The Foundation of Cîteaux

In a heavily wooded area, some 20 kilometres south of Dijon in Burgundy, twenty one monks made the foundation of what came to be known as the New Monastery. It was March 21st, 1098. They would be called Cistercians, for the name of the place was Cîteaux, (in Latin Cistercium.) From this small seed the great Cistercian Order sprang, covering Europe with abbeys before the next century was fifty years old. Spanning nearly the whole of this turbulent millennium, the Cistercian Order has waxed and waned. At the Reformation in England they had become, like the other Orders, too much involved in society and the state. The Order was substantially revived and restored in the 19th and 20th centuries in the Roman Catholic Church as the Order of Reformed Cistercians. Today, they are, like other communities of monks in the West, a very slimmed down presence among us. It has been reckoned that by the mid twelfth century the number of Cistercians in England was about 1400; now there are less than 100 in England, Scotland & Wales. But today they have recovered an identity that stands out as clearly in our age as it did in the spiritual renaissance of the twelfth century. What is a Cistercian monk and how does he differ from a Benedictine? We shall need to look at the details of the early Cistercian reform and, further back, to the origin of monks in the Christian Church. The Cistercian Order began as a reformed form of Benedictine life. Monasteries just survived the Dark Ages in Europe, although in England they virtually disappeared. But by the end of the eleventh century there was a tremendous upsurge of energy in the West bringing about a partial Renaissance in life and literature, architecture and song. The monasteries were thriving again but with a rather elaborate liturgy and with the great disadvantage of being the place where special gatherings could be held. The local duke might, for instance, decide to hold his court in the monastery. By comparison with the population they had also become affluent, living off mass stipends and tithes. Much of this was due to the close ties religion had with the governing elite and the landowners. So the founders of Cîteaux were preparing to be quite different, even to the extent of their clothing, for they began to wear habits of unbleached cloth. They became the White monks while the monks of the great abbey of Cluny were from then on known as the Black monks. Within the narrow lights of their knowledge of the earlier centuries of the Christian era the Cistercians desired to return to the strict ideals of Benedict and to the earlier Desert Fathers. Monasticism appears in the third century seemingly as a spontaneous movement from within the pre-Nicene church in the East. There is no agreed understanding of what sparked off this enthusiastic movement. Perhaps it was desire for closer union with Christ; anticipation here and now of the 'parousia'; a move away from a church beginning to be compromised with the 'world'? We know that there were monks living alone or with a teacher or abba by the end of the third century in Egypt. But soon there were hermits in Palestine and Syria and by the fourth century there was a great flow of men (and also, perhaps, women - but we have few records of these nuns!) to the 'deserts' as they were called. This was a movement that gave priority to prayer and worship in a solitude either contrived at hand or away in the 'deserts'. It is clear from the writings of the fourth to the sixth century that from the beginning the response made by women and men to live a life of prayer in some sort of apartness from normal life, was seen as a personal response to Christ. From a twentieth century viewpoint their lives were harshly ascetic and yet strangely integrated with continuous prayer as the golden string that linked everything they did.. But it was life in community that became the norm. Benedict of Nursia's foundation at Subiaco in Italy in the sixth century was to become the most influential future model of monastic life in Western Europe. The Rule of Benedict offered a very discreet balance of life. It challenged monks to live together in the love of Christ. Perhaps more important than a determination to adhere to the Rule of Benedict more strictly, is the claim of the founders of Cîteaux that they aimed "to follow the whole Gospel in following the poor Christ." They decided to reject tithes and mass stipends and to earn their own living. The solitude they had chosen, far away from towns, was deliberate so that they could maintain an integral and balanced way of life in worship, prayer and work without interruption for the community as a whole and not just for the individual. Their buildings, when they had cleared the land, were to be always simple and unadorned. One of the first monasteries from this period, Fontenay, founded in 1118, is a good example. But they were not rustics. Beautiful copies of books were made and the available editions of the bible and liturgies were compared to find what they assumed to be the purest texts and music. Then, because their task in building and working virgin land was so immense they accepted laymen as brothers who by their work would enable the monks to attend the services in choir according to the Rule. The laybrothers took vows like the monks and often outnumbered the monks by 3 to 1. One of the enduring legacies of the first fifty years was the flowering of a literature among the monks that revealed a new warmth and humanism, almost a