Cistercians

History is today an established academic discipline characterized by the use of footnotes and references to support claims. However attempts to codify history and impose disciplinary rigour were made in the Middle Ages even before the introduction of the modern apparatus. One such attempt was the use of the source mark a precursor of the modern footnote. Initially used in the works of lawyers and theologians the source mark indicated that a text and its ideas belonged to a named authority. The application of the source mark to historical writings marked a change in the way history was perceived.

This volume explores how history was transformed into a discipline by focusing on four key twelfth-and thirteenth-century sources: the anonymous Status Imperii Iudaici the Chronicle of Hélinand of Froidmont the Chronicle of Alberic of Trois-Fontaines and Vincent of Beauvais’s Speculum Historiale. By focusing on these four texts and examining the influences of surrounding disciplines such as law and theology the author explores how these historical writers drew on a wide range of different sources of information to provide a truthful account of the past. Furthermore the aim of producing a reliable narrative was combined with an awareness of the status of the author. Through these case studies this volume offers a fascinating reassessment of our modern understanding of the origins of the study of history.

Founded in 1132 Fountains Abbey became the wealthiest English Cistercian monastery - yet relatively little analysis has been made of its surviving records to investigate how its wealth was controlled and sustained. This book deals with this secular aspect of the religious community at Fountains investigating in particular the way in which prosaic business records were compiled and redacted. It traces the transmission of data from original charters through successive versions of cartularies and in the process establishes the existence of a previously unknown manuscript. It also reveals how abbots in the fifteenth century interacted with and adapted the records in their care.

In this process two quite different aspects of monastic life are uncovered. First it sheds new light on the history of Fountains Abbey through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries amongst other things how it responded to the turmoil of the Black Death and discloses for the first time the allegiance of one abbot to the Lancastrian cause during the Wars of the Roses. Second it reveals the worldly skills shown by the community of Fountains that were successfully applied to exploit the monastery’s large landholdings across Yorkshire mainly through wool and agricultural production but also through fisheries tanning mining and metalworking. The economic success of these activities enabled the abbey to become a prosperous institution which rivalled the wealth of the aristocracy.

The Cistercian abbeys of northern England provide some of the finest monastic remains in all of Europe and much has been written on their twelfth- and thirteenth-century architecture. The present study is the first in-depth analysis of the art and architecture of these northern houses and nunneries in the late Middle Ages and questions many long-held opinions about the Order’s perceived decline during the period c.1300-1540. Extensive building works were conducted between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries at well-known abbeys such as Byland Fountains Kirkstall and Rievaulx and also at lesser-known houses including Calder and Holm Cultram and at many convents of Cistercian nuns. This study examines the motives of Cistercian patrons and the extent to which the Order continued to enjoy the benefaction of lay society.

Featuring over a hundred illustrations and eight colour plates this book demonstrates that the Cistercians remained at the forefront of late medieval artistic developments and also shows how the Order expressed its identity in its visual and material cultures until the end of the Middle Ages.

Founded in 1131 by the castellan of Cambrai Vaucelles Abbey thrived in a borderland region where German emperors French kings Flemish counts bishops of Cambrai and the Cistercian Order all had active interests. To understand how Vaucelles flourished we must look at the relationships that the house created and fostered with various international regional and local individuals and institutions. Vaucelles used these connections to protect the vast patrimony that the monks created in the two centuries after its foundation.

This study asserts that three principal factors influenced the foundation and development of Vaucelles. First the abbey was fortunate in its local support beginning with the castellan family and expanding to include numerous regional families and the bishops of Cambrai. Second the abbey was established in a political borderland a geo-political situation that Vaucelles survived and actually turned into a positive feature of its development. And finally Vaucelles was a Cistercian monastery a direct daughter house of Clairvaux. Vaucelles’ Cistercian observance fostered relationships that were particularly significant to the abbey’s development from the late twelfth century onward. These factors offer exceptional tools for demonstrating many features of Vaucelles’ political social and economic life during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

L'abbaye de Morimond quatrième fille de Cîteaux fondée en 1117-1118 aux confins des diocèses de Langres et de Toul a déjà fait l'objet d'une étude complète due à l'abbé Dubois (1851 1852 et 1879) qui n'a pas été remplacée à ce jour. Cependant aucune des sources de son histoire n'a été publiée contrairement aux cas de Cîteaux La Ferté Pontigny et Clairvaux. La mise à disposition des chartes de Morimond vient combler une lacune que de nombreux historiens du monachisme cistercien déploraient depuis longtemps. Evidemment les quelques deux cents chartes du XIIe siècle conservées dans les archives ne peuvent rivaliser avec les cinq cents chartes de Clairvaux et cette différence mériterait d'être expliquée. Néanmoins elles fournissent un nombre considérable de renseignements sur le mode de fonctionnement d'une grande abbaye cistercienne au cours du premier siècle de son histoire sur ses relations avec des abbayes de sa filiation sur ses liens avec l'épiscopat langrois et toulois sur la mise en valeur de son patrimoine sur les problèmes issus de sa proximité avec d'autres communautés ecclésiastiques cisterciennes ou non. Dans ce volume le texte de ces chartes est accompagné des mentions de l'abbaye de Morimond au Chapitre général de Cîteaux des chartes émises par les abbés de Morimond d'une étude du sceau de l'abbaye au cours de ce siècle ainsi que d'une représentation cartographique et chronologique de ses abbayes-filles et de ses granges.

