8 - ‘Lanterns shining in a dark place’: the Cistercians and the world

Summary

Shining through the mist like the morning star, the holy Cistercian Order fights in the Church militant by work and example. By the exercise of holy contemplation and the merit of innocent life, it fervently strives to scale the heights with Mary. It strives to conform itself to the work of the anxious Martha through the exercise of praiseworthy deeds and assiduous concern for pious works.

The Cistercians may have preferred rural locations which were removed from the distractions of urban life, but as we have seen throughout this discussion their desert was more metaphoric than real. Cistercian sites were not isolated; nor were communities cut off from society. On the contrary the White Monks engaged with the world. They both influenced, and were influenced by, social, economic, political and spiritual developments. This might mean taking on regional practices and disseminating new styles and techniques of architecture and farming, or working with secular and ecclesiastical powers to champion reform or augment state building. Communities were at times hit by warfare, plague and famine; individual members served as diplomats and arbiters in local, national and international affairs. Some held public office. The Cistercians of San Galgano, Tuscany, acted as treasurers for Siena from the mid-thirteenth century until the early fourteenth century. This interaction with society should not, however, be seen as an abandonment of the desert and a falling away from ideals. As Martha Newman has argued, the Cistercians engaged with the world from the outset. Indeed their involvement was fundamental to the Order’s understanding of caritas: as monks and Christians the Cistercians had a duty to reform the world outside the monastery and a responsibility for the spiritual welfare of others. Far from being incompatible with Cistercian beliefs – or indeed with the tenets of Benedict’s Rule – their ties with rulers, the papacy, ecclesiastics and laity augmented the Order’s expansion throughout Western Christendom and supported its very survival.

The monastery was a place of contemplation but the precinct walls were not impenetrable and the Cistercians, like other religious communities, engaged with society from within the confines of their cloisters. The brethren sent out their prayers to assist individuals and support specific ventures such as war and the Crusades. They welcomed guests, buried outsiders and wrote letters of advice to men and women of all states.