Cistercians (Order of Cîteaux)

CISTERCIANS (SACRED CISTERCIAN ORDER). - This name comes from Cistercium (Citeaux), where on 22 March 1098 St. Robert (v.), abbot of Molesme (1075-98), founded the first abbey of the Order (although

G. Müller, Der Grundr. d. Abtei Citeaux, in Cist. Chronik., 10 [1898], p. 105, and J.-O. Ducourneau, Les orig. cisterc., Ligugé 1933, deny him this merit); however, to Bl. Alberic (v.), second abbot of Citeaux (1099-1109), and to his successors must be attributed the merit of carrying out the reform, and to St. Stephen Harding that of having given it its definitive organization. Of the origins a contemporary narrative has come down to us in the Exordium Cisterciensis coenobii, which set out to expound « quam canonice, quanta auctoritate, a quibus personis, quibusque temporibus coenobium et tenor vitae illorum exordium sumpserit ». After an initial period of difficulty, thanks above all to the entry into Citeaux of St. Bernard of Fontaines and his thirty companions, the mother abbey had its first « four daughters »: the monasteries of La Ferté (1113), Pontigny (1114), Clairvaux and Morimond (1115); thus arose the mother abbeys which, with their abbates primarii, maintained a primacy over all the monasteries subsequently founded by them directly or indirectly.

Those first foundations arose with the purpose of observing the Rule of St. Benedict in its original

Those first foundations arose with the purpose of observing the Rule of St. Benedict in its original and austere form, eliminating the customs introduced in many monasteries; for this reason the first Charta caritatis speaks of the « rectissima via sanctae Regulae » (J. Turk, Charta carit. prior, in Analecta S. O. Cister., 1 [1945], p. 31). Indeed the first organizers demanded that in monastic observance the purity of the Rule be kept before all else, on which Bl. Alberic had especially insisted in the Instituta monachorum Cisterciensium de Molismo venientium; and freedom from all ecclesiastical and secular interference, such as had been assured to the first Cistercians by the Privilegium Romanum of Paschal II on 19 Oct. 1100. The Exordium magnum S. O. Cist., of the end of the 12th century, gives its precise formulation: « notum fiat posteris nostris, quantam statim in initio fundationis suae ab Apostolica Sede gratiam, favorem et libertatem Cisterciensis ecclesia promeruit ». This was a beginning of the exemption which, still relative, grew with the confirmation of the first Charta caritatis made by Callistus II on 23 Dec. 1119, until it became absolute with the bull of Lucius III of 21 Nov. 1184. The unity among the various monasteries of the Order rests on the uniformity of observances: « una caritate, una regula similibusque vivamus moribus » (Charta caritatis, I, chaps. 53, 35). Recently J. Turk has rediscovered the first Charta caritatis, edited and commented on in the aforementioned Analecta (p. 11 ff.), where on p. 50 he affirms: 1) The first Charta caritatis was compiled in 1118. 2) It was modified in 1134-52, but probably not long before 1 Aug. 1152. 3) The reasons for this modification were changed circumstances, such as the progress and evolution of the Order, the aspiration of the « abbates primarii » to greater independence in their relations with the abbot of Citeaux and with the general Chapters themselves in the monastery of Citeaux. 4) The author of the first Charta caritatis was undoubtedly St. Stephen Harding, abbot of Citeaux. 5) The Charta caritatis given by St. Stephen was a law, not a convention between him and the «abbates primarii»; nor can the later Charta caritatis be regarded as a pact among the abbots. Evident, on the other hand, is the influence of the other abbots in changing the first Charta caritatis. 6) The power of the General Chapter and of the «abbates primarii», according to the first Charta caritatis, was not as great as in the second: on the contrary, the authority of the monastery of Citeaux and of its abbot was greater in the first Charta caritatis than in the second. 7) The aspiration of the abbates primarii to a greater power did not correspond to the mind of St. Stephen. The development of the Order, in fact, shows that it proved harmful. 8) The bull of Clement IV (1265), must be considered as something intermediate between the first and the second Charta caritatis. In its content the Charta caritatis constitutes the bond of unity; in chap. 1, indeed, it speaks of the obligation and the manner of preserving and observing the Rule of St. Benedict in uniform fashion; in chap. 2, of visitations, of the law of filiations and of the precedence of abbots; in 3, of the General Chapter of all the abbots; in 4, of the administration of the monastery during a period of vacant see and of the election of the new abbot; in 5, of the resignation of abbots and of disciplinary action toward them. With the form of unity, centralism in the Order grows; it is not absolute as at Cluny, but relative, inasmuch as each abbey or monastery enjoys its own autonomy. The Order of the Cistercians keeps the individual monasteries grouped together, to each of which it recognizes its own abbot: yet they retain a particular dependence on the abbot of the mother abbey and on the General Chapter of all the abbots. He who convokes and presides over the General Chapter is the abbot of Citeaux as father of the whole Order. Observance is practiced in solitude or in the hermitage. So that this solitude be respected, St. Stephen establishes that «no captain or prince of the place shall ever set his seat in that church». To maintain the spirit of simplicity and of union with God, he wills that poverty be observed even in the church furnishings. Thus arose the Consuetudines of the Cistercians, which were drawn up in the 12th century. They embrace five parts: 1) origin of the Cistercian monastery; 2) Charta caritatis; 3) bull of Callistus II of 23 Dec. 1119 approving the Charta caritatis; 4) statutes of the General Chapter of the Cistercians; 5) ecclesiastical offices.

