CISTERCIANS

Towards the conclusion of the 11th century, Robert, abbot of Molême, in Burgundy, having employed, in vain, his most zealous efforts to revive the decaying piety and discipline of his convent, and to oblige his monks to observe more exactly the rule of St. Benedict, retired with about twenty monks to a place called Citeaux, in the diocese of Chalons. In this retreat Robert founded the famous order of the Cistercians, which made a most rapid and astonishing progre , spread through the greatest part of Europe in the following century, was enriched with the most liberal and splendid donations, acquired the form and privileges of a spiritual republic, and exercised a sort of dominion over all the monastic orders. The great and fundamental law of this new fraternity was the rule of St. Benedict, which was to be rigorously observed. (See Benedictines .) To this were added several other injunctions intended to maintain the authority of the rule. The first Cistercian monastery in England was that of Waverley, in Surrey, 1129. In the reign of Edward I. there were sixty-one Cistercian monasteries.— Monast. Angl.; Hist. des Ord. Relig. tom. v. c. 33.