This volume presents a study of the library of the Cistercian abbey of La Trappe in Normandy from the twelfth century to the French Revolution together with an annotated edition of the library catalogue of 1752. The abbey was founded as a Savigniac house became Cistercian in 1147 and is inseparably linked with the name of Armand-Jean de Rancé the great monastic reformer and founder of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance. When he became abbot of La Trappe in 1664 he brought with him many of his own books and had a new library built to house the monastic collection. Rancé died in 1700. Other books were then added over time until in 1752 the abbey possessed about 4300 volumes. The detailed catalogue is divided into two parts. The first part lists the books by subject beginning as might be expected with bibles; the second part lists the same books by author. The information presented in this study of the abbey and its library is of first importance not only for understanding the nature and development of Cistercian intellectual and spiritual life but also for the history of early modern libraries and the development of library cataloguing.

The aftermath of the Investiture Controversy left the relationship between the Church and imperial power in ruins. In reaction to these developments the Concordat of Worms in 1122 sought a compromise to restore the association between the two sides. The Concordat was only the beginning and a spirit of cooperation between the Church and temporal powers began to emerge. This collaborative relationship is exemplified in the writings of Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153).

Bernard of Clairvaux was both a Cistercian abbot and a major political figure in the twelfth century. He inherited the Latin vocabulary of earlier Christian writers but needed a more nuanced language to express the complex political relationship between church and state during the settlement of episcopal investiture. In his writings Bernard distinguished between the authority (auctoritas) of the Church and the power (potestas) of temporal rulers. The language of separation was designed to delineate spheres of influence rather than to reflect opposition - a vocabulary that ultimately presents the relationship between the two powers as less of a fencing match and more of a dance.

Sacred Authority and Temporal Power emphasises and enhances our understanding of the significance of Bernard’s writings for the mediation of power and authority in the twelfth century.

This comparative study analyses Cistercian strategies on the northern and north-eastern frontiers of medieval Europe. Through case studies of six houses in Pomerania and Neumark (Kołbacz Marienwalde and Himmelstädt) and on the Scottish-English border (Melrose Dundrennan and Holm Cultram) the author traces the development of social networks around these monasteries within their own regions and across borders and explores the importance of the international Cistercian networks for communities located in these politically sensitive areas. Very different socio-economic conditions in the regions under discussion resulted in quite different strategies of land accumulation by Cistercian monasteries in Scotland and Pomerania which in turn had a lasting impact on their relationships with their neighbours. The author also examines the role of these abbeys in wider ecclesiastical politics and in relation to the key issues of the time: church reform and the expectations of the order’s lay patrons and benefactors. In the fourteenth century all of the abbeys experienced war violence and long-term instability. Their responses to these threats and difficulties are significant for our understanding of monastic strategies in hostile environments. Above all this study shows how a Cistercian model was adapted to fit the complex political cultural and ethnic contexts of the southern Baltic Northern England and Scotland.

There are three medieval French adaptations of the Song of Songs each reflecting a distinct exegetical tradition. The latest of these three here edited for the first time (from BNF fr. 14966) adopts the tropological interpretation according to which the Song depicts the relationship of the individual soul with God. The mystical contemplative approach owes much to Bernard of Clairvaux William of St Thierry and Thomas the Cistercian and this Cistercian tradition also has close links with the Beguines a connection which receives detailed exploration in the editor's extensive Introduction. Writing in the late-thirteenth century in north-eastern France the author of the Cantiques is aware of such an association and not only engages in the familiar procedures of allegorization but more originally inserts into his commentary eight lyrics which are modelled on known secular chansons which receive full attention from the editor. Within the text which covers Song 1. 1 to Song 3. 11 in 2544 octosyllables arranged in eight-line stanzas speeches are assigned to Sponsus Sponsa Magister and Religio. The Cantiques Salemon is the work of a poet rather than of a theologian reflecting many elements associated with 'la courtoisie mystique' which in turn is characteristic of writing for the Beguines. The editor provides a detailed summary of the text full glossary and notes as well as an account of the language. To these is added a study of the poet's principal literary techniques involving both the varied processes of translation and the elaboration of a network of links between stanzas together with the imprint of a personal lyric quality on the whole.

Rievaulx abbey was one of the most prominent houses of white monks (Cistercians) in England and became in the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries an important feature of the ecclesiastical and social landscape of Yorkshire. The present work is the first in-depth study devoted to Rievaulx's social history. The abbey's once extensive archives were largely destroyed after the Dissolution but the surviving late-twelfth-century cartulary provides a fascinating insight into the process of creating institutional memory preserving and shaping information about various neighbours of the abbey and creating a 'map' of social networks that developed around Rievaulx. The complex picture of building and sustaining connections between the abbey and its lay patrons benefactors and neighbours forms a core to this book. This study also examines how Rievaulx  co-existed with other religious institutions in the area and particularly the practical dimension of friendships between abbots declarations of mutual support between monastic communities and how these were reconciled with a fierce competition for land and donations. Contacts between Rievaulx abbey and the nearby archbishops of York and bishops of Durham were intense and these contacts demonstrate how important these prelates were as potential supporters and how broader ecclesiastical issues influenced their relationships with Rievaulx. Whilst exploring the case of one particular monastery this book is an important contribution to the current debate on the shaping of Cistercian practice and particularly the mechanisms for the interaction between laity and monastic communities during the High Middle Ages.