The Cistercian Order in Medieval Europe

1090-1500

Emilia Jamroziak

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781317341895
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

The Cistercian Order in Medieval Europe offers an accessible and engaging history of the Order from its beginnings in the twelfth century through to the early sixteenth century. Unlike most other existing volumes on this subject it gives a nuanced analysis of the late medieval Cistercian experience as well as the early years of the Order.

Jamroziak argues that the story of the Cistercian Order in the Middle Ages was not one of a 'Golden Age' followed by decline, nor was the true 'Cistercian spirit' exclusively embedded in the early texts to remain unchanged for centuries. Instead she shows how the Order functioned and changed over time as an international organisation, held together by a novel 'management system'; from Estonia in the east to Portugal in the west, and from Norway to Italy. The ability to adapt and respond to these very different social and economic conditions is what made the Cistercians so successful.

This book draws upon a wide range of primary sources, as well as scholarly literature in several languages, to explore the following key areas:

• the degree of centralisation versus local specificity
• how much the contact between monastic communities and lay people changed over time
• how the concept of reform was central to the Medieval history of the Cistercian Order

This book will appeal to anyone interested in Medieval history and the Medieval Church more generally as well as those with a particular interest in monasticism.

chapter 1
Origins: Ideas, Myths and Interpretations

The history of the Cistercian order is one of continuous evolution and change. As an order, its structure and organisation did not appear overnight, nor was it the creation of one charismatic individual. It came into being as the result of a longer process in which both its ideals and its practical structures were modified and new members joined and became integrated into it.¹ Before the structure of the Cistercian order developed there was what may be called a Cistercian movement, which was itself part of the wider eleventh-century reform movement described in the introduction. This chapter will first focus on the development of the Cistercian movement in the first half of the twelfth century when it was not yet a fully formed order. Absolutely essential for any study of the origins of the Cistercian movement are the early normative and narrative texts; as to the nature, dating and composition of which, and hence their implications for the interpretation of early Cistercian history, modern historians continue to disagree. The focus then shifts to the role of Bernard of Clairvaux as an early leader of the Cistercian family: although he was undoubtedly a very significant figure in Cistercian history, his activities in the monastic world and beyond were in the long term less significant for the later history of the order than his legend has been. Whilst attention will be duly paid here to Bernard's role as Cistercian leader, charismatic preacher and church reformer, his legend and its function will be revisited several times in later chapters.

The Early Years of the Cistercian Movement

The received narrative of the story of the foundation of Citeaux begins in March 1098 with the departure of Robert of Molesme (d. 1111) and a group of followers from his Benedictine home monastery in Molesme (Burgundy) to create the 'New Monastery'. They arrived at their destination of Citeaux, a secluded spot in the wilderness near Dijon, on 21 March, the feast of St Benedict. The land was given to the monks by Odo I, duke of Burgundy, previously held by his vassal Viscount Raynald of Beaune, free from any feudal obligations.² We will never know if this, like many later events in the early history of the Cistercians, happened exactly in this way, as our knowledge is based on the 'founding myth' of the order, the creation of four succeeding generations of Cistercian monks, none of whom of course were eyewitnesses.³

Certainly it will be more fruitful to consider what seemed significant to twelfth-century and later generations of monks in their own past, and what they handed down to their successors, rather than trying to establish a definitive 'true' account. Later generations of monks needed to have a model of the 'perfect' origins of the movement in its simplicity and purity as a guide for individual monks and communities on how to follow the path of the charismatic founders. For a long time historians tried to see the accounts of the early years as describing the actual conditions of the first generation of Cistercians and to contrast their idealised origins with the failure of later generations to live up to them - an approach that is particularly striking in the 'ideal and reality' model examined in the Introduction.

The topos of striving tor perfection and rejecting the 'substandard' monastic practices of the day underlines the story of Robert of Molesme's departure for Citeaux. It was important for the growing Cistercian movement to establish a separate identity from its predecessors, especially since the new movement had not formulated a new monastic rule as a 'founding document', but followed the traditional Rule of Benedict. Not that the breakaway group left Molesme Abbey because it was corrupt or in decay; on the contrary, Molesme, founded in 1100, had grown very quickly, with over 40 dependent priories, all Cluniac houses, and was closely connected with the local aristocratic families. It was simply that Robert and those who left Molesme with him had decided to abandon the traditional Cluniac custom and follow reform practice as embodying far better the authentic spirit of the Rule of Benedict. Even so, it is clear from some of Robert's initial decisions that the form that any new monastic observance would eventually take was not yet definitively established: Robert had taken with him liturgical books so that the new community could continue the practices of the old house. The devotion to the Virgin Mary typical of Cistercians, whose every house was dedicated to her, could be argued to be a tradition inherited from Molesme, which was also dedicated to Mary. Moreover, Robert accepted a gift of land with two serfs, so the idea that the monks should work on their own land, with their own hands, had not yet been formulated.⁴

When in 1090 the abbot of Molesme, angered by Robert's unauthorised departure and the setting up of a new community, got Pope Urban II to order him back to Molesme, Robert, under pressure from die papal legate and the bishop of Langres, returned.⁵ Having returned to his old community he became an abbot there, reforming it according to the Cistercian ordo.⁶ The headship of Citeaux then passed (until 1108) to Alberic, who despite holding the abbatial office at a critical juncture after the departure of Robert, has been accorded a very minor role in the Cistercian historical tradition. He was an effective administrator who acquired further land donations for his monastery and secured an important privilege from Pope Paschal II, stating that 'This abbey shall be particularly sheltered under the protection of the Apostolic See, saving the canonical reverence due to the diocese of Chalon'.⁷ Alberic was, of course, much overshadowed by the next abbot of Citeaux, Stephen Harding, who came to be seen as one of the central figures of the early history of the Cistercian movement. Originally from England, he was a child oblate in Sherborne (a monastic cathedral community), studied in France and, after pilgrimage to Rome, entered the Benedictine Abbey in Molesme.⁸ In 1098 Stephen was one of the 21 monks who left with Abbot Robert for the new monastery, where he played a key role in establishing the early organisational structures of the new movement. By 1113 the number of recruits to the Cistercian project had grown sufficientiy for a new house to be established at La Ferté, 10 miles south of Citeaux.

