The Cistercians in the later Middle Ages
Reformation, schism and survival
p. 115-143
Résumés
The article considers the development of the Cistercian Order in the 14th and early 15th centuries. First it discusses the attempt at reformation made by the Cistercian Pope, Benedict XII in his bull Fulgens sicut stella, but also in the little known response and criticism of Benedict by Cistercian abbots in the 1330s. The two sides of the Cistercian Order from 1378 to 1408 are traced in terms of the kind of decisions they made for their members, especially in the way that the Avignon observance seems to have continued as if nothing had happened. The Cistercians can be seen as surviving the Schism, whatever the cost may have been.
L’article examine le développement de l’ordre cistercien au XIVe et au début du XVe siècle. Il examine tout d’abord la tentative de réforme du pape cistercien, Benoît XII, par le biais de sa bulle Fulgens sicut stella, mais aussi la réponse critique moins connue des abbés cisterciens à Benoît dans les années 1330. Les deux factions de l’ordre cistercien, de 1378 à 1408, sont décrites sur la base des décisions qu’elles ont prises pour leurs membres, en particulier dans la mesure où l’observance avignonnaise semble avoir continué comme si de rien n’était. Les cisterciens peuvent donc être considérés comme des survivants du schisme, quel que soit le prix qu’ils ont dû payer.
Entrées d’index
Mots-clés : Ordre cistercien, schisme, Benoît XII, réforme
Keywords : Cistercian order, schism, Benedict XII, reform
Note de l’auteur
I dedicate this article to the memory of my friend and colleague, James France (1930-2020), historian of the Cistercian Order.
Texte intégral
Introduction
1The historian looks in vain for detailed treatments of the Cistercian Order in the 14th and 15th centuries.1 Cistercian studies have traditionally concentrated on the 12th and 13th centuries: the genesis of the Order, its dramatic spread across Europe, the success of its Chapter General to maintain a standard of regularity in the lives of its monasteries, the system of visitations to keep up contacts between mother and daughter abbeys. The Charter of Charity, drawn up in 1119, became the defining document of the Order, in assuring regular contacts among the monasteries and a family structure of filiations.2 The Cistercians can be looked upon as a family, sometimes well-functioning, sometimes dysfunctional.
2In turning to the 13th century, the main attention has been given to the establishment of a house of studies in Paris, what came to be called the College de St. Bernard, with the requirement that all monasteries send their most studious monks there or to other houses of studies.3 The abbot of Clairvaux responsible for this new direction in Cistercian life is also known for his visitation of Irish monasteries and his reports of their drastic failure to follow the Rule of St. Benedict and the Cistercian statutes.4 But in recent years, there has also been much attention to the Cistercian opening to women’s houses, which initially imitated Cistercian practices but finally in the first decades of the 13th century received official recognition by the General Chapter.5
3The French scholar Jean-Berthold Mahn traced the development of the Cistercian Order in his L’Ordre Cistercien et son gouvernement, covering the period from the foundation in 1098 and until 1265.6 This seminal study, first published posthumously in 1945, has never been replaced by a new synthesis. It reveals the tensions that developed especially between the abbey of Cîteaux and its daughter Clairvaux. Mahn promised to become a central figure in Cistercian studies, but he died in 1944 as a young man of thirty-two years fighting in the Second World War.
4The other study left behind by Mahn is much briefer and more of an introduction than a thorough treatment: Le pape Benoît XII et les cisterciens, written in 1937 at the end of Mahn’s stay at the École française de Rome.7 Here Mahn considered the contents and impact of the papal bull Fulgens sicut stella from 1335, which was intended to reform the Cistercian Order. I am certain that if Mahn had not died so young, he would have produced more volumes on the history of the Cistercian Order and have given us a much-needed study of how the Order coped with the Great Western Schism of 1378-1415. Alas, the best we have from the 14th century is a detailed study of The Finances of the Cistercian Order by Peter King, an impressive work of detail but not a full history of how the Order developed.8
5There is a tendency among Cistercian scholars to try to date when the Order lost its vigor and went into decline. At the Cistercian Studies Conference in Kalamazoo (Michigan), the perennial joke has been that the Order lost its vitality in 1112, when Bernard left Cîteaux to establish a daughter house at Clairvaux. The death of Bernard in 1153 has also been seen as the beginning of the end of the Cistercians, even though the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 favored the Order as a model for discipline and organization elsewhere in the monastic life.9
6Certainly, Jean-Berthold Mahn’s treatment of the disputes of the mid-13th century indicates that Cîteaux and its daughter houses had lost some of their strength because of investing themselves in disputes about power and precedence. If we move into the 14th century, however, it becomes apparent that the Cistercian Pope Benedict XII made a sincere effort to reform his Order. In what follows here, I will trace some of the elements of Benedict’s reform, as well as the response of some Cistercian abbots criticizing his demands. Although Benedict’s program did not gain universal acceptance in the Order, its contents show that the Cistercians of the later Middle Ages were very much aware of their grounding in foundation documents, especially the Charter of Charity.
7It is only by looking at Benedict and his plan that it is possible to move forward to the Schism and how the Cistercians coped with it. Their sense of identity was what helped bring them through these difficult years, both in the Roman and in the Avignon obedience. This is a story which has not previously been told in detail, for most treatments have focused on the Roman observance and not the Avignon one. I intend here to show how the monasteries and especially their abbots tried to make their way in what must have felt like a confusing and difficult world. What I find is great vitality in the Order and an attempt to live up to its original ideals and practices.
8My intention is not to whitewash the Cistercians or claim that they lived in the 14th century as they had done in the 12th. I will show how the monks coped and adjusted, first thanks to a reforming pope, and later thanks to the continuing practice of holding general chapters, even though these now took place both at Cîteaux and elsewhere under the Roman obedience It has been fascinating to note how the two sides of the Order lived within a basically awkward and undesirable status quo, where the mother abbey of all Cistercians was cut off from approximately half of its daughter houses. In this untenable situation, silence in the sources can be just as significant as declarations of disunity. The response of the monasteries that recognized the pope in Avignon is an untold story because the General Chapter at Cîteaux apparently chose to ignore the existence of the monasteries that followed the Roman papacy. In the deafening silences of the General Chapter at Cîteaux during these years, I find an indication of how the monasteries loyal to the Avignon pope were able to get on with their lives, as if nothing fundamental had changed for them.
Benedict XII’s reformation of the Order
9Jacques Fournier has come to be known in history for his role as inquisitor. Thanks to Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie’s study of the village of Montaillou, Fournier is remembered primarily as bishop of Pamiers and a careful, patient investigator of rumors of heresy in the village at the foot of the Pyrenees.10 Ladurie’s portrait of the man is by no means affectionate, yet it was thanks to Fournier’s meticulous record of his inquisition that Ladurie was able to construct his presentation of daily life and folk beliefs in the early 14th century.
10Before he became bishop, Jacques Fournier was a Cistercian and the abbot of the monastery of Fontfroide. His Cistercian identity remained with him after he was elected pope in 1334, but he faithfully kept his inquisition protocols and these eventually were moved with the papacy to Rome from the Avignon where he reigned as pope. Fournier followed the disastrous papacy of John XXII, who is the first and only pope to have claimed that the souls of the blessed do not gain the full vision of God until the Second Coming of Christ. In spite of the objections of many theologians of the time, Pope John maintained his teaching right until his deathbed, when, perhaps thanks to Jacques Fournier, John XXII retracted his claim.11 In any case, Fournier was then elected pope and in showing his debt to monastic tradition took the name of Benedict XII.
