ROBERT, Abbot of Molesme, Saint. — Molesme (v.) Cîteaux (v.), born in Champagne ca. 1028, died at Molesme in 1111, apparently.
He entered the monastery of Moutier-la-Celle, near Troyes, at a very young age, and became its prior. Around 1070 he was elected abbot of St-Michel de Tonnerre (diocese of Langres), but in 1072 he resigned from this position due to the undisciplined life of the monks. He subsequently governed the priory of St-Ayoul in Provins. Meanwhile, the hermits of Colan, a deserted place near Tonnerre, who had previously asked Robert to lead them, obtained from Alexander II that he be placed in charge of their small community. Robert accepted, and shortly thereafter, judging the location of Colan to be unhealthy, he moved the community to the forest of Molesme, settling (ca. 1075) on the banks of the Laignes, a left tributary of the Seine. The early years at Molesme were extremely difficult, but beginning in 1084, as rich donations began to flow in, the austerity of monastic life waned. At this point, Robert left Molesme and took refuge with the hermits of Aulx, near Riel-les-Eaux, who chose him as their abbot. This occurred between 1090 and 1093, but by papal command he was obliged to return to Molesme, where he was unable to restore the community to the intense religious life he desired. This was the reason for his second departure from Molesme with about twenty monks, including the prior Alberic (v.) and Stephen Harding (v.), to go, with the approval of the papal legate Hugh, archbishop of Lyon, to the solitude of Cistercium, between Nuits and St-Jean in the diocese of Chalon-sur-Saône. On 21 March 1098 the monastery of Cîteaux began its life according to the ideals of the new reform, and Robert became its first abbot, but only for a short time. He was in fact obliged to return to Molesme in 1099 by order of the papal legate; the saint obeyed and governed the abbey until his death. He was buried in his abbatial church. His cult was permitted for Molesme by Honorius III on 8 January 1222 (Bullarium Romanum, ed. Tauviniensis, III, Turin 1858, p. 383), but in the same year the Cistercian General Chapter prescribed that the feast be celebrated throughout the Order «cum XII lectionibus» on 17 April, later moved two years afterward to the 29th of the same month. From this date it regularly appears in Cistercian liturgical books (Sacramentaries, Missals «Missa sicut de s. Benedicto», Breviaries and Psalters; added by another hand in manuscripts from the first half of the 13th century) and in the Roman Martyrology.