If one is searching for windows from timemarks
into the lives of real human beings, their
literature, their history, and their work as part and parcel of planet Earth, and its creation
and social dependencies, there can be no better place to begin that in the ruins of a
Cistercian monastery.
The Cistercian Order originated towards
the end of the eleventh century when certain
monks broke away from the abbey of Molesme in Burgundy to follow a stricter rule. They
found a fitting place in a wild wood at Citeaux and there built themselves a wooden
monastery where other like-minded monks joined them. For a time the hardness of the
rule frightened awav recruits, and the settlement was threatened with extinction. Stephen
Harding, an Englishman from Sherborne in Dorset, one of the original members,
became the abbot and the real founder of the new Order. Before he ruled, Citeaux was
the poorest of all monasteries; when he died, it had become the head of an organisation
which in a few years spread beyond the confines of Christendom and became the most
powerful of all monastic Orders. It was puritanical in outlook and one of its inmates, the
famous St. Bernard, thundered his denunciations against the luxury and temporalities of
other monasteries, to which the Cistercians were a standing rebuke.
In his Apologia, written about
1124, he says, "I will not speak of the immense height of
their churches, of their immoderate length, of their superfluous breadth, costly polishing,
and strange designs, which while they attract the eyes of the worshipper, hinder the
soul's devotion. However let that pass; we suppose it is done, as we are told, for the
glory of God. But as a monk, I say, Tell me, O ye professors of poverty, what does gold
do in a holy place? for amongst us, who have gone out from amongst the people, who
have forsaken whatever things are fair and costly for Christ's sake; who have regarded
all things beautiful to the eye, soft to the ear, agreeable to the smell, sweet to the taste,
pleasant to the touch, all things which can gratify the body, as dross and dung that we
might gain Christ, of whom among us, I ask, can devotion be excited by such means ?
So carefully is the money laid out, that it returns multiplied many times. It is spent that it
may be increased. By the sight of wonderful and costly vanities men are prompted to
give rather than pray. What do you suppose is the object of all this? The repentance of
the contrite, or the admiration of the gazers? Oh! vanity of Vanities! but more vain than
foolish. What has all this to do with monks, with professors of poverty, with men of
spiritual minds? In the cloisters, what is the meaning of those ridiculous monsters, of
that deformed beauty, that beautiful deformity, before the eyes of the brethren when
reading? In fact such an endless variety of forms appears everywhere, that it is more
pleasant to read in the stonework than in books, and to spend the day admiring these
oddities than in meditating on the law of God. Good God! if we are not ashamed of these
absurdities, why do we not grieve at the cost of them?"
Cistercian regulations prohibited anything
savouring of pride or superfluity. Crosses were
to be made of painted wood, the single candlestick of iron, the censers of copper. Silk
was forbidden, and also gold and silver, except for the chalice. The first buildings of the
Order were of the utmost simplicity, destitute of any adornment. The formation of an
ascetic and ultra-strict Order was at once popular, and the founding of new houses
spread with rapidity. When by 1152 the number had reached 330, the general chapter
thought it wise to forbid any further increase. In spite of this, new houses continued to be
founded, so that by the thirteenth century they exceeded six hundred. Those of the order
in England numbered seventy-five. As an instance of Cistercian popularity, Rievaulx,
founded in 1131, was able within six years to establish houses at Melrose and Warden,
and continued with Dundrennan in 1142, Revesby in 1143 and Rufford in 1148.