11Benedict did his utmost to reform Benedictines, as well as other orders, but clearly his primary allegiance was to the order that had nurtured him. His declaration of Cistercian reformation, for such is the word he freely used, was given the title of its first words, as every papal encyclical: Fulgens sicut stella (Gleaming like a star).12 The title would seem to initiate praise of the Cistercian Order, but after the first lines there is anything but praise. Benedict required changes: 1) each convent of the Order was to have its own seal, besides the abbot’s seal; 2) each abbot was to take an oath on the Gospels before he took on the administration of the monastery; 3) Benedict required a certain procedure when monasteries alienated their possessions, as in the sale of forests, and this was only to be done with the consent of the monks and the General Chapter; 4) in general Benedict seems to have been requiring a reduction in the abbot’s powers, and the equal participation of the monastic body in important decisions. The abbot had to respect limitations on his powers, as money from the sale of property was to be used only in order to acquire other property or to pay debts.
12Benedict’s letter is called a constitutio… pro reformatione ordinis cisterciensis.13 It contains no historical introduction about how the Cistercian Order began and how brilliantly it had functioned. There is nothing resembling a description of Cistercian spirituality on the basis of Benedict, Stephen Harding and Bernard. The pope’s main concern seems to have been to limit the powers of the abbot, as in declaring in paragraph 8 that he was not to take a loan without both his own seal and that of the convent. In paragraph 12 he stated that abbots were to provide accounts of their incomes and expenses once a year to the seniors of the monastery. Certainly Benedict in his Rule had required abbots to take the advice of the senior monks, but Benedict XII was far more precise about how and when the abbot was to do so. He added that if an abbot failed to consult the seniors, he was to be prevented from attending the monastic office. In other words, he was to be excluded from the central function of monastic life: prayer.
13After this first section, dedicated to the administration of the monastery, Benedict turned to how the Order itself was to be governed. Dealing first with the central Cistercian practice according to which a father abbot was to make a visitation of a daughter house, Benedict limited such stays to three days (par. 13). He asked monasteries to treat their visitors caritative…decenterque (with charity and propriety). But he warned against the visitor’s coming with other abbots, unless they needed to consult with them if it was a question of deposing an abbot (par. 14). Or if the visiting abbot needed an interpreter (interpetatio linguarum). This is a fascinating passage, which reveals how difficult it could have been with the international relations of Cistercian abbeys and the need to be understood in one’s native language. Apparently, the visitor could not expect that all the monks he interviewed would be able to speak an adequate Latin.
14Abbots travelling to the General Chapter were to spend at the most two days at each monastery where they came, even if they were invited to stay longer (par. 15). If for some reasonable cause they desired to remain for a longer period, then they were to pay for their own expenses. Thus monastic hospitality was expected but also limited, so no monastery would feel that such an abbatial visitor could become a burden.
15Abbots who failed to attend the General Chapter were to pay double expenses. In other words, they were to pay to the Chapter twice as much as it would have cost them to come. The idea of the duplum as a punishment seems to have been widespread in Cistercian statutes. The following provisions also deal with payments: all monasteries are obliged to provide the contributions levied on them (par. 17). The Order had developed in such a way that its centralized form required money to keep it going. Benedict asked that the “first five abbots” (thus the abbots of Cîteaux and its four first daughters of La Ferté, Clairvaux, Pontigny and Morimond) would have to deal with the monasteries refusing to pay the contributions allotted to them. The General Chapter would each year receive these contributions. Three abbots would be named by the General Chapter to receive the money. These definitors should select one of their number to place their seals in a container with three different locks. One key would be given to each of the three abbots collecting the contributions, and they were to provide accounts to the General Chapter (par. 18).
16Having provided a framework for the bonds among the monasteries, based as they were on limited visitations and regular contributions, Benedict turned to the contents of life in the monasteries themselves. Some of these provisions are surprising, for they indicate that the Cistercians had begun to act in an aristocratic manner. Thus only the abbot of Cîteaux and the abbots of the four first daughter houses were to be accompanied on horseback by more than one secular cleric or layman (par. 21). The eating of meat was allowed in the abbot’s room and the infirmary (par. 22). This permission is described in great detail, indicating that by this time the consumption of meat was taking place in some monasteries. All the monks had to sleep in the dormitory, except those who were ill or who held offices in the monastery. These were to lie in places provided for them, while the sick were to be in the infirmary (par. 23). Individual cells were not to be constructed in the dormitory, and those which had been made were to be destroyed (par. 24). From this paragraph it is apparent that the traditional monastic practice of sleeping together in a dormitory was being replaced by what can only be called private accommodations. Benedict did not mention the old ways but certainly he wanted a return to them. He added that within three months from the time this statute became known to the monks, they were to remove any cells and return to the dormitory where they would sleep in common.
17Benedict forbade there to be any division of goods or incomes among abbots, the convent or monastery officials. If it had been done, the practice was to be stopped (par. 26). Abbots who allowed such a division were to be deposed. Monks who opposed it were to be given over to perpetual imprisonment. In Benedictine houses, it had long been the practice that the abbot’s possessions were separate from the monks’.14 This practice was apparently becoming common among the Cistercians, and Benedict’s strict punishments indicate how important it was for him that everything be held in common. He added in a later provision (par. 29) that monks were not to have money or other goods in their own or in someone else’s name. All things were to be used by the abbot for the common good. This is one of the longest and most detailed provisions of the entire constitution, and its length indicates that Benedict saw a great danger in an increasing individualization of monastic life, where each monk kept some possessions for himself.
18A final provision in this section indicates that Benedict was not only thinking of punishments. He asked abbots to take care of monks and lay brothers, both the healthy and the sick, according to the resources of the monastery. An abbot was to be careful not to let more men enter than could be fed (par. 30). Thus, the abbot who bragged about the size of his monastery but was unable to support his monks with nourishment was to be reprehended.
19These provisions were made more than a decade before the Black Death must have decimated the monastic population, and it is entirely possible that Benedict knew of monasteries whose incomes were not sufficient to feed all their members. His statutes indicate care and concern for the monks, and their content indicates that Benedict was wary of the abbot who acted as if there were no limits on his power.
20The next section of the constitutions concerns what would have been dearest to Benedict: the situation of the houses of studies that by now had been established all over Europe. Benedict mentioned Paris, Oxford, Toulouse, Salamanca and Bologna, as well as Metz (par. 31). Clearly, it was Paris that was the main place of education for scholastic monks: ceteris praecipuum et fons omnium studiorum (par. 32). Monasteries with more 40 monks were obliged to send two of them to Paris, while if they had 30 to 40 monks, they were to supply one of their members (par. 33). Benedict legislated in detail on how the abbots were to send money assigned for students. If a month went by and the abbot had not paid for his charges, then he was obliged to pay double. Again, we have the concept of the duplum: a double payment if a first payment due was not provided. If six months passed and the abbot still had not paid, then he would be barred from entering the church in his monastery. In other words, he would be cut off from the divine office and the celebration of mass (par. 36).
21Benedict encouraged students at the houses of study to advance to as high degrees as possible (par. 37). The abbot of Cîteaux and the masters, bachelors and officials of the house in Paris were to instruct the student’s own abbot not to recall him but to allow him to advance in knowledge. In the end it would be the General Chapter and not the individual abbot to decide how far a student was to go in his studies.
22These statutes are a remarkable contrast to the attitude Bernard of Clairvaux showed towards places of learning and especially Paris.15 He came there in order to lure students away from purely intellectual pursuits and to praise the contemplative life of the monastery. Now Pope Benedict was insisting that the monastic life would be enriched by the presence of scholars trained in the scholastic method. A century earlier this adaptation of Cistercian life had been challenged, but in the 1330s Benedict seems to have had little concern that the academic world would pose a threat to the monastic one.
23This collection of statutes shows how Pope Benedict XII took it for granted that he in his office could legislate for the monastic order in which he had been formed. His final decision emphasizes how much he insisted that his provisions be obeyed. He declared that “the present privilege each year is to be read at the General Chapter and in the chapter of each monastery of the Order” (par. 42). The Latin is unmistakable: de verbo ad verbum legatur. It was to be read word for word. In the monasteries all monks were especially to be gathered in the chapter room and the entire contents were to be read aloud.
