What did novices read? Stephen of Sawley’s recommendations for those entering the Cistercian life

From all your readings strive to make progress in virtue.
[Stephen of Sawley, ‘Mirror for novices.’]

A novice reading
© Cistercians in Yorkshire Project

Stephen, abbot of Sawley, who began his monastic career as a monk of Fountains and was then promoted to the abbacies of Sawley, Newminster and finally Fountains, wrote a ‘Mirror of Novices’, a spiritual directory designed to instruct and guide those entering Cistercian life in spiritual and practical tasks. In chapters fifteen and sixteen of the treatise, Stephen deals with reading material and recommends what novices, as beginners, should read first, and what they can then progress to read.(1)

Step 1
As a beginner, the novice was warned only to start by reading only four texts - the customs of the Order (the Usages), the Cistercian antiphonary, the Lives of the Fathers and Gregory the Great’s Dialogues.

‘It (the soul) sees there things that are corrupt and corrects them, and things that are beautiful and which contribute to its radiance.’

Step 2
Once the novice had gained more experience he could indulge in ‘more solid food’ and study the Old and New Testaments. He was not simply to read these works to acquire knowledge - ‘that is merely curiosity’ - but to use them as a mirror, that his soul might see there a reflection of its own image (see right). Furthermore, the novice should try to memorise all that he had learnt.

Step 3
It is good for your soul, it enriches your spirit and instructs your mind
with the fat of a more perfect charity.

In chapter 58 of his Rule, St Benedict states that his work should be read to novices after their first two months in the novice-house; if they still wished to remain it should be read again after four months and then again after six months. Those who still wished to enter the monastic life and to live according to the Rule might then be welcomed within the community.

Stephen then recommends particularly important books that the novice could read – the Rule of St Benedict, the Confessions of St Augustine and his Commentaries on the Psalter, as well as the twelfth-century sermons of Gilbert of Hoyland on the ‘Song of Songs’. The novice was to read and cherish these works before progressing to other carefully selected writings such as Cassian’s Conferences and Jerome’s Letters, which described the lives of the monks, as well as contemporary works by Aelred of Rievaulx and William of St Thierry. At all times the novice was to choose and read these works ‘with discretion and not a little caution’, that they might instruct him in modesty, perseverance and knowledge of the virtues.