Subsequently the statutes of the Cistercians were fixed in the Libelli definitionum of 1256, of 1316, of 1350. The «rectissima via sanctae Regulae» perfectly harmonized with one another the Opus Dei (the divine Office), spiritual reading and manual labor, thus giving nourishment to body and soul in the natural and spiritual order, according to each one's capacity. Already Abelard had well understood all this, writing to St. Bernard (PL 178, 340): «Institutio Regulae novum opus de veteri facere compellit». With this principle, indeed, the first Cistercians, with regard to the «rectitudo» according to the Rule, established and reformed in the first place the manner and order of the divine service entirely according to the traditions of the Rule, omitting completely the additions to the psalms, the prayers and the litanies that indiscreet fathers had made at their own discretion.

In the Cluniac liturgy solemnity and pomp prevailed, in that of the Cistercians simplicity, as a manifestation of the interior life. In deference to truth the first Cistercians undertook the correction of the Bible and the reform of Gregorian chant. A demonstration of this spirit is Cistercian architecture. But in great esteem was held spiritual reading, which had the first place after the divine Office and before manual labor, except in the summer season. Time was occupied in reading not only of the sacred Bible, but also of the Fathers and of other authors who made the monastic life better understood. Especially in the 12th century there flourished among the Cistercians illustrious writers of ascetic and mystical works. Worthy of note in this field are the commentaries on the Song of Songs and the treatises De anima. From reading sprang a profound devotion, cultivated by many monks and in many ways, toward the Passion of Jesus, the Sacred Heart, the Most Holy Eucharist, and the Madonna. Among the ancient Cistercians there were also illustrious historians, such as Otto of Freising; many annalists and chroniclers, such as Helinand of Froidmont and Alberic of the Three Fountains, the authors of the Chronicon Villariense and the Annales Waverleenses. The Cistercians were also compilers and disseminators of legends, such as the Collectio miraculorum Ioannis prioris Clarendalesis (1179), the Liber miraculorum