24At the General Chapter of 1335 there was rejoicing because the pope came from the Cistercian Order: gratias agimus cum iucunditate.16 But Cistercian involvement came at a price. A contribution of 24,000 pounds of Tours was levied “for the expenses necessary in the Order in the Roman Curia”.17 The General Chapter promised to remunerate the abbots of Cîteaux, La Ferté, Clairvaux, Morimund and Hautecombe for the expenses they had in visiting the Roman curia.18 A special contribution was to be paid “for the repair of the house of studies of St. Bernard at Paris”, with 20 pounds of Tours each year.19 The cost of Paris came to be noted in a number of General Chapter decisions: it was as if there could be no end to what it cost the Cistercian Order.
Resistance to Pope Benedict’s reformation of the Order
25The General Chapter of 1335 took into account Pope Benedict’s reforms and followed them faithfully, especially the decisions concerning the house of studies in Paris. But the next year it became apparent that there was resistance to the pope’s program: “Some abbots neglect and spurn the reforms of the pope and not only show lack of reverence to the Holy See but risk their own salvation.”20 The General Chapter ordered abbots, cellarers and bursars under penalty of deposition to carry out “the said reformation quickly and without delay” (dictam reformationem celeriter et absque mora). The word reformatio is standard in such decisions and in the ecclesiastical literature of the time: it is not the 16th century that invented reformation.21 It was a passionate concern of the late medieval Church and especially the monasteries. But in the case of the Cistercians there was opposition to Benedict’s reformation.
26Presumably already before Benedict’s constitutions were officially promulgated, a number of Cistercian abbots objected to their content. When Jean-Berthold Mahn edited this protest, on the basis of a manuscript he found in the Bibliothèque de France, he saw that some of the objections concerned matters not contained in the final version of Benedict’s text. Perhaps because of his own situation on the verge of war, Mahn did not go into detail about the contents and method of the abbots, nor did he ask if it is possible to determine exactly which abbots objected. The text deserves a new analysis, but within the limitations of this article I will only provide a relatively brief presentation of its contents.22
27While Benedict quickly in his text began providing administrative reforms, the opposing abbots instead began with a general statement about the meaning of the Charter of Charity and the constitutions of the Cistercian Order. These existed “to the honor of God and the increase of religion”.23 Cistercians had until now lived according to them and served God.
28The objecting abbots were clearly not only addressing the pope. They were telling each other what their Order represented. In this beginning, the contents of the protest are much more attractive than the bare provisions of Benedict’s reformation. But in spite of this idealistic introduction appealing to the spiritual identity of the Order, the actual objections to Benedict are much more banal. The main complaint is that his constitutions would mean that every monastery would have one seal for the monks, as well as one for the abbot. This would be a dangerous novelty (magnam et periculosam novitatem).24 In order to defend their point of view, the abbots quoted from Bernard of Clairvaux’s letter to a monk Adam who left his abbey. Here Bernard warned against “taking up superfluous customs” (extraneas usurpare consuetudines).25 The abbots’ use of Bernard here seems somewhat forced, but not their appeal to the Rule of St. Benedict’s chapter 3, “the whole administration and power and authority of the monastery are vested in the abbot by the Rule”. If there is a special seal for the convent, besides that possessed by the abbot, they claimed, the Rule would be abrogated.
29The objecting abbots took on a strategy not followed by Pope Benedict. They made use of Cistercian history and the Rule of St. Benedict to justify their plea. The second major objection concerned the pope’s insistence that ordinary monks in some situations should accompany their abbots to the General Chapter. The abbots replied that they were “speaking with all reverence” but such a practice would not be in harmony with the procedures of the General Chapter as they had existed “from the origin of the Order”. To allow monks to come regularly to the Chapter would mean great expense “without great need or evident use”.26 Since the Order had more than 800 monasteries, the extra personnel would be a financial burden.
30Another objection is that Benedict’s limitation to three days for visitations would mean that there would hardly be enough time to find out what needed to be done in the abbey being visited. The abbots warned against “making provisions where many dangerous and doubtful things arise”.27 Once again they quoted a letter of Bernard to back up their case.
31In the pages that follow the abbots went into greater depth concerning their objections to seals for the monks, allowing monks to attend the General Chapter and limiting the duration of visitations. The argument can be called scholastic, marshalling authorities, contrasting them with each other, but also appealing to the experience of monastic life. Perhaps this fascinating source has gained so little attention because it apparently had little effect on actual behavior in the Order, but it is a bold declaration of the monastic vocation and open defiance of papal administration. The abbots compared themselves to other orders: none of them sent anyone to their chapters except those having administrative posts. But in the Cistercian Order only abbots were in charge of administration, so if monks who had no such positions began to attend the Chapter, they would not be able to contribute and would be out of place.28
32The reasoning does not limit itself to Cistercian history and procedures. The objectors also turned to Aristotle29 and to the Pseudo-Aristotelian Liber de causis. The central argument is that the entire power and authority of the Cistercian Order based on the Rule of Benedict is vested in the abbots. If this power is taken away from them without their being at fault, then the Rule is violated.30
33The abbots’ objections turn into a minor treatise on the contents of Cistercian life, as in considering the question of eating meat and the punishments for doing so. Offenders would be on bread and water and whipped in chapter. The abbots comment that this seems excessively harsh (Hoc videtur nimis durum).31 In this section, the abbots had left Benedict’s constitutions behind and were considering the problems they faced in their monasteries. We know from General Chapter statutes that the consumption of meat was considered to be a great problem, in violation of the original Cistercian practices.
34The abbots’ reply to Pope Benedict ends on a reconciliatory note, mentioning how “affectionate sons … wish to embrace whatever your holiness wishes to reform or also to moderate”.32 But behind the gentle tone was an iron-hard refusal to let the pope decide on how the Cistercian Order was to be run.
The General Chapters at Cîteaux: from the 1370s and into the Schism
35Moving ahead into the 1370s, before the Schism itself, it is remarkable that there were very few decisions by the General Chapter. The problem may be that of a lack of manuscripts, for one cannot take it for granted that Canivez’s edition of the General Chapter statutes is definitive.33 But on the basis of what was available to him, some perennial themes emerge. Thus in 1371 there is a long decision concerning the prohibition of eating meat: abbots who allow it would be gravely punished.34 Pope Benedict had mentioned this abuse in his constitutions, but he had not been specific about how offenders were to be punished. The Chapter also desired to make harsher sentences against abbots who failed to send scholars to houses of studies, or if they did not pay the contributions assessed to them, or did not visit the General Chapter. Another decision concerns nuns who were found outside their monasteries or who admitted suspect persons inside them. The Chapter of 1371 ordered the gates of nuns’ monasteries to be firmly closed not only at night but also in the daytime.35
36In the single decision for 1372, it is merely stated that if anything uncustomary or unusual was required from anyone in the Cistercian Order, he should not provide it without consulting the abbots in a provincialis convocatio. We thus learn that there did take place meetings of abbots from a larger area. For 1373 the one decision found in Canivez’s edition is that the Hours of the Virgin be said in choir with all reverence. It seems unlikely that abbots from all over Europe would have gone to Cîteaux and have limited themselves to the single question of devotions to Mary. Something must be missing, and in general we can assume that the General Chapter’s most interesting content is what never was written down. We have to go back to the early 13th century and the miracle stories of Caesarius of Heisterbach in order to get a sense of the good talk and gossip that took place on these occasions.36
37The requirement concerning recitation of the hours of the Blessed Virgin was repeated in 1374.37 In the next decision, abbots were forbidden to give permission to ambitious monks (ambitiosis monachis) who wanted to go to the Roman Curia, “if they wish to avoid the sentence of excommunication”. Here we get a sense of how the placement of the papacy in Avignon meant a center of attraction for monks north of the Alps. Avignon was full of important people doing the business of the Church, and a bright and eager young monk might find his way there – and lose his soul!