Stephen's leadership was distinctively different from that of his predecessors and from that of the even more famous Bernard at Clairvaux. At first he was concerned with devising a strict observance for the Citeaux community, but as the Cistercian movement expanded, Stephen became preoccupied with uniformity and correctness of practice across a whole developing network of Cistercian communities. Initially, his writings had emphasised the authority of the abbot, but as the Cistercian movement expanded, the concept of unity became more central to many of Abbot Stephen's activities: while uniformity of observance was the thread binding increasingly geographically dispersed communities together, one of Stephen's key projects was a new edition of the Bible, the text of which was to be as trustworthy as possible - to which end the abbot even consulted Hebrew scholars. Another of his important projects was the selection of hymns for a new hymnal: as the Rule of Benedict mentioned the hymns of St Ambrose of Milan, Stephen chose them for use by the Cistercian communities; and as he was convinced that the hymns sung in contemporary Milan were closest to the original sources, he ordered copies of them for Citeaux. A similar principle was used in creating the authoritative Cistercian antiphonary. For chanting, the community of Citeaux used the two oldest copies from Metz, which were believed to contain original Gregorian chants.⁹ This attention to the accuracy and uniformity of liturgical books remained important throughout Cistercian history and was to be a significant feature of the late medieval reforms (described in chapter 8).

For the most part, therefore, from the very beginning Cistercian monks did not invent a new monastic rule, but adopted the same core values and prescriptions for monastic life as other contemporary Benedictine houses - communal prayers, fasting, vigils, study of the scriptures, voluntary poverty, permanent membership of one monastic community (stabilitas), obedience to the abbot, and engagement with manual labour. The core practices and spirituality of the Cistercians - charity, prayer, asceticism, poverty, simplicity, separation from the world, devotion to Christ and Mary - were not unique, but part of a much wider and older tradition going back to the Desert Fathers. What was new in the Cistercian approach was linking it to their own environment.¹⁰ Much of the Cistercian programme of 'going back to the roots' was well within the reforming tradition of the eleventh century, but Cistercians were also most emphatic that this should be grounded in the interpretative framework of the Rule of Benedict, which differentiated the Cistercians from other monastic reform movements of the era.¹¹ At the same time the strict, even literal observance of the Rule of Benedict differentiated the Cistercians from their Benedictine predecessors and contemporaries. This was clear to contemporary observers, such as Orderic Vitalis, himself a Benedictine monk, who said in his chronicle that the monks who follow Robert of Molesme observe the Rule of Benedict just as strictly as the Jews observe the Law of Moses.¹² The Rule was at the very heart of the early documents of the Cistercian movement. Whilst 'black monks' (a colloquial name for Benedictine monks derived from the colour of their habits) had 'diluted' it with various collections of regulations and prescriptions specific to different houses (customaries), the Cistercian 'white monks', with their undyed woollen habits, insisted on the strict and literal observance of the Rule in each and every monastery belonging to their family.

Before there was a Cistercian order, there was a Cistercian ordo, that is a Cistercian way of monastic life, liturgy and a wider ethos governing relationships within each community and between the abbeys; Bernard of Clairvaux considered himself to belong to 'a shared and customary way of life'.¹³ He used different Latin words to describe the Cistercian family - ordo, consuetude, institutio and religio.¹⁴ When he described the unity of the Cistercian communities he emphasised the distinct identity of the Cistercians. The general term ordo in classical Latin denoted class rank or condition. Bernard's writing refers to 'our order' and describes the first Christian community in Jerusalem as an ordo.¹⁵ In one of his letters addressed to the monks of Aulps (1138) Bernard gave a clear definition of what constituted 'our order':

Our order is the lowering of self. It is humility, voluntary poverty, obedience, peace, joy in the Holy Spirit. Our order means being under the master, under the abbot, under the Rule, discipline. Our order means study in silence, exercising oneself in fasting, vigils, prayers, manual labour, and above all things, maintaining a more exalted way of life, which is charity. Thus in these ways we get better from one day to the next and in these very [observances] persevere until the last day.¹⁶

It was this monastic observance, peculiar to the white monks, that differentiated the Cistercians from other religious houses.

The ethos of the Cistercian movement focused on personal and communal devotions and the life of poverty and simplicity. On the individual level, poverty was emphasised by a number of practices framing the daily life of the monks: as a sign of conversion, all novices entering a Cistercian monastery had to voluntarily reject wealth and the temporal concerns of the material world; and in matters of clothing they discarded fine m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• chapter one ORIGINS: IDEAS, MYTHS AND INTERPRETATIONS
• chapter two THE FIRST MULTINATIONAL? HOW THE CISTERCIAN ORDER SPREAD ACROSS EUROPE
• chapter three CISTERCIAN COMMUNITIES AND THE LAY WORLD
• chapter four CISTERCIAN NUNS: THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN THE ORDER
• chapter five VISUAL CULTURE OF CISTERCIAN COMMUNITIES
• chapter six ECONOMY: NOT JUST SHEEP AND GRAIN
• chapter seven INTELLECTUAL HORIZONS: WRITING, PREACHING AND CISTERCIAN SPIRITUALITY
• chapter eight WAS THERE A CRISIS OF THE CISTERCIAN ORDER IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES?
• CONCLUSION
• GLOSSARY
• INDEX