Herberti (1178), the Liber miraculorum Goswini (before 1200), and the Exordium magnum S. Ord. Cist. by Conrad of Eberbach (before 1221). The influence of the Cistercians' eucharistic piety is also felt in the famous Queste dou Graal (cf. P. Browe, Die eucharistischen Wunder des Mittelalters, Breslau 1938, pp. 22-23, 102-106). Not a few Cistercians were good theologians. To encourage study, many colleges were founded in France, Germany, England and Spain. Famous is the college of St. Bernard, founded in Paris around 1242 on the initiative of Abbot Stephen Lexington. Manual labor, according to ch. 48 of the Rule of St. Benedict, was held in great esteem, and through it a vigorous impulse was also given to social life. Moved by Bl. Alberic, the first Cistercians established in the Statuta that they would receive, with the bishop's permission, laymen with beards, and treat them as themselves, with the exception of the monastic life, and also take on laborers, because they knew that without their collaboration it would not have been possible always to observe the precepts of the rule. Thus in the Middle Ages they became good farmers and made a notable contribution to civilization, especially in the northern regions, in Bohemia and in Hungary. As appears from the statutes of the General Chapters, the Cistercians were excellent organizers who promoted the draining of marshes in Italy and Holland, the clearing of the great forests in France, Germany and Bohemia, and also the exploitation of the iron and coal mines of the Pennines (H. C. Darby, An historical geography of England before 1800, Cambridge 1936, pp. 243 and 257).

The harmony established between the Opus Dei, spiritual literature and manual labor, ordained by the Consuetudines and confirmed by the General Chapter each year, but much more the personality of St. Bernard, illustrious glory of the Order, caused it to spread wonderfully. At the death of St. Stephen in 1134 there were already 80 monasteries, of which 55 in France. In Italy, the first abbey was that of Tiglieto in Liguria (18 Oct. 1120). Then came the foundations in Germany (Kamp), in England (Waverley), Switzerland (Bonnont), Spain (Moreruela). In 1132 arose the first monastery of Cistercian nuns at Tart in France, followed, especially in the 13th century, by those of France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Spain and Switzerland (in the latter, monasteries of that age still endure uninterruptedly). The Cistercian nuns lived according to the same Consuetudines as the monks, also with respect to enclosure, which, especially through the influence of the Poor Clares, with the abandonment of manual labor, and through the provisions of the Council of Trent, was changed into papal enclosure, although internally it was always considered the enclosure of the Order. The nuns do not form the Second Order, but a single Order with the monks, with exemption from the authority of the diocesan bishop, with the approval of the Supreme Pontiff and with acceptance or incorporation into the Order made by the General Chapter. There were more than 1000 monasteries, where life flourished according to the spirit and custom of the Cistercians, even if not all were incorporated into the Order. They took the greatest care of the interior and mystical life, especially in Germany, Belgium, Holland. The abbesses also held General Chapters at Tart, Tulembras, Las Huelgas near Burgos, Vallebona (Lerida), but these gatherings were not General Chapters in the strict sense, but rather assemblies of the regional abbesses. Many among the Cistercian monks and nuns reached the heights of sanctity, and 1215 religious died in the fame of sanctity or lived an exemplary life.

In the year before the death of St. Bernard (1152) there existed 339 monasteries of monks, and at the end of the Middle Ages about 750, in all the countries of Europe.

Benefactors of the Church were not only St. Bernard, but also many monks and lay brothers: three popes, Eugene III, formerly abbot of Tre Fontane, Celestine IV, Benedict XII, abbot of Font Froid in France, 44 cardinals, among them Giacomo da Pecorara (1244) and Giovanni Bona (1647), an illustrious writer on ascetics and liturgy; about 580 bishops (cf. G. Willi, Cist. Päpst. Kardinäle u. Bischofe, in Cist. Chron., 23 [1911], p. 255 ff.). Many lay brothers regularly served the Roman Curia as bullators. Abbots and monks also went among the Mohammedans and the Albigensians to preach the Gospel.

Many monasteries were drawn to the Order of the Cistercians by the good reputation it enjoyed: thus the General Chapter in 1147 incorporated the Congregation of Savigny with 28 monasteries and that of Obazina with 3 monasteries, in 1162 the monastery of Dalon with its filials. Some knightly orders also adhered to the Order, such as that of Calatrava in Spain.

For the services rendered to the Church, the Order received many privileges. From Innocent III that of exemption from tithes, later modified by Adrian IV, Alexander III and the Fourth Lateran Council. Lucius III granted the privilege of exemption; Innocent VIII (bull Exposcit tuae devotionis), which however is doubted by some, gave the abbot general the faculty to confer the subdiaconate and diaconate, to consecrate chalices and patens and to bless abbots (cf. T. Abele, Die Erteilung der Subdiakonatsund Diakonatsweihe durch den Abt von Citeaux und die Primaräbe, in Cist. Chron., 37 [1925], p. 169 ff.).

