Early years
(circa 1120)
We monks of Citeaux,
the first founders of this church, inform our successors by this
present text through whose agency and in what circumstances the
monastery and our way of life came into being, and on what
canonical authority they rest; so that, when the whole truth is
laid before them, they may have a stronger love for the place and
for the observance of the holy Rule, which we, in one way or
another, implanted here with the help of God's grace; that they may
pray for us who have, unflagging, borne the burden of the day and
the scorching heat; and that they too, on the strait and narrow
path traced by the Rule, may sweat it out until they breathe their
last and, having laid down their mortal load, repose happily in
everlasting rest.
The text goes on
to relate hour Robert of Molesmes and six brothers, among them
Stephen Harding, approached Hugh, Archbishop of Lyons and apostolic
legate, to seek his support in leaving Molesmes and founding a
community dedicated to a stricter observance of St Benedict's Rule.
Hugh provides them with a letter of authority.
Thereafter the abbot
and his disciples, strong in the authority of so great a prelate,
went back to Molesmes and chose from that community companions
wholly devoted to the Rule, numbering, with the monks who had
spoken with the legate at Lyons, twenty-one in all. Such was the
serried company that set out eagerly for a wilderness known as
Citeaux, a locality in the diocese of Chalon where men rarely
penetrated and none but wild things lived, so densely covered was
it then with woodland and thorn bush. When the men of God arrived
there and realized that the less attractive and accessible the site
was to laymen, the better it would suit themselves, they began,
after felling and clearing the close-growing thickets and bushes,
to build a monastery; and this at the wish of the Bishop of Chalon
and with the agreement of the lord Odo, Duke of Burgundy, to whom
the place belonged. The duke, delighted with their holy fervour and
encouraged thereto by a letter from the legate, later completed at
his own expense the wooden monastery they had begun, and for a long
time after saw to all their needs and made them generous gifts of
lands and livestock.
A brief account
of the circumstances surrounding Abbot Robert's return to Molesmes
and the election of Alberic as his successor is supported by an
array of letters and documents culminating in the Roman Privilege,
which confirmed the independent existence of the New Monastery
under the protection of the Pope.
Thereafter Abbot
Alberic and his brethren, mindful of their solemn promise, took the
unanimous decision to institute and keep in that locality the Rule
of blessed Benedict, rejecting whatever contravened it: namely,
long-sleeved tunics and furs, fine linen shirts, caps and breeches,
combs, quilts and coverlets, and a variety of courses in the
refectory, as well as lard2 and everything else
that militates against the purity of the Rule. And thus, drawing
the integrity of the Rule over the whole tenor of their life
–liturgical observance as well as daily living - they
followed faithfully in its track, and, having stripped off the old
self, they rejoiced to have put on the new.
Finding no evidence
in the Rule or in the life of St Benedict that he, their teacher,
had possessed churches or altars, offerings or burial dues, other
men's tithes, ovens or mills, villages or peasants, and no sign
either that women had entered his monastery or that the dead were
buried there, save only his sister, they renounced all these
privileges, saying: 'When blessed Father Benedict teaches that a
monk should set himself apart from secular conduct, he gives a
clear witness that such matters should find no place in the conduct
or hearts of monks, who should strive to live out the meaning of
their name by shunning
such things as these.' They also said that the holy Fathers, who
were the mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit and whose statutes it is
sacrilege to transgress, had distributed tithes four ways: one
part, that is, to the bishop, another to the parish priest, a third
for the needs of travellers, of widows and orphans, or of the poor
without other means of sustenance, and a fourth for the repair of
the church. Finding no mention in that reckoning of the monk, who
lives, by working his own lands with the help of his cattle, they
declined to arrogate wrongly to themselves another's right. The
world's wealth thus held at naught, and poor as Christ was poor,
his new recruits debated among themselves by what exercise of
brains or brawn they might provide for themselves and for the
guests, rich and poor, whom the Rule bids us receive as
Christ.
