§ 64. THE CISTERCIANS. 337
§ 64. The Cistercians.
LITERATURE. — Exordium parvum ordinis Cisterciensice, Migne, 166. Ex ordium magnum ord. Cisterc., by CONRAD or EBERBACH, d. 1220 ; Migne, 185. — MANRIQUEZ : Ann. ord. Cisterc., 4 vols. Lyons, 1642. — MABIL- LON : Ann. ord. St. Benedict, Paris, 1706-1708. — P. GUIGNARD: Les monuments primitifs de la regie Cistercienne, publics d*apres les manu scripts de Vabbaye de Citeaux, Dijon, 1878, pp. cxii. 656. — PIERRE LE NAIN: Essai de Vhist. de Vordre de Citeaux. Paris, 1696. — J. H. NEWMAN : The Cistercian Saints of England, London, 1844. — FRANZ WINTER: Die Cistercienser des nord-ostlichen Deutschlands bis zum Auftreten der Bettelorden, 3 vols. Gotha, 1868-1871. — L. JANAUSCHEK: Origines Cisterciensium, Vienna, 1877. — B. ALBERS : Untersuchungen zu den dltesten Monchsgcwohnheiten. Ein Beitrag zur Benedictinerordensregel der X-XIIten Jahrhunderte, Munich, 1905. — SHARPE : Architecture of the Cisterc., London, 1874. — Cisterc. Abbeys of Yorkshire, in "Eraser's Mag.," September, 1876. — DEAN HODGES: Fountains Abbey, Tlie Story of a Mediaeval Monastery, London, 1904. — DEUTSCH : art. Cister cienser, in Herzog, IV. 116-127 ; art. Harding, in "Diet. Natl. Biogr.," XXIV. 333-335 ; the Biographies of St. Bernard. For extended lit. see the work of JANAUSCHEK.
With the Cluniac monks the Cistercians divide the dis tinction of being the most numerous and most useful monas tic order of the Middle Ages,1 until the Mendicant Friars arose and distanced them both. They are Benedictines and claim the great name of St. Bernard, and for that reason are often called Bernardins in France. Two popes, Eugenius III. and Benedict XII., proceeded from the order. Europe owes it a large debt for its service among the half-barbarian peasants of Eastern France, Southern Germany, and especially in the provinces of Northeastern Germany. Its convents set an example of skilled industry in field and garden, in the train ing of the vine, the culture of fish, the cultivation of orchards, and in the care of cattle.2
1 Cardinal Hergenrother says, " The Cistercians reached a much higher dis tinction than the order of Cluny." Kirchengesch., II. 351.
2 In England they were careful breeders of horses (Giraldus Cambrensis, Speculum ecclesioe, IV. 130, and Brewer's Preface, IV. 24) and were noted for their sheep and wool. Their wool was a popular article of royal taxation. John seized a year's product, to meet the payment of Richard's ransom. M. Paris, Luard's ed., II. 399. Henry III. forbade the monks to sell their
338 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
The founder, Robert Molesme, was born in Champagne, 1024, and after attempting in vain to introduce a more rigor ous discipline in several Benedictine convents, retired to the woods of Molesme and in 1098 settled with twenty compan ions on some swampy ground near Citeaux,1 twelve miles from Dijon. Here Eudes, duke of Burgundy,2 erected a building, which went at first by the name of the New Mon astery, novum monasterium.
Alberic, Robert's successor, received for the new establish ment the sanction of Pascal II., and placed it under the special care of the Virgin. She is said to have appeared to him in the white dress of the order.3
Under the third abbot, Stephen Harding, an Englishman, known as St. Stephen, who filled the office twenty-five years (1110-1134),4 the period of prosperity set in. In 1113 Ber nard with thirty companions entered the convent, and the foundation of four houses followed, 1113-1115, — La Ferte, Potigny, Clairvaux, and Morimond, — which continued to have a rank above all the other Cistercian houses subse quently founded.
New houses followed rapidly. In 1130 there were 30 Cistercian convents, in 1168, 288. A rule was framed for bidding the erection of new establishments, but without avail, and their number in the fourteenth century had risen
wool. Henry II., 1257, taxed it heavily, etc. M. Paris, IV. 324, V. 610. See Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. 541, II. 181, 200.
1 The name comes from the stagnant pools in the neighborhood.
2 He died on a Crusade. At his request his bones were taken back and buried at Citeaux, which became the burial place of his successors.
3 See Helyot, V. 404. According to Hauck, IV. 337, the Cistercians were the first to introduce into Germany the exaggerated cult of the Virgin.
4 He was a man of much administrative ability. William of Malmesbury, IV. 1, speaks of Stephen as " the original contriver of the whole scheme, the especial and celebrated ornament of our times." It is related that on a journey to Rome, and before entering Citeaux, he repeated the whole Psalter. Basil had enjoined the memorizing of the Psalter. According to the biographer of abbot Odo of Cluny, the monks of Cluny daily repeated 138 Psalms. Maitland, p. 375.