The Cistercians in the Middle Ages by Janet Burton and Julie Kerr (review)

Part of an invaluable series on monastic orders of the Middle Ages, The Cistercians in the Middle Ages by Janet Burton and Julie Kerr is a treasure trove of detailed information historical, bibliographical, and terminological. After a brief introduction on the eleventh-century monastic mentality of renewal and reform, the authors concentrate on the “golden age” of the Order in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, primarily in the British Isles, with occasional illustrative glances at continental houses and at developments in the later Middle Ages with only a passing and British glance at the unhappy period of dissolution.

In chapters 1 and 2, Burton lays a solid base by providing a general overview of the foundation and expansion of the Cistercian observance. Chapter 1, “The ‘desert place called Cîteaux,’” looks at the mentality and self-aware documentation of the founding generation as well as recent studies of its dating and their cleverly forged connections with ecclesiastical and secular authorities, not least the relatives of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. In chapter 2, “‘In mountain valleys and plains’: The spread of the Cistercian Order,” she traces in chronological groupings the ever widening circles of Cistercian growth, whether by foundation or incorporation of existing houses of both men and women up to and beyond the decisions of General Chapter, in 1152 and 1213 respectively, not to accept or to found new monasteries of men or women. Within this framework, she provides an excellent discussion of the Carta caritatis in its various redactions, accepting the authorship of Stephen Harding. Departing from the all too usual pattern of relegating the nuns to a separate, usually brief, chapter, Burton includes the “moniales albe” within the general overview, noting the meager documentation available for women’s monasteries and the nuns’ absence from General Chapters, and ending with the 1228 General Chapter distinction between nunneries under its jurisdiction and those, often savvy, nuns who “emulated” Cistercian customs.

Kerr then takes up the story and in six chapters covers the aesthetics and practicalities of Cistercian siting and architecture in far-flung regions (chapter 3); administration and discipline within each monastery and the unifying oversight of the General Chapter, not overlooking the increasing difficulties of maintaining an effective system of visitation as the Cistercians spread to the far reaches of Europe (chapter 4); daily life with its balance of liturgical prayer, lectio divina, and manual labor, and what can be known of relations within the community and the austerities of daily life (chapter 5); spirituality (chapter 6); the contribution, customs, and decline of laybrothers (whose spiritual formation is passed over as including “some liturgical duties,” p. 151), the grange economy and Cistercian adaptability in adjusting to local technology and non-agrarian industry (chapter 7); and finally (chapter 8) the Cistercians’ impact on the geographically diverse and chronologically changing world about them, and its effect on them. A glossary, somewhat jarringly set in a larger font than the rest of the book, and an up-to-date bibliography conclude the book.

By citing myriad and dated examples of Cistercian continuity and change, the two historians provide an overview built on accurate detail in the best tradition of such scholars as R.W. Southern. Whether North American students unfamiliar with British geography will be able fully to grasp the picture sketched by these details or to realize that Cistercians in parts of Europe rarely or never mentioned may have had different experiences remains to be seen. Transitions that may be clear to a professional historian are not accentuated, so that events separated by two centuries sometimes appear coeval, obscuring how the Cistercians changed as the medieval world and their own circumstances altered. The weakest chapter is that on Cistercian spirituality. Stress on the Cistercians’ devotion to the humanity of Christ and his mother is neither set within an historical framework nor compared with that...