The Order of Cistercians, founded in 1098, the "White Monks"

On 21 March 1098, Robert, Abbot of Molesmes, and several other brethren including St Stephen Harding, an Englishman, left their mother house for the inhospitable marshlands of Citeaux in Burgundy. They sought to follow the Rule of St Benedict in a purer, more primitive way. After some precarious years, they were joined in 1112 by Bernard of Fontaines, known to history as St Bernard of Clairvaux, accompanied by 30 of his relatives.

The four eldest daughter houses were founded in quick succession after this: La Ferte in 1113, Pontigny in 1114, Clairvaux and Morimond in 1115. L'Aumone, the mother house of Tintern, was founded as a daughter of Citeaux in 1121.

By the death of St Bernard in 1153, 345 Cistercian foundations had been established. By the end of the 13th century the order reached its maximum at 740, and there were still some 700 houses in existence on the eve of the Reformation.

Citeaux Abbey

This extraordinary expansion is unique in the history of the Church. The Cistercian life was one of secluded communal intercession and adoration. Houses were erected only in remote situations, while its churches were plain in character and their ornaments and vestments not made from precious materials.

Strict rules on diet and silence were laid down and manual labour given its primitive prominent position. The Cistercians thus became important agricultural pioneers, playing a notable part in English sheep farming, for example, care of their estates being for long undertaken by lay brothers who lived under somewhat less severe rules.

Citeaux (shown here) was reoccupied by the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance in 1898 after over 200 years of desertion after the destruction of religious houses wrought by the French Revolution.