Cistercians
CISTERCIANS. The Cistercians are an order of monks and nuns that arose in the twelfth century to foster the integral observance of the rule of Benedict of Nursia (d. 525). The order takes its name from the first community to adopt the reform, the Abbey of Cïteaux in Burgundy, France. Benedict's Rule for Monasteries, written around the year 500, became virtually the exclusive rule for monasteries in western Europe after the time of Charlemagne (d. 814). With the foundation of Cluny in 909, a reform to bring about a more observant monastic practice was effectively forwarded by a succession of great, holy, and long-lived abbots; however, this was achieved at the cost of local autonomy and the balance of liturgy, sacred reading, personal prayer, and manual work that is so characteristic of Benedict's Rule. At Cluny and many of its dependent monasteries, the liturgy was celebrated with great splendor and duration, while manual labor became for the monks a nominal exercise.
In the time of the Gregorian reform, many monastic founders arose who drew their inspiration from the Gospels, monastic traditions, and in some cases Benedict's Rule. They laid great stress on poverty, solitude, and simplicity of lifestyle. Most notable among these monks was Robert of Molesme (d. 1110), who, after entering the order at Moutier-la-Celle, near Troyes, attempted reforms in various monasteries and finally succeeded in gathering the hermits of Collan into a notable Benedictine community at Molesmes. The community's fervor brought fame and fortune, and then a more relaxed observance of the rule. Again Robert, with the permission of the legate, Hugh of Die, set out to seek the fullness of the Benedictine way of life, establishing the New Monastery at Cîteaux in 1098. He was accompanied by the prior and subprior from Molesmes, and nineteen others.
Within two years Robert was required by papal authority to return to Molesmes, but the reform was carried forward by Alberic, his prior (d. 1109), and then by Stephen Harding (d. 1135), who had been his subprior. Under the latter, an expansion began that accelerated rapidly with the arrival of Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153).
To Stephen is largely attributed the Charter of Charity, which bound together Cîteaux and the many monasteries that would spring from it directly or indirectly, forming them into an order. The federated nature of this order respected the autonomy of the local community, while ensuring ongoing regularity of observance by an annual gathering of the college of abbots in a chapter and by a system of annual visitation of all the monasteries. As early as the 1130s these successful elements of the Cistercian reform began to find their way into other Benedictine federations; later, in various forms, chapters and visitation became part of the structure of almost every religious order.
While the concern of the Cistercian reformers to live to the full Benedict's rule too often descended to bickering over observances (see A Dialogue between a Cluniac and a Cistercian), its true aim as powerfully expressed by the leading Cistercian fathers—Bernard of Clairvaux, William of Saint-Thierry (d. 1148), Guerric of Igny (d. 1157), and Ælred of Rievaulx (d. 1169)—was to attain to the experience of God through mystical love, the goal pointed to by Benedict in the prologue and epilogue to his Rule and in its central chapter, the seventh, "On Humility."
The Cistercian order experienced very rapid expansion with the founding or affiliation of over three hundred monasteries in all parts of western Europe prior to the death of Bernard of Clairvaux. This expansion continued through the following centuries until there were over seven hundred Cistercian abbeys of monks, as well as innumerable convents of nuns following their observance. The order was slow to incorporate communities of women; only in the wake of the Second Vatican Council have the abbesses emerged as fully equal members of the college of superiors.
In order that monks might have the opportunity to live the Benedictine rule to the full and strive after a truly contemplative life, the lay-brother vocation was promoted; this system provided larger workforces to build the monasteries and care for the order's ever-growing landholdings. The tensions that inevitably arose between the increasingly clericalized choir monks and the hardworking brothers could even erupt at times into violence.
Through the influence of the schools, scholastic scholarship began to replace a contemplative patristic theology. With the great geographical expansion of the order, the reform structure began to break down, and observance declined. The unlettered who had been attracted to the Cistercian lay brotherhood began, in the thirteenth century, to turn to the new fervent mendicant orders. The Cistercians began to fragment into national or regional congregations. The Protestant Reformation wiped out monastic life in many countries. An attempted reform within the order in the seventeenth century led to a "war of observances" and the emergence of the Strict Observance, prior to further losses through the French Revolution and other secularizing movements. The policies of Emperor Franz Josef forced the monks in the Austrian Empire to take up tasks left off by the Jesuits when they were temporarily suppressed.
The Cistercians experienced a renewal in France in the nineteenth century that spilled over to the rest of the world in the next century. In 1892 Leo XIII sought to reunite all the Cistercians, but the pope's efforts resulted instead in the formation of two Cistercian orders, one now known as the Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappist), which includes both monks and nuns, and another composed of twelve congregations of monks and over eighty convents of nuns. A number of these congregations suffered extensively at the hands of the Communists in Eastern Europe and Vietnam and found refuge in other countries.
The Strict Observance was brought to new prominence by the writings of one of its members, Thomas Merton (Father Louis of Gethsemani Abbey, Trappist, Kentucky). As the largest order of contemplative men in the church today, it has played an increasingly significant role in the contemporary spiritual renewal of the Roman Catholic Church.
Benedict of Nursia.
Bibliography
The most complete work on the Cistercians is that of Louis J. Lekai, The Cistercians: Ideals and Reality (Kent, Ohio, 1977). For a complementary study from the point of view of the Strict Observance, see Jean de la Croix Bouton's Histoire de l'Ordre de Cîteaux, 3 vols. (Westmalle, Belgium, 1959–1968). However, the most extensive study of the origins of the Strict Observance is Lekai's The Rise of the Cistercian Strict Observance in Seventeenth Century France (Washington, D.C., 1968). Its later development is found in Anselme Le Bail's L'Ordre de Cîteaux (Paris, 1924). Thomas Merton in Waters of Siloe (New York, 1949) treats the American segment of Cistercian history most completely. For a deep and authoritative presentation of the spirituality that animates the Cistercian life, see Jean Leclercq's Bernard of Clairvaux and the Cistercian Spirit (Kalamazoo, Mich., 1976). Louis Bouyer's The Cistercian Heritage (London, 1958) is a more comprehensive and popular presentation of the spirituality of the order. A Dialogue between a Cluniac and a Cistercian can be found in Cistercians and Cluniacs: Documents in the Feud between White Monks and Black Monks, translated by Jeremiah F. O'Sullivan and Irene Edmonds (Kalamazoo, Mich., 1986).
New Sources
Berman, Constance H. The Cistercian Evolution. Philadelphia, 1999.
Elder, E. Rozanne, ed. New Monastery: Texts and Studies on the Early Cistercians. Kalamazoo, Mich., 1998.
McGuire, Brian Patrick. Friendship and Faith: Cistercian Men, Women, and their Stories, 1100-1200. Aldershot, U.K., 2002.
Newman, Martha G. The Boundaries of Charity: Cistercian Culture and Ecclesiastical Reform, 1098-1180. Stanford, Calif, 1996.
Pennington, M. Basil. The Cistercians. Collegeville, Minn., 1992.
Pennington, M. Basil. The School of Love: The Cistercian Way to Holiness. Harrisburg, Pa., 2001.
Scholl, Edith, ed. In the School of Love: An Anthology of Early Cistercian Texts. Kalamazoo, Mich., 2000.
Tobin, Stephen. The Cistercians: Monks and Monasteries of Europe. Woodstock, N.Y., 1996.
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