38In 1375 a feast day was established for Anne, the legendary mother of Mary, an indication that the Cistercians were receptive to an increasing cult of St. Anne.38 But gentle decisions about the liturgy give way to a withdrawal of permissions earlier given for eating meet outside of fixed places.39 It is not made clear what the earlier permissions involved, but it is apparent that the consumption of meat remained a regular concern for all who wanted to keep the Order faithful to its original practices.
39There is but a single decision for 1377, and it has some detail. It asserts that transgressions and offenses against the Order had multiplied, “since the nature of men frequently desires what is forbidden”, so decisions about eating meat or food seasoned with meat had been violated. Abbots were exhorted not to transgress “the rule of our most holy father and legislator and the requirements of Pope Benedict XII” on these matters. Here the two Benedicts were placed side by side, and Pope Benedict’s constitutions were being remembered more than thirty years after they appeared. Such a declaration of intent shows that the Cistercian pope’s words were still alive at the General Chapter. To what extent they were followed is another question.
40From 1378 and through 1386 we have no General Chapter decisions whatsoever at Cîteaux. Even though some may be lost, it seems likely that the advent of the Schism for some years put a stop to the General Chapters. The Order was split in two, and the monasteries that recognized the pope at Avignon apparently needed time to get their bearings and resume regular meetings, with a reduced attendance. Since the historian is not allowed to argue on the basis of silence in the sources, it would be misleading to claim that there were no General Chapters during this time. But it does look as if the regular functioning of the Order came to a temporary halt.
41There is a single entry for 1387, the first year when the Cîteaux General Chapter again becomes visible, and here one might expect a lament about the Schism and perhaps some criticism of the monasteries which did not recognize the pope in Avignon. But this is not at all the case. Instead, there is a lament about how the houses of studies in the Order were in a sorry state and especially that of St. Bernard in Paris. “We consider this sadly and desire with all our strength to help”, so the General Chapter repeated earlier provisions about how each monastery, if it had at least twelve monks, should send one to the house of studies.40 The monk student was to have his expenses reimbursed, and if a monastery failed to do so, then it was to be penalized with the cost of a double scholarship. Here we have the duplum or double payment so much used by the Order.
42These provisions indicate that even in Paris, it was not easy to get hold of a number of Cistercian students sufficient to create a proper academic milieu. But even more significant in this year’s Chapter is its total silence about what was happening to the Order in general. Here and in the years up to 1400 it was as if the Schism simply did not exist. Cîteaux and its daughters seem to have chosen to ignore the dozens of monasteries in England, Germany, Hungary, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia that did not send abbots to its Chapter. These houses set up an alternative government for their half of the Order.
43It is my impression that more attention has been given to the monasteries that followed the Roman Pope, Urban VI, and here research and publications in the first decades of the 20th century have predominated.41 So far as I can tell, there has not been similar attention to the monasteries loyal to the Avignon pope, Clement VII (r. 1378-1394). If we look at the decisions of the General Chapter , he is hardly mentioned, except in connection with the prayers to be offered by the Chapter of 1389: “For our holy Father Clement and for his happy condition and that the terrible Schism now raging in the holy Church of God be ended.”42 Here more than a decade into the Schism its existence was finally mentioned: pestiferum schisma nunc in sanctam dei ecclesiam saeviens (the Latin has already been translated above). Consequently three masses were to be said by priests of the entire Order: a frank recognition of the state of the Church, but no direct admission of how the Schism had split the Order in two.
44The General Chapter of 1389 issued 58 decisions on how monks should live, and this amount of detail makes it appropriate to spend some time in considering what it reveals in terms of Cistercian life. First of all there is a lament about the chaos of war (guerrarum turbines) and the dangers of the time, which have kept some abbots from coming to the Chapter. Those who had excused themselves were given permissions, but other abbots who had been negligent were called to the next General Chapter.43 This type of decision is common, and at times the names of the monasteries that have been excused are listed, and these can reach almost a hundred. One wonders who actually came!
45After this general statement there are some very concrete decisions, as an agreement made by a noble lord, William of Grancey, and the abbess and convent of the nuns’ monastery of La Charité.44 There was a village owned by the nuns but from which they never had received any income. The knight claimed that he owed them nothing. But finally, an agreement had been reached, according to which the knight would give the nuns thirty francs in gold to make up for the incomes previously denied the sisters. The General Chapter confirmed what the nuns and the secular lord had agreed. It is impossible to know why the Chapter decided to include such a local agreement in its decisions, but the attention indicates concern for the situation of a women’s house in the face of a society where men made most of the decisions.
46The next entry is of a type that is often to be found in the General Chapter: a brother Haimeric, monk and priest, had been “an apostate, wandering through the world for three years”.45 At the request of the abbot and convent of Fontenay, presumably Haimeric’s monastery, he was taken back into the fold and his absence would not preclude his enjoying the “honors and dignities” of his monastic state, except for his being barred from ever being elected abbot. A similar decision was made for a monk of Igny, who “at the persuasion of the enemy of the human race” spent a year outside as apostate, “but did not put aside his regular habit”.46 One wonders what the brother was doing during this year, appearing to his surroundings as a Cistercian monk but not living in his monastery. No further specifics are given.
47A similarly gentle response was given to Michael, monk of Boulancourt, who brought into the monks’ dormitory a “suspect woman”. Nothing is added about what then might have happened, but the Chapter dispensed Brother Michael of punishment and granted him permission to hold offices, except for that of abbot.47 Brother John of Woissigny, monk of Igny, was absent for a year but wore the habit and participated “rashly in the liturgy”. He was still allowed to be promoted to all positions within the Order, except for that of abbot.48
48This relatively mild reception back into monastic life of renegade monks can be surprising, but the General Chapter must have been aware of the desires of monastic communities that had been let down. In another decision, two monasteries are said to suffer from “sad desolation”, but we are not told precisely what the cause may have been.49 Two abbots were instructed to go to these houses and reform them “both in head and in members … in spiritual and temporal matters”. If necessary, the visiting abbots were to call on the secular arm. The formula “in head and members” (in capite quam in membris) is the same one used at the Council of Constance in reforming the papacy and the Church in general.50 This was very much a time for reform in the Church and in the Cistercian Order.
49A number of monasteries were excused from paying the contributions they owed to the General Chapter, such as Igny, “because of wars, the ruin of buildings, bad harvests and other misfortunes”.51 The Chapter looked upon this monastery’s situation “with compassion”, and here as elsewhere in these decisions there was involvement in individual cases, even when it came to the paying of a pension to a former abbot by his successor. “Even though it was very often requested, he refused to provide it”. The Chapter asked two abbots to censure the abbot and make sure the payment was made.52
50These decisions provide a mine of information about the situation of Cistercian monasteries of the Avignon observance at the end of the 14th century. I have reviewed some of their contents because it is important to note how the Order, or this half of it, went ahead conducting business as usual at a time when the Church was in Schism. Perhaps the best way to deal with a crisis was indeed to continue with everyday life as long as possible, ignoring the fact that Cîteaux for the time being was not recognized by monasteries in England, Germany, Scandinavia, Italy, and Hungary. There are no recriminations here, no threats or expressions of anger at the abbots who had chosen to stay away from the General Chapter at Cîteaux. The result is a kind of surreal silence, where on the surface everything went on as before.
51It was not until the Chapter of 1400 that a detailed statement was made concerning the Schism and what it meant. The decisions began with a prayer for “the most holy Roman Church in so many and such great tribulations and adversities because of the present Schism that permeates the Church”. This was said to take place because of “our sins” and by God’s “just judgment”. The cool administrative language of Chapter decisions was transformed into a lament: proh dolor … Egressus est inquit a filia Sion omnis décor eius. All its beauty has left the daughter of Sion (Lamentations 1.6). She has no one to console her. The Church and all Christians should have compassion and feel sorrow for what has happened.53
52The language and pathos of Old Testament prophecy were brought into play to express the grief and anguish of the abbots gathered at Cîteaux. But the Chapter statement does not stop here. It called on “all members of the Order of both sexes … that they have the same charity and preserve unity of the spirit in the bond of peace”. The appeal is to Christ to heal the Schism, so that after his Church had been “lacerated with discord and dissension” it might be blessed “with peace, charity, unity and concord”.