mystical spirituality. Bernard of Clairvaulx is well known but there were others among his contemporaries such as Guerric of Igny and Aelred of Rievaulx in Yorkshire. They speak the language of friendship in describing the common life together in the Spirit. Much of the dynamic and organisation in the early years of the foundation was the contribution of the third abbot, Stephen Harding. He was an Englishman who had been a monk in his youth at Sherborne in Dorset. It was he who received the young Bernard and his companions in 1113 and sent him out, after two years, to become abbot of a new foundation which became known as Clairvaux. Perhaps no one at the time realised that Bernard would become the apostle of Cistercian life, influencing many to give up all to enter these new foundations of monks. Nothing succeeds like success and the enormous expansion of the Cistercians in the twelfth century made them into the first international monastic Order. There were over 300 abbeys - in France, Scandinavia, Britain, Eastern Europe, Spain - by the time Bernard of Clairvaux died in 1153. In England their success in rearing sheep for the wool trade made them one of the most important traders for the economy of the country for a time. However, the golden period only lasted to the end of the twelfth century. After that there was a slow decline. The coming of the Friars, the Black Death and social changes all contributed to this. As can be seen from the spectacular ruins of Fountains, Rievaulx and Tintern, which belong to the later period of Cistercian building, the early ideals of simplicity and poverty all but vanished in towers and gothic choirs. What, then is the significance of Cistercian life today and what are the prospects for it in the years ahead? At the end of this millennium conditions could not be more different from the extraordinary flowering of the twelfth century. Since then we have had another Renaissance which has left a permanent mark on civilisation. Our culture has become complex and we are in a phase of reevaluating what we call 'modern' life. However, the Christian witness and service of the Cistercian nun or monk remains unique and important as a part of the whole vision and outworking of the kingdom among us. In particular there are two things. First, the solitude of the Cistercian monastery is an oasis in the world today. It is a place of meeting and grace in the experience of a relationship with Christ. Because the Cistercian community normally has no pastoral responsibilities to take them out of the monastery there is a stability and peace in sharp contrast to the hurly burly of life in the market place. The welcome of friendship in Christ to those who come and stay as guests stems from the felt aura of the uninterrupted daily round of worship, prayer, reading and work that make up the community's day. Secondly, the reality of the common life of a Cistercian monastery is a vital ingredient of the strategy of the Church in responding to the gospel. While there are many other communities who fulfil a role of preaching or teaching or guiding in the life of the Spirit, the Cistercians are just 'there'. The stability and the commitment to live out the gospel in worship and work and the common life provides a unique realization to all who come and share it, of the force of the kingdom of God among us. What prospect is there for this Cistercian life and witness to continue into the next millennium? Cistercian abbeys are linked in a relationship of mother house and daughter houses with a system of visitation of each abbey to maintain the homogeneity of life and observance. But they are autonomous in the way they live out the agreed guidelines of Cistercian life. So each abbey would have their own mind about how they would face the future. Here one can only take the point of view of a small, independent Anglican Cistercian community. Just because we are in the process of rapid change in the world, it is very difficult to foresee what may lie ahead for Cistercian community life. The reality in today's world is that any commitment such as the Cistercian vocation requires, is at a premium among young people. In the past thirty years some of the Cistercian monasteries have halved in numbers. Our Anglican Cistercian monastery has never had more than three or four monks in the same period. But while the monastic population continues to decrease there are more and more people who show a real interest in what the common worshipping and working life in solitude means in the world today. They wish to be associated with the monks. If some practical way is found to do this it seems that a Cistercian monastery could have quite a small nucleus of permanent monks, surrounded by a larger number of men and women affiliated to it, as participating members of the family according to the Cistercian principles. It is clear that, in the future, a great deal depends upon the Cistercian life being seen in the Church as a true response to the gospel. The Church has tended to see monasteries simply as links with past tradition. As this article has emphasised, the Cistercian tradition is precious, and yet there is one thing more essential - a burning faith and understanding in the love of God. Wherever the gospel will be preached in the new millennium, as a challenge and invitation to faith in the risen Lord, then there will be those who will come and respond to Christ's call to "Come apart ....", for his sake and for the kingdom. Click cloister to return to the top of the page.