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The Cistercian Order was the most important
of the new religious orders which developed in western Europe in
the late eleventh century in response to movements for reform in
the Church. Cistercians - also known as White Monks - dominated
the spread of new monastic foundations in Europe and spread rapidly
from Burgundy where the order began throughout France, Britain and
Ireland. In Britain, their greatest impact was in the north, where
Yorkshire became the nerve-centre of the monastic life.
The Cistercian way of life placed great stress on solitude and isolation;
Cistercian monasteries were thus often founded far away from towns
and villages. Driven by an ideal of individual poverty, Cistercian
monks had no personal property and the monks worked the land with
their own hands to support themselves. A successful monastery needed,
however, to obtain grants of land from lay benefactors to give it
an endowment large enough to support the community. Rules were agreed
to govern the internal affairs of each monastery and the Cistercian
Order as a whole was regulated by statutes produced at Cîteaux
in Burgundy, the mother-house of the Order.
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The Cistercian Order