53This elegant appeal is remarkable for its lack of rancor. There is no blaming the other side for its choice of pope. Instead, there is hope of reconciliation and harmony. The same entry also repeats Christ’s words to Peter as the rock (Matthew 16). Whoever composed this text was not castigating the Roman observance but appealing for a solution to the Schism that would end strife.
54Through the 1390s the Cîteaux General Chapter had regularly offered prayers for Benedict XIII, the pope at Avignon, named in these decisions as “the one now governing the universal Church”.54 In 1397 Benedict was said to be directing the Church “by divine providence”.55 No mention of course was made of the pope in Rome. But in 1398 Benedict’s name no longer appeared and the prayers were offered “for the state of the Roman Church”.56 This same year the kingdom of France withdrew its recognition of the pope at Avignon, and the Chapter merely followed suit.57 The same phrase, pro romanae Ecclesiae statu, can be found in 1399 and 1400. In 1409 prayers were offered for Pope Alexander V, the pope elected at Pisa.58 The abbot of Cîteaux and several other abbots had attended this meeting and now they asked to be reimbursed for their expenses.59 In 1411 the pope mentioned is John XXIII, the successor of Alexander V.60
55During these years the involvement of the leadership of the Cistercian Order in the solution of the Schism is reflected in the fact that the General Chapter at Cîteaux time and again did its utmost to collect contributions to make it possible for the leading abbots to attend councils. In 1412 it was thought that the coming council would be held in Rome.61 In 1416 the Chapter named the abbots to participate in the Council of Constance.62
56These decisions demonstrate how Cîteaux and its daughters did what they could to participate in the healing of the Schism. After the years of silence, there was clearly a desire to be present in the deliberations that finally on 11 November 1417 would lead to the election of a pope who would be a genuine leader of the universal Western Church. So it came to be that in the Chapter of 1418 prayers were to be offered “for the most holy father and lord in Christ, lord Martin by divine providence pope V”.63 There is no declaration of victory, just the bald statement that Martin V was pope, without even using the phrase “of the universal Church”. The Chapter then went on to lament the state of the Order and call for its reformation. There was a great need to discuss what had to be done in this process, but “because of the small number of abbots appearing in this Chapter”, the discussion had to be delayed until the following Chapter.64 Those abbots who failed to come without a valid excuse would have to pay the fabled duplum, twice the amount they would have had to spend in order to attend the Chapter. The decision expressed hope in a “reformation of all our Order, which has in each state, alas, greatly fallen into ruins”.65 Here after the Schism was over, the Cistercians acknowledged that the Order had been split.
Urban VI, Boniface IX and the Cistercian Order
57The pope in Rome, Urban VI (1378-1389), did his utmost to reorganize the Cistercian Order. In 1379 he appointed two cardinals to get Cistercian abbots in Germany, Bohemia and Poland to attend what has been called in Bliemetzrieder’s seminal article what was “really a provincial chapter”.66 The attempt to distinguish between provincial and general chapters during this period appears to be superfluous. What matters is that the Roman observance set up its own alternative to the Avignon pope for the Cistercian Order. Urban suspended the jurisdiction of the “schismatic” abbot of Cîteaux. Bliemetzrieder published the text of Urban’s letter, calling Gerard “who acts as if he were abbot of the monastery of Cîteaux”.67 Urban added an attack on the “iniquity” of the pope in Avignon, Clement VII. He forbade Cistercians in Germany, Bohemia and Poland to have any commerce with the abbot of Cîteaux.
58After the silence of the Avignon-loyal Cistercians with regard to their status and relations to Rome, Urban’s language is almost something of a relief. Urban’s legate called the abbots of these countries to a chapter in Nürnberg on the feast of the Assumption.68 It is not clear whether this chapter took place. A similar letter was sent to the monasteries of England. The abbots of Rievaulx and Wardon were to call the abbots of monasteries in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales to a generale capitulum.69 Clearly Scottish abbots did not obey, because of their loyalty to the pope in Avignon, but the other regions established regular meetings, some of which took place in London. In a seminal article published in 1929, the English historian Rose Graham reviewed the development especially of the English Cistercian Order in these years.70 She has shown how dependent the abbots were on the king and his loyalties. In general, these years seem to have been relatively tranquil: the Cistercian houses in England of course had cut off their bonds with Cîteaux and Clairvaux, which had been their mother houses. Rievaulx, for example, had been founded from Clairvaux, with close attachment to Bernard himself, for Rievaulx’s first abbot had been Bernard’s secretary. It must have seemed strange to abandon this link. But the English houses functioned fairly well in working together, as Graham has demonstrated.
59A General Chapter was held in Rome, probably in September 1382. The contents of its decisions are not known, except for the fact that in June of 1383 Urban VI issued a writ that there be collected a caritativum subsidium, in support of the papacy, as had been decided at the Chapter nuper in Urbe celebrato (recently held in Rome).71 Thus Urban was holding on tightly to the German and Italian abbots who must have come to Rome. Their loyalty meant financial assistance to a beleaguered papacy. The abbot who was in charge of the collection was Conrad of Morimund. His monastery had remained loyal to Avignon, and he was something of a renegade from the Cîteaux observance. Morimund had replaced him with another abbot.
60Conrad had lost his monastery but gained papal support. In Rome September 1383 another subsidy or contribution was accepted, and in February 1384 Abbot Conrad of Morimund went about the business of being collector subsidii in nonnullis Alemaniae partibus, collecting the subsidy in some parts of Germany.72
61Urban VI was succeeded by Boniface IX in 1389, and he wrote abbots in Eastern Europe that they were to be visitors for Hungary, Croatia, Dalmatia, Poland and Prussia. Boniface’s writ mentions a “general council of the same Order in the month of September”.73 On the same date, 10 December 1390, Boniface IX wrote the abbot of Esrum and appointed him to be collector for Scandinavia.74 This was a task he had already been given some years earlier and one can ask to what extent the abbot was willing and able to carry it out. Esrum was traditionally the mother house of several Danish abbeys and so it was logical to turn to its abbot. But there is no indication that the abbot was present in Rome at the time.
62At the Cistercian chapter in Rome in September of 1390, it was agreed in future to celebrate the feast of Mary’s Visitation. The initiation of the feast day was to be marked by a jubilee, inviting pilgrims to Rome.75 The Jubilee was decided by Urban VI but carried out after his death on 15 October. In this manner the Cistercians were supporting what clearly was an attempt to make Rome attractive for marking a feast day that would bring income to the papacy. It is apparent in these years that the Roman papacy looked upon the Order for financial support.
63A General Chapter in Rome was planned for 1391, but after this time these meetings took place north of the Alps. A chapter was held in Vienna in September of 1393, and its decisions have been published and are worth studying for what they tell about how the Order organized itself in the Roman observance. Abbot Conrad of Morimund (or its pseudo-abbot) seems to have been in charge.
64The first provision complains about abbots who “disregard the salvation of their souls and those subject to them”.76 They expel from their monasteries monks who are not provided with clothing or money for their expenses. Such abbots “defy honesty and decency” because these monks have to wander in the world “to grave scandal of the Order and in danger for their souls”. Monks who disobey their abbots were not to be expelled from their monasteries except with enough clothing and sufficient funds. Instead of being sent away, they were to be imprisoned, until they did penance and were reconciled with their abbot.
65This decision is quite detailed and seems to have been intended to protect monks who were considered to be difficult. As seen with the efforts of Benedict XII, there was a desire in the Cistercian Order of the 14th century to protect monks from arbitrary abbots. A similar limitation on the powers of abbots is found in the second decision, which describes how some abbots acquired personal pensions from their monasteries or purchased them for life. The Chapter forbade such arrangements and ordered visitors who came to a monastery whose abbot had provided for himself in this manner to depose the abbot and supervise the election of a successor.77 This solution might seem drastic. Why could the visitor not just deprive the abbot of his pension? But the point seems to be that such an abbot was misusing his position in the monastery and so could not continue in office.
