4 - Centres and peripheries

Summary

The history of the Cistercian Order in the Middle Ages encompasses the histories of its central structures, the General Chapter, the international networks and the experiences of individual monastic houses. We cannot isolate one from the other; if we want to explore the history of the White Monks as a whole, we have to consider both the centre and the periphery of the Order and their influence on each other.

In the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Cistercian movement spread from Burgundy to the very frontiers of Latin Christendom in Scandinavia, the Baltic region, Central-Eastern Europe, Iberia, the crusader states and Greece. Cistercian expansion in the 1120s and 1130s involved primarily the core of Western Europe – France, Germany, the British Isles and Christian territories in Iberia – whilst in the 1140s a wave of foundations emerged in Central-Eastern Europe (Poland, Bohemia and Hungary) and Scandinavia (Denmark, Sweden and Norway). The White Monks spread through the foundation of new monasteries from mother houses, but also through incorporation of other reformed communities and appropriation of existing monasteries. Proprietary patrons were often instrumental in this process. In Ireland Cistercian monasteries play an important part in bringing the Hibernian Church in line with the continental model of diocesan and monastic structures. Although the first Cistercian abbey in Ireland, Mellifont, was a direct foundation from Clairvaux, its many daughter houses were originally native monastic communities, which took up Cistercian customs to become incorporated into the Order. Their success was in no small part a result of Irish kings’ support for the ideas of reform. In Denmark the Hvides, a leading noble family in the region, transformed the Benedictine house at Sorø on Zealand (founded in the late 1140s) into a Cistercian monastery in 1161. The founders of the oldest Polish Cistercian abbeys were predominantly bishops, whilst the arrival of White Monks in Scotland was closely connected with the implementation of Church reform there. Many lay founders were ambitious noblemen, such as Fergus, lord of Galloway or Warcisław Świe˛tobrzyc, castellan of Szczecin in Western Pomerania. For the social elites of the European frontiers the Cistercians represented aspirational cultural and spiritual capital. Their acts of patronage were one way of asserting their status as members of the Latin Christian nobility.