The Order was established in England shortly after the Norman Conquest, and when the monasteries were suppressed in the 16th century, there were thirty-two Cluniac Monasteries in this country, one only—at Bermondsey—being an abbey.
3. The Cistercians (Fig. 2).
This was the most flourishing offshoot of the Benedictines, and was founded at the Monastery of Citeaux, A.D. 1092. Though not the founder the greatest organiser was an Englishman, St. Stephen Harding. The Cistercians formed themselves “into an organised corporation, under the perpetual pre-eminence of the Abbot and house of Citeaux, with yearly Chapters, which all Superiors were bound to attend.”
The Order spread very rapidly, and the first abbey was founded in England A.D. 1129. At the general suppression there were one hundred Cistercian houses in this country.
4. The Carthusians (Fig. 3).
This Order was founded in the 11th century on very strict and ascetic lines. The monks lived a life of the greatest austerity and practised the most self-denying ordinances. Their clothes were mean and rough; they never ate meat—fish and eggs being the only animal food allowed, and that only on two days in the week. On two days they had pulse or herbs boiled, and on three days bread and water—only two meals a day being taken.
The first Carthusian house was founded in England A.D. 1180, and there were only eight monasteries of the Order in this country at the dissolution of the monasteries.
Most of the above Orders had houses of Nuns affiliated to them.