66The General Chapter of Vienna was also concerned with visitors who arranged to be paid money from the monasteries where they came. In this manner they were willing to ignore abuses “and they pass over many great matters that remain unpunished on that occasion”.78 This decision as well as the other two already mentioned is of a serious nature and apparently not one to be found in the General Chapter statutes for the Order as it had been before the Schism. It is surprising that the abbots at Vienna could have been so direct and frank about such problems of corruption in the Order, but the decisions indicate a pattern: the government of the Order was to function properly and without the possibility that a monastery or abbot could buy its way out of some abuse. Anyone who tried to keep visitors from carrying out their proper functions was liable to excommunication ipso facto.79 Thus the deed in itself would entail automatic excommunication. The next decision is similar: no abbot was to pay anything to a bishop for any of his services. The goal was to avoid simony, the buying and selling of spiritual services. This is also the concern of the next decision, “to abolish the error of simoniacal depravity”: Women were not to enter monasteries to become nuns after any payment had been made.80 Also monasteries were not to receive them if the institutions did not have the resources to look after them. Here the problem was not simony: it was the fact that many families probably wanted to send daughters to the monastery, but the Order forbade them to pay for the service. So women’s houses had to be able to support themselves without such incomes.
67These decisions are both detailed and frank. The longest one tries to sum up the entire ethos of the Cistecians Order.81 The Chapter decided that in elections, visitations, corrections and reforms “the ancient simplicity and the customs introduced by the holy Fathers be preserved and maintained in all matters”. It was required to “proceed simply and plainly and without dispute and in judgment according to our privileges and the institutes of the Order” The language recalls that of the 12th-century Charter of Charity. But the abbots who drew up this decision were aware of abuses that had to be remedied. The text spoke of “diseased presumptuousness” (pestiveris presumpcionibus) and demanded a return to the old ways as they were thought to have been.
68Jean Berthold Mahn claimed in his work on Benedict XII that the Cistercian pope failed to stop a general decline in the Order.82 The language of these decisions, however, indicates that even in the midst of the Schism, abbots could gather and legislate in attacking corruption and simony. The “ancient simplicity” was not dead and the abbots who gathered in Vienna decided to do what they could to foster it. They felt they had to cope with monks who refused to accept the orders of their abbots and instead appealed to Rome. This procedure was forbidden, for “such an appeal goes against obedience, discipline and the institutes of the Order”.83 No specific cases are mentioned, but the decision indicates that the practice was widespread. The Chapter reconfirmed the position of the abbot, which Pope Benedict to some degree had compromised, and added that a monk was not allowed to take on the office of visitor, reformator or procurator in the Order unless he first had the permission of his abbot.84
69The decisions of the Vienna General Chapter point to concern that Cistercians were losing their original discipline and practices. Monks were forbidden to go on pilgrimages and seek indulgences, “even if they are given permission by their superiors”. If they left their monasteries for such pursuits, they were to be “considered to be fugitives”.85 Abbots and monks were not to put aside their habits and dress in lay clothes, “unless necessity urges”.86 Prohibitions against eating meat were repeated.87 Such strictures are summed up in one more general statement asserting “the accustomed simplicity and decency of the Order” (simplicitatem et honestatem solitam ordinis) in terms of clothing, belts, horses, lecterns, vases and other objects, which are to be used without any curiosity, preciousness and superfluity.88 This is classic Cistercian language going back to the Charter of Charity and Bernard of Clairvaux himself.
70It would be possible to point to such decisions as indications of a decline of discipline in the Order; surely, they were made because there were problems. But the same statements can be seen as indicative of awareness that the Cistercian Order was based on common practices that gave the abbot much power and thus were in harmony with the contents of the Rule of St. Benedict itself. The participants in the Vienna Chapter decided that future chapters would be held at Heilsbronn, near Nüremberg, probably chosen because of its relatively central placement in Germany.89 All abbots of the Order were required to attend. If they did not and failed to excuse themselves, then they would be punished.90
71Such decisions sound very much like the contents of the Cîteaux General Chapters. The Cistercians of the Roman observance had succeeded in making an alternative Order, which ignored the existence of the monasteries recognizing the Avignon pope. It seems possible that this double existence could have gone on indefinitely, if the Schism had persisted. It is remarkable how little mention there is of the “other side”.
72The final decision is perhaps the one that hit the assembled abbots hardest. The monasteries were to provide a contribution of six thousand florins “for the diverse and demanding business of the Order”. Half of it was to be paid by the next Easter, the other half by the next General Chapter. Receivers of the contributions would be sent around to the monasteries, and the decision divides up the Order into geographical entities, thus making it possible to see the regions subject to the Roman observance.91 In Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Scotland, Pomerania, Slavonia and Holstein, for example, the abbot of Dargun was the collector. Scotland was thus still considered to owe allegiance to Rome. The situation of the Order brings to mind the conclusion of Peter King to his valuable study: “The Cistercian financial records of the 14th century show the marks of firm direction and of a clear if somewhat desperate financial policy”.92
73We lack similar detail for decisions of later General Chapters, but Bruno Griesser found a letter written by the abbot of Alvastra, Tidemann, to the General Chapter at Heilsbronn in 1398. The letter describes the adoption of the feast of Mary’s Visitation, established by Urban VI and confirmed by Boniface IX. Now the Cistercian Order (Roman branch) was including this feast in its calendar. The letter describes in detail how the feast was to be observed, especially when it coincided with that of the apostles, Peter and Paul. The abbot of Alvastra concluded by saying his letter would be sent to other Swedish monasteries for men and for women, “so that we may deserve to obtain all the said indulgences from the good Lord”.93
74Such a source is an invaluable indication that the Cistercians of the late 14th century were not only concerned with matters of discipline and money. Their original devotion to Mary, as in naming all their monasteries in her honor, meant receptivity to a new form of devotion to her. The Alvastra abbot’s letter indicates that Mary could be remembered in new ways. Sources for “diverse histories of the Virgin” were to be collected so that there could be compiled a fitting liturgy.
75A General Chapter was held in Vienna in September of 1397. Boniface IX summoned the abbots of England, Ireland and Wales to attend.94 The meeting recognized the abbot of Brondolo near Venice as vicar general of the Order. Further chapters were held at Heilsbronn in 1398, 1402, 1406 and 1407. Meanwhile in 1408 France cut itself off from Benedict XIII and declared itself neutral.95 A national synod was held in Paris on 11 August 1408, attended by the abbot of Cîteaux and a number of French abbots.96 Now at last the Cîteaux General Chapter made a formal declaration that “very many abbots of Germany and other parts adjacent and neighboring, have been forgetful of their salvation and for very many years have spurned coming to the said Chapter”.97 The abbot of Altenkamp in the church province of Cologne was ordered to make sure that all these abbots attended the next Chapter. Otherwise they risked the censure of the Order and deposition.
76What is remarkable here is the relative lack of bitterness towards the half the Order which had stopped coming to the General Chapter at Cîteaux. At the next Chapter, in 1409, there was rejoicing that there had come the “fullness of time in which holy mother Church, deformed by old ruins and taken apart by a long lasting desolation” had now been united under Alexander V, the pope elected at the Council of Pisa.98 Therefore all abbots of the Order were ordered to come to the following General Chapter, “for the reformation of the Order”. As so often the Latin word reformatio expressed the goal of reshaping the Order – and the Church.
77The monasteries which now returned to Cîteaux had to face a hefty bill. After the Council of Paris in 1408, the monasteries were required to pay a substantial contribution, in part “for the expenses of the […] Cistercian abbots and others residing at Paris” for the council held there.99 The history of the Cistercian Order in the coming years would revolve very much around collections of money and punishments for those who did not provide what was asked for.
