Cistercians

General Information

Cistercians are members of a Roman Catholic Religious Order founded in 1098 by St. Robert, abbot of Molesme. He and a handful of monks left the Benedictine abbey of Molesme for a secluded area called Citeaux, not far from Dijon in Burgundy, where they began an austere monastic life. From Citeaux other monasteries were founded. In 1112 or 1113, St. Bernard of Clairvaux entered Citeaux. His forceful personality and holiness encouraged recruits, and he became the spokesman for this reform movement throughout Europe. By 1151 over 300 monasteries stood, with more than 11,000 Cistercian monks and nuns.

From the beginning, the Cistercians stressed a literal observance of the Rule of St. Benedict, withdrawal from feudal entanglements and responsibility, and a return to the simplicity and austerity of the early desert monks. They succeeded by uniting their monasteries through a constitution, called the Charter of Charity, that set forth a uniform type of life, checks and balances in monastic government, centralized authority under the abbot of Citeaux, and an annual meeting of all the abbots in a general chapter.

The Cistercians wear white habits with a black scapular. During the Middle Ages, they were called the white monks. A reformed group of Cistercians was begun in the 17th century; they are known as Trappists. The original Cistercian monks are called Cistercians of the Common Observance. Many monasteries of the Common Observance were suppressed during the French Revolution. In the 20th century the order has experienced a renewal of vitality. Port Royal, the center of Jansenism in 17th-century France, was a Cistercian convent.

Cyprian Davis, O.S.B.

Bibliography:
Lekai, Louis, The Cistercians: Ideals and Reality (1977); Ponnington, M.G., ed., The Monastic Way (1990).

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