CISTERCIANS. A branch of the Benedic tine (q.v.) Order; also known as Bernardines, from their most famous member. It takes its name from the mother house of Citeaux (Lat. Cister chilli), near Dijon, which was founded in 1095 by Saint Hobert, Abbot of Molesme. Ile trans ferred twenty of his most zealous monks from the latter house, on account of the unhealth fulness of its site, and established a small and pour monastery at Citeaux. (The present build ing dates from the eighteenth century; it was s confiseated at the Revolution, but recovered to pions uses in 1546, since vvlten it has beeil used as a reformatory.) Robert's successor, Alberie, obtained from Pope Paschal 11. a confirmation of the new foundation, and drew up statutes which insisted on a strict observance of the Benedictine ink. A brown habit. was at first worn; soon, 1:0WeVer, perhaps to mark a contrast with the Cluniac Congregation, this was changed to white, with a brown, and later a black seam: lar. Alberie died in 1109, and was succeeded by Stephen Harding. an Englishman. lle pressed the rule of poverty to the utmost, applying it to the community as mud] as to the individual members. This extreme strietness diminished the number of postulants, so that the future looked unpromising, when in 1112 Saint Bernard (q.v.), with thirty companions, joined the struggling community. The numbers DOW began to increase, and Steimheu was enabled within two years to found four other abbeys—La FerW, Pontigny, Clairvaux, and Morimond. Fifty years later the Order numbered 343 abbeys, and by the middle of the fourteenth century more than 700—in France, Germany, England. Ireland, Spain, Por tugal, Norway, and Sweden. The austere and holy life of the early Cistercians won them uni versal respect, and a vast influence throughout Christendom. They iirodueed few great writers, but were indefatigable in collecting and copying manuseripts for their libraries. Practical mat ters. however, were not neglected in their zeal for literature and art; in England the Order was a main cause of the growth of the wool industry.
After this Golden Age followed a period of decline. The rule was less strictly observed; many disorders crept in toward the end of the fourteenth century, and by the middle of the fif teenth time Order had split into several congrega tions. The growth of luxury, the spread of the mendicant orders, and the practice of granting abbeys in commendant (see .Aumrt) all contrib uted to its decay. Among the more noteworthy offshoots of the Cistercians were the I'euillants and the Trappists (q.v.), and the Nuns of Port Royal in France. Before the Reformation, England had 75 Cistercian monasteries and 25 nunneries. Among the English abbeys were Fur ness, Fountains, Woburn. Tintern, Kirkstall, and Rievaulx. Between internal decline and the hos tility of various governments in modern times.
the great majority of the Cistercian houses have ceased to exist. They are represented by a few in Belgium and Austria, one in England (at Mount Saint Bernard, near Leicester), and two in Ireland.
The influence of the Cistercians in art is suffi ciently important to call for a separate treat ment. When Saint Bernard directed the policy of the Order, lie used it to carry out, among other things. his ideas as to the function of the fine arts. lie wrote and preached against the cur rent artistic extravagances in the construction, decoration, and furnishing of churches. As the Order spread throughout the world during the twelfth century it carried with it these ideas, some of which (for example, the invention of a single low, wooden bell-tower) were even ex pressed in the constitutions of the Order. Cister cian artists, therefore. were architects, and of the constructive rather than of the decorative school. This is the only Order that can boast of having consistently carried out an aesthetic' ideal and had a style of its own, similar in whatever hind it appears. and little a ffected byloeal art. Every where the Order exercised a strong influence. The Dominicans and Franciscans borrowed from it ninny of the peculiar traits of their churches. The Cistercians adopted at once the vaulted type, and were the pioneers of the Gothic revolution, carrying its germs. in Burgundian form, to nearly every civilized country. It was not until the middle of the thirteenth century that the Order had largely yielded its simplicity to the advance of the rich and harmonious style of cathedral Gothic, though before that it had begun to change in minor ways, as in allowing the use of stone in place of wooden towers. When the special mission of the Order was finished, its monas teries, being in remote country districts, were often allowed to go to ruin; but many of the most notable architectural monuments of its golden period remain worthy to stand by the Fide of the great cathedrals. Such are the abbeys of Alaulbronn, Beiligen-kreuz, Lilienfeld, and Tisch nowit; in and Austria; of Chiaravalle, Fossanova, and Casamari, in Italy; of l'ontigny in France; Batalha in Portugal; Veruela in Spain, and those Milled in England.
For the history of the Order, consult: Janau sehek, Origincs Cistercionses (Vienna, 1877); Gnignard, Nontrinetas priniitifs de Is regle cis Iireienne (Dijon, 1877) ; D'Arbois de Jobain ville and Pigeotte, Etude lOat init'ricur des abbaycs eisterciennes aux All. et XIII. sieeles (Paris, 1838). For the architectural side of the subject: Sharpe, The Architecture of the Cister cians (London, 1874 ) ; Eulart, Origincs do l'archi lecture gothique en Italie (Paris, 1893) ; and the works named in the article on :A IONASTIC Ant.