Scandinavian allegiances: seeking legitimacy
78In 1380 a brother Jean de Chassignollis stated that he had been sent from the abbot of Clairvaux to Denmark, Sweden and Norway in order to collect the contributions placed on them by the General Chapter.100 He acknowledged the reception of two and a half florins from the abbot of Julita (in Sweden). This statement, couched in neutral language, reveals that a central monastery of the Avignon observance, Clairvaux, considered Scandinavia to be within its territory. But this contact brought about conflicts, for the same year (15 September), the abbot of Clairvaux, Stephen, ordered the abbots of Esrum (in Denmark) and Varnhem (in Sweden) to investigate complaints brought by the same Jean de Chassignollis against the abbot of Alvastra (in Sweden), who had expelled him from his monastery. The reason for the Alvastra abbot’s action is not given, but it can be assumed that he had followed in his kingdom’s allegiance to the pope in Rome and wanted to have nothing to do with Clairvaux and its collector. But Clairvaux’s abbot seems to have insisted that he had a right to send a collector north. Brother Stephen of Clairvaux stated that the abbots of Esrum and Varnhem were subject to him, and brother Jean had exercised the office of visitation “on our part”.101
79The same year, on 18 September, the same Stephen, abbot of Clairvaux informed the abbots of Nydala, Alvastra, Tuterøy, Hovedøy, Lyse and Klaarkamp, that he had empowered the abbot of Esrum, Peter, to hold visitations in their monasteries for a year. All these monasteries except for Klaarkamp were in Sweden and Norway. Abbot Stephen explained that he himself could not hold visitations because of other tasks he had to fulfill.102 Again there is no indication that Clairvaux would be unable to perform its duty through Esrum. The Schism is not even hinted at. A further declaration from 7 April 1381 indicates a firm desire to maintain discipline. Abbots Peter of Esrum and Tidemann of Varnhem described how they had gone to Alvastra Abbey to investigate complaints against its abbot, Mads Knop. They had removed him from office and summoned him to the General Chapter, for he had shown disobedience and rebellion towards the monk of Clairvaux sent as the Order’s collector.103 They added that Mads Knop was responsible for the bad state of Alvastra’s buildings and so there was all the more reason for him to be deposed and excommunicated.104
80If Alvastra’s abbot was on the side of Urban VI, the Roman Pope, he was in harmony with the allegiance of Sweden to Rome. But Clairvaux insisted on a status that no longer existed. It is likely that Mads Knop never went to the next General Chapter at Cîteaux. According to James France in his important work on the Cistercians in Scandinavia, Abbot Tidemann of Varnhem was elected abbot of Alvastra: “Here then, two years after the beginning of the Schism, is an example of rebellion against the authority of a mother-house in the Avignon obedience by a Swedish abbot, and the vindication of this authority by the father-abbot’s delegate in the northern kingdoms, the abbot of Esrum.”105
81Already in 1383 we have evidence that the Scandinavian monasteries had changed their minds about which pope to support. In June Pope Urban VI wrote from St. Peter’s in Rome and authorized the abbot of Esrum – who may have participated in the General Chapter – to levy contributions from Cistercian abbeys in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Scotland, Ruthenia, Pomerania and Poland, in accord with the decision of the General Chapter had made in order to support the Church in Rome.106 The letter mentions a Cistercian chapter nuper in urbe celebrato, presumably the one held in September 1383. There is a polemical element of a kind I have not found in the Cistercian literature for the Avignon obedience. Urban lamented “this storm-filled time against heretics and schismatics who in many ways try to afflict and create tribulation for the same church” (Hoc procelloso tempore contra hereticos et scismaticos qui eandem ecclesiam multipliciter affligere ac tribulate nituntur).
82It is unusual to find such a direct statement of opposition to the other side, instead of the silence that for so long characterized the Cistercians of the Avignon obedience. But there is also here an element of unreality: how in the world would the abbot of Esrum have been able to collect funds from the Scottish abbeys, for Scotland was loyal to the Avignon pope? Similarly voyages to collect money in Ruthenia, Pomerania and Poland would have been expensive and perhaps not even possible. It was more than enough to go to Sweden and Norway. It is apparent, however, that the Scandinavian abbeys had chosen sides and were loyal to the Roman pope. This meant they lost their connection with Clairvaux, which had founded them in the 12th century and with whom they probably had maintained links ever since. It is hard to imagine what it must have meant to live in such a separation. The Cistercian Order looked upon itself as a family, with mother and daughter houses and bonds of administration and affection going back to Cîteaux itself. The monasteries that remained loyal to Cîteaux and Clairvaux could at least feel that they shared continuity, however much it was threatened by the Schism. The monasteries that chose the pope in Rome cut themselves off from their mother houses. The controversy at Alvastra hints at what it could be like to try to get rid of a visitor who represented the other side.
Conclusion: the price of unity
83The story of the Cistercians in the later Middle Ages is not well known. The contents of Cistercian spirituality were perhaps best expressed by witnesses outside the Order, such as Jean Gerson. Probably on the feast of St. Bernard, 20 August 1402, he as chancellor of the University of Paris addressed the monastic students at the College of St. Bernard and tried to sum up the life and insights of their patron. Gerson’s sermon is today all but forgotten, but in trying to understand his thought and belief, I once translated his elegant Latin into English. There is a section as a “lament on the state of Christendom”. Gerson considered “this confused and blinding business of the wretched schism”.107 He hoped that troubled people would be able to “think in the way of the devout Bernard, so that they will consider old times and everlasting ages”.
84For Gerson, Bernard’s teachings provided a way to cope with the Schism. The sermon is a remarkable demonstration of how the thinking of Bernard remained alive in the period and how it could be applied to the dilemma of the Church. But General Chapter decisions indicate that the house of studies in Paris was a source of perennial trouble, not only because of its expense but also because there were times when it hardly had any students. The question always existed whether the Cistercian vocation included getting a scholastic education. For many monks Paris and the other houses of studies must have symbolized a departure from the monastic life.
85The Order did manage to reestablish unity after 1408, however great the cost in terms of new contributions and the probably painful memory of the years of separation. Perhaps it can seem naïve, but it is possible that what held the Order together – or brought it back together – was the abiding presence of its foundation documents. The Charter of Charity with its requirement of chapters and visitations provided a structure that existed all through the Schism, even though it was duplicated. The abbots who a few years later went to the Council of Constance could feel confident that the unity of their Order had been restored.
86For some decades the Cistercian Order had been split into two orders, and yet each Order acted as if it were the only Cistercian Order. At times, as in Scandinavia, there could be stress and conflicts because of the split, and yet most of the time each Order simply continued as if the other Order did not exist. The Schism was certainly a burden for the Cistercians, and yet its members can be seen as exerting grace under pressure. Instead of condemning each other, Cistercian abbots and their monks continued with their daily lives, probably in the hope of better times.
87It would be wrong to idealize the Cistercian Order, but its one great virtue is that it persisted, in spite of plague, war and Schism. Survival itself can be a great accomplishment in history, as we all know in looking back upon a Europe which so many times has nearly destroyed itself. But the Cistercians are still around, not only in Europe but in every other inhabited continent.
Bibliographie
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Stephen of Lexington 1982 = Stephen of Lexington, Letters from Ireland 1228-1229, trans. B. O’Dwyer, Kalamazoo, MI, 1982.
Secondary sources
Berman 2018 = C.H. Berman, The White Nuns. Cistercian Abbeys for Women in Medieval France, Philadelphia, 2018.
Bliemetzrieder 1904 = F.P. Bliemetzrieder, Der Zisterzienserorden im grossen abendländischen Schisma, in Studien und Mitteilungen aus dem Benediktiner- und dem Zisterzienser Orden, 25, 1904, p. 62-82.
Délaissé 2020 = E. Délaissé, La Charte de charité, 1119-2019 : un document pour preserver l’unité entre les communautés, Paris, 2020.
Eberl 2002 = I. Eberl, Die Zisterzienser. Geschichte eines europäischen Ordens, Stuttgart, 2002.