The 12th and 13th centuries were the golden ages of the Order, but it is easy to understand how in so great a number of monasteries and religious there were not lacking weaknesses and errors. In the 12th century some monasteries acquired, against the statutes of Bl. Alberic, the right of tithe, and being no longer able to work the fields directly because of their great extent, they ceded a part of them in return for the payment of dues, so that the observance of the rules and customs suffered grave harm. With the abandonment of manual labor the harmony created between the divine Office and spiritual reading was broken. In many monasteries study was abandoned and the Office was prolonged, with consequent further innovations against the statutes of the Order. Nevertheless some monasteries for a long time remained faithful to the teaching of the Fathers, as in the 16th century that of S. Urban. Through the intervention of the Roman pontiffs and by the care of the General Chapters, over the course of the centuries many attempts were made to restore discipline, as is attested by the constitution of Clement IV, Pareus fans of 9 July 1265, as a commentary on the Charta caritatis; that of Benedict XII, Fulgens sicut stella of 12 July 1335, on the reform of the Order; the definitions of the General Chapter of 1601 for the reform of the Order and of persons; the constitution of Alexander VII of 19 Apr. 1666 for a general reform of the Order and for settling the controversies that had arisen between the strict and the common observance (its text still forms the basis of the statutes of the Augian Congregation).

To revive the spirit of the Fathers, some monasteries tried other means, among them the formation of Congregations. Some of these remained intimately united to the mother house of Citeaux, others instead separated from it. First is the general Congregation of the reformer Martin of Vargas of 1425 (Congregation of Mount Sion or of the regular observance of Spain), the Congregation of St. Bernard in Italy, that is the Lombard-Tuscan one of 1497, the Lusitanian one of 1567 and the Foglian one founded by Jean de la Barrière in 1589. These, the Aragonese Congregation, the Roman one of 1613 and the Calabrian-Lucanian one of 1633, introduced customs foreign to the Order, while the Congregation of Upper Germany of 1595 remained faithful to the principles and to the abbot of Citeaux. Thus the Order, once so united and glorious, was divided as a result, but the spirit of the Fathers lived on in many monasteries with excellent fruits. In the 18th century the system of life of the Cistercians was still identical to that of the reformed Cistercians, with the exception of perpetual silence, complete abstinence and manual labor. Various circumstances favored this dissolution of the Order, such as in France the Hundred Years' War (1339-1453), the plagues and the famous "commendes" which, especially in the monasteries of France and Italy, where it was possible to provide a living for only a small number of religious, brought detriment to regular observance and to the customs of the Order. Many abbots did not attend the General Chapter, which in this way could no longer be held regularly; add to this the persecutions of the Hussites in Bohemia, Silesia and Austria. Through the force and violence of the laity, but also through the frailty of the monks, the Protestant Reformation extinguished the life of the Cistercians in all the monasteries of England, Scotland, Scandinavia, Holland, Hungary and in not a few of Germany and Switzerland. In Austria many abbeys were closed by Joseph II; in France and Belgium the suppression was universal at the hands of the Revolution. In 1803, with the end of the German Empire, many monasteries were suppressed, with the exception of some of nuns; in 1810 all the abbeys of Prussia, Poland and Silesia, in 1830-35 all those of Portugal and Spain, in 1841-48 all the monasteries of Switzerland were likewise suppressed. Some monasteries saved themselves by emigrating, such as the Cistercians of the strict observance (Trappists). The convent of St. Bernard at Scaldin and that of Stella Maris at Wettingen were also able to save themselves.

At present the Order consists of 8 Congregations: 1) Sacred Heart of Jesus (Austria); 2) Augian (Mehrerau, formerly Helveto-Germanic); 3) Italic; 4) Belgian; 5) Gallic; 6) Hungarian; 7) Most Pure Heart of Mary in Bohemia; 8) Casamari. Some monasteries do not belong to any Congregation. In 63 monasteries there live today 1500 religious.

Colombano Spahr