See also:present divided into three bodies: (1) the See also:Common Observance, with about 30 monasteries and 800 choir monks, the large See also:majority being in See also:Austria-Hungary; they represent the See also:main body of the order and follow a mitigated rule of life; they do not carry on field-work, but have large secondary See also:schools, and are in manner of life little different from fairly observant Benedictine Black monks; of See also:late years, however, signs are not wanting of a tendency towards a return to older ideas; (2) the Middle Observance, embracing some dozen monasteries and about 150 choir monks; (3) the Strict Observance, or Trappists (q.v.), with nearly 6o monasteries, about 160o choir monks and 2000 lay brothers. In all there are about 100 Cistercian monasteries and about 4700 monks, including lay brothers.

There have always been a large number of Cistercian nuns; the first nunnery was founded at See also:

Tart in the diocese of See also:Langres, 1125; at the See also:period of their widest extension there are said to have been goo nunneries, and the communities were very large. The nuns were devoted to contemplation and also did field-work. In Spain and France certain Cistercian abbesses had extraordinary privileges. Numerous reforms took place among the nuns. The best known of all Cistercian convents was probably See also:Port-Royal (q.v.), reformed by Angelique See also:Arnaud, and associated with the See also:story of the Jansenist controversy. After all the troubles of the 19th century there still exist xoo Cistercian nunneries with 3000 nuns, choir and lay; of these, 15 nunneries with goo nuns are Trappist. Accounts of the beginnings of the Cistercians and of the primitive life and spirit will be found in the lives of St Bernard, the best whereof is that of See also:Abbe E. Vacandard (1895) ; also in the Life of St Stephen Harding, in the English See also:Saints. See also See also:Henry See also:Collins (one of the See also:Oxford See also:Movement, who became a Cistercian), Spirit and See also:Mission of the Cistercian Order (1866). The facts See also:ate related in See also:Helyot, Hist. See also:des ordres religieux (1992), v. cc. 33-46, vi'. cc. 1, 2.

Useful sketches, with references to the literature, are supplied in See also:

Herzog, Realencyklopadie (ed. 3), art. " Cistercienser "; Wetzer and Welte, Kirchenlexikon (ed. 2), art. " Cistercienserorden "; Max Heimbucher, Orden and Kongregationen (1896), i. §§ 33, 34. Prof. See also:Brewer's discriminating, yet on the whole sympathetic, See also:Preface to vol. iv. of the Works of Giraldus Cambrensis (Rolls Series of See also:Chronicles and Memorials) is very instructive. See also:Denis See also:Murphy's Triumphalia Monasterii S. Crucis (1891) contains a general sketch, with a particular See also:account of the Irish Cistercians. (E. C.

End of Article: CISTERCIANS

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