France 1992 = J. France, The Cistercians in Scandinavia, Kalamazoo, MI, 1992.
Graham 1929 = R. Graham, The Great Schism and the English Monasteries of the Cistercian Order, in English Historical Review, 44, 1929, p. 373-387.
King 1985 = P. King, The Finances of the Cistercian Order in the Fourteenth Century, Kalamazoo, MI, 1985.
Knowles 1966 = D. Knowles, The Monastic Order in England, Cambridge, 1966.
Lekai 1977 = L. Lekai, The Cistercians Ideals and Reality, Kent State, OH, 1977.
Le Roy Ladurie 1975 = E. Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou, village Occitan de 1294 à 1324, Paris, 1975.
Mahn 1949 = J.-B. Mahn, Le pape Benoît XII et les cisterciens, Paris, 1949.
Mahn 1951 = J.-B. Mahn, L’Ordre Cistercien et son gouvernement des origines au milieu du XIIIe siècle, Paris, 1951.
McGuire 2005 = B.P. McGuire, Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation, University Park, PA, 2005.
McGuire 2020 = B.P. McGuire, Bernard of Clairvaux. An Inner Life, Ithaca, NY, 2020.
Oakley 1979 = F. Oakley, The Western Church in the Later Middle Ages, Ithaca, NY, 1979.
Ortved 1926 = E. Ortved, Von Generalkapiteln auf dem Festlande ausserhalb Cîteaux' während des grossen Schismas, in Cistercienser Chronik, 38, 1926, p. 279-282.
Welsh 2017 = J. Welsh, The Cult of St. Anne in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, London-New York, 2017.
Notes de bas de page
1Lekai 1977 has a chapter on “The End of Prosperity” with the briefest treatment of the Cistercians in the schism. Immo Eberl 2002 provides the fullest history of the Order.
2Délaissé 2020 has a number of articles concerning the genesis of the Charter of Charity and its impact.
3Lekai 1977 on “The Challenge of Scholasticism”, p. 77-90.
4Stephen of Lexington 1982.
5Berman 2018.
6Mahn 1951.
7Mahn 1949.
8King 1985.
9Alberigo 1962, no. 12, p. 216-217: De communibus capitulis monachorum.
10Le Roy Ladurie 1975, p. 10-12.
11Mahn 1949, p. 9-10.
12Canivez 1935, p. 410-436. References to Canivez will be to year and the number of the decision by the General Chapter. References to Benedict’s Fulgens sicut stella will be to the relevant section. The entire bull is published in Canivez 1935.
13Canivez 1935, p. 410.
14Knowles 1966, p. 300-301.
15McGuire 2020, p. 137.
16Canivez 1935: 1335, no. 1.
17Canivez 1935: 1335, no. 6.
18Canivez 1935: 1335, no. 7.
19Canivez 1935: 1335, no. 13.
20Canivez 1935: 1336, no. 4.
21McGuire 2005, p. 148.
22Mahn 1949, p. 85-135.
23Mahn 1949, p. 85.
24Mahn 1949, p. 86.
25Bernardi Opera 1974, vol 7, Epistola 7.16., edited in Mahn 1949, p. 87.
26Mahn 1949, p. 91.
27Mahn 1949, p. 92.
28Mahn 1949, p. 101.
29Mahn 1949, p. 105.
30Mahn 1949, p. 106.
31Mahn 1949, p. 129.
32Mahn 1949, p. 135.
33See Griesser 1957.
34Canivez 1935: 1371, no. 1.
35Canivez 1935: 1371, no. 2.
36Caesarius of Heisterbach 1966: dist. Tertia, cap. 23: quem dominus abbas Cisterciensis omnibus abbatibus in generali capitulo loco sermonis recitavit.
37Canivez 1935: 1374, no. 2.
38Canivez 1935: 1375, no. 2; Welsh 2017.
39Canivez 1935: 1375, no. 3.
40Canivez 1935: for 1387.
41A central study remains Bliemetzrieder 1904. Also Ortved 1926.
42Canivez 1935: 1389, no. 33.
43Canivez 1935: 1389, no. 1.
44Canivez 1935: 1389, no. 4.
45Canivez 1935: 1389, no. 5.
46Canivez 1935: 1389, no. 6.
47Canivez 1935: 1389, no. 6.
48Canivez 1935: 1389, no. 7.
49Canivez 1935: 1389, no. 9.
50Alberigo 1962, p. 384: As in the decree of 30 March 1415: generale concilium faciens, pro exstirpatione praesentis scismatis, et unione ac reformatione ecclesiae Dei in capite et in membris fienda.
51Canivez 1935: 1389, no. 17.
52Canivez 1935: 1389, no. 27.
53Canivez 1935: 1400, no. 10: Egressus est, inquit, a filia Sion omnis decor eius, deposita est vehementer, non habens consolatorem. Cui compati condolereque debent universales Ecclesiae et universi christiani.
54Canivez 1935: 1395, no. 39 is an example.
55Canivez 1935: 1397, no. 1: Pro sanctissimo in Christo patre domino domino Benedicto divina providentia Papa XIII nunc universalem ecclesiam gubernante.
56Canivez 1935: 1398, nr. 1: Pro romanae ecclesiae statu.
57Oakley 1979, p. 62.
58Canivez 1936: 1409, no. 1.
59Canivez 1936: 1409, no. 50.
60Canivez 1936: 1411, no. 1.
61Canivez 1936: 1412, no. 58.
62Canivez 1936: 1416, no. 25.
63Canivez 1936: 1418, nr. 1.
64Canivez 1936: 1418, no. 8.
65Canivez 1936: 1418, no. 8: reformationem totius Ordinis nostri, in utroque heu! statu multipliciter collapsi.
66Bliemetzrieder 1904, p. 77.
67Bliemetzrieder 1904, p. 78.
68Griesser 1955, p. 65.
69Griesser 1955, p. 66.
70Graham 1929.
71Griesser 1955, p. 66.
72Griesser 1955, p. 66-67.
73Griesser 1955, p. 67.
74Ortved 1926, p. 280.
75Griesser 1955, p. 67.
76Griesser 1955, p. 72: 1393, 1.
77Griesser 1955, p. 72-73: 1393, 2.
78Griesser 1955, p. 73: 1393, 3.
79Griesser 1955, p. 73: 1393, 4.
80Griesser 1955, p. 73-74: 1393, 6.
81Griesser 1955, p. 74-75: 1393, 9.
82Mahn 1949, p. 82.
83Griesser 1955, no. 10.
84Griesser 1955, no. 11.
85Griesser 1955, no. 13.
86Griesser 1955, no. 14: nisi urgens necessitas.
87Griesser 1955, no. 15.
88Griesser 1955, no. 17.
89Griesser 1955, no. 22.
90Griesser 1955, no. 23.
91Griesser 1955, no. 26.
92King 1985, p. 118.
93Griesser 1995, p. 82.
94Griesser 1955, p. 69.
95Griesser 1955, p. 70.
96Canivez 1936: 1408, no. 16.
97Canivez 1936: 1408, no. 17.
98Canivez 1936: 1409, no. 47: Ecce iam venit plentudo temporis, in quo sacrosanctam matrem Ecclesiam ruinis deformatam veteribus, et diutinae desolationis.
99Canivez 1936: 1408, no. 16.
100Diplomatarium 1987, no. 15, 2 April 1380.
101Diplomatarium 1987, no. 58, around 15 September 1380.
102Diplomatarium 1987, no. 59, 18 September 1380.
103Diplomatarium 1987. nr. 124, 7 April 1381.
104A helpful review of these events and their possible background is to be found in France 1992, p. 372-375.
105France 1992, p. 373.
106Diplomatarium 1987, no. 360, 17 June 1383.
107Gerson 1998, p. 145.
Auteur
-
Brian Patrick McGuire
Independent scholar, brian@bpmg.dk
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Licence OpenEdition Books. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
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