It was then that
they decided, with the bishop's permission, to take in bearded lay-
brothers, whom they would treat as themselves in life and in death
– the status of monk apart - and also hired men, because
without such backing they did not see how they could fully observe,
day and night, the precepts of the Rule. They would accept lands as
well, in isolated places far from human habitation, and vineyards,
meadows and woods, and streams for driving mills, but for their own
use only and for fishing, and horses too, and the different sorts
of livestock useful for men's needs. And since they had set up
farmsteads here and there for cultivating their lands, they
resolved that the aforesaid lay- brothers, rather than the monks,
should manage these steadings, because monks, according to the
Rule, should live in their own cloister. And knowing that blessed
Benedict had built his monasteries not in cities, towns or
villages, but in places unfrequented and remote,-they vowed to
imitate him. And just as he had set up the monasteries he built
with twelve monks and an abbot, they affirmed themselves ready to
do the same.
A certain sadness
weighed on God's servant, Abbot Alberic, and his monks, because it
was rare in those days that anyone came to emulate them. The holy
men had a passionate desire to commit to successors their
heaven-sent treasure of virtues for the salvation of many yet to
come, but almost everyone seeing and hearing of the exceptional and
almost unheard-of harshness of their life, instead of drawing near,
made haste to put heart and body at a distance, and could not
understand their perseverance. But, as what follows will make
plain, the mercy of God, which had inspired them to enter this
spiritual militia, proceeded in notable fashion to enlarge and
perfect it to the advancement of many.
Alberic, man of God,
after nine and a half fruitful years spent training himself in
Christ's school in the discipline of the Rule, passed over to the
Lord, resplendent in faith and virtues and therefore well deserving
that God should bless him in eternity. He was succeeded by a
certain Stephen, a brother of English birth who had himself come
with the others from Molesmes to Citeaux and loved both the Rule
and the place. It was in his time that the brothers, in conjunction
with their abbot, prohibited the Duke of Burgundy or any other lord
from ever holding court in the church, as had formerly been their
custom on great festivals. From then on, to ensure that God's
house, in which they desired to serve him devoutly day and night,
was empty of anything redolent of pomp or superfluity, or tending
to corrupt the poverty - guardian of the virtues -which they had
unconstrainedly embraced, they settled that they would keep neither
gold nor silver crosses, but only ones of painted wood, nor more
than one branched candlestick, and that of iron, nor censers, save
of copper or iron, nor any but fustian or linen chasubles without
silk or gold or silver, nor albs or amices except of linen, and
likewise without silk, gold or silver. As regards all mantles,
copes, dalmatics and tunics, these they eschewed entirely. They
did, however, keep chalices, not gold but silver ones, or
preferably silver gilt, and a silver communion tube, again, if
possible, gilded; stoles too and maniples of plain silk without
gold or silver. And they laid down, too, that the altar cloths
should be made of linen and have no ornamentation, and that the
wine cruets should be without gold or silver.
In those days the
church at Citeaux grew in lands and vineyards, meadows and
farmsteads, without any decrease in fervour, and God in consequence
visited that place and poured out his mercies on those who called
on him, entreating him with tears, and with sighs dragged day and
night from their inmost core, as they neared the threshold of
despair over their almost total lack of followers. For God's grace
at one stroke sent that church as many as thirty recruits
–lettered clerks of gentle birth and laymen just as noble and
wielding dominion in the world – who enthusiastically entered
the novices' cell together and, fighting successfully against their
own vices and the incitements of evil spirits, completed their
probation.
Meanwhile, young men
and old, of divers conditions and places, inspired by their example
and seeing that what they had previously dreaded as impossible in
the keeping of the Rule was in fact being achieved by these,
started hastening to Citeaux to submit their proud necks to
Christ's gentle yoke, and, embracing with ardour the hard and
gruelling precepts of the Rule, they brought to that church a
wonderful renewal of joy and vigour.
Abbeys thereafter
were established in different dioceses, which in time, through
God's ample and active blessing, grew until, eight years later,
counting those which had sprung from Citeaux itself and others to
which these daughter houses had given birth, a total of twelve
monasteries were found to have been built.
