(3.) The Cistercian order, which I have mentioned, was founded by Robert of Molême (A.D. 1098), and took its name from its chief monastery, Citeaux, or, in Latin, Cistercium. The rule was very strict. From the middle of September to Easter they were to eat but one meal daily. Their monasteries were not to be built in towns, but in lonely places. They were to shun pomp and pride in all things. Their services were to be plain and simple, without any fine music. Their vestments and all the furniture of their churches were to be coarse and without ornament. No paintings, nor sculptures, nor stained glass were allowed. The ordinary dress of the monks was to be white.
At first it seemed as if the hardness of the Cistercian rule prevented people from joining. But the third abbot of Citeaux, an Englishman, named Stephen Harding, when he was distressed at the slow progress of the order, was comforted by a vision in which he saw a multitude washing their white robes in a fountain; and very soon the vision seemed to be fulfilled. In 1113 Bernard (of whom we shall hear more presently) entered the monastery of Citeaux, and by and by the order spread so wonderfully that it equalled the Cluniac congregation in the number of houses belonging to it. These were not only connected together like the Cluniac monasteries, but had a new kind of tie in the general chapters, which were held every year. For these general chapters every abbot of the order was required to appear at Citeaux, to which they all looked up as their mother. Those who were in the nearer countries were bound to attend every year; those who were further off, once in three, or five, or seven years, according to distance. Thus the smaller houses were allowed to have a share in the management of the whole; and the plan was afterwards imitated by Carthusians and other orders.
(4.) I need not mention any more of the societies of monks which began about the same time; but I must not omit to say that the Crusades gave rise to what are called military orders, of which the first and most famous were the Templars and the Hospitallers, or Knights of St. John. These orders were governed by rules which were much like those of the monks; but the members of them were knights, who undertook to defend the Holy Land against the unbelievers. The Hospitallers were at first connected with a hospital which had been founded at Jerusalem for the benefit of pilgrims by some Italian merchants, and took its name from St. John, an archbishop of Alexandria, who was called the Almsgiver. They had a black dress, with a white cross on the breast, and, from having been at first employed in nursing the sick and relieving the poor, they became warriors who fought against the Mussulmans.
The Templars, who wore a white dress, with a red cross on the breast, were even more famous as soldiers than the Hospitallers. The knights of both these orders were bound by their rules to remain unmarried, to be regular and frequent in their religious exercises, to live plainly, to devote themselves to the defence of the Christian faith and of the Holy Land; and for the sake of this work emperors, kings, and other wealthy persons bestowed lands and other gifts on them, so that they had large estates in all the countries of Europe. But as they grew rich, they forgot their vows of poverty and humility, and, although they kept up their character for bravery, they were generally disliked for their pride and insolence.
We shall see by and by how it was that the order of the Temple came to ruin. But the Hospitallers lasted longer. When the Christians were driven out of the Holy Land, the knights of this order removed first to Cyprus, then to Rhodes, and, last of all, to Malta, where they continued even until quite late times.
Other military orders were founded after the pattern of the Templars and the Hospitallers. The most famous of them were the Teutonic (or German) knights, who fought the heathens on the shores of the Baltic Sea, and got possession of a large country, which afterwards became the kingdom of Prussia; and the order of St. James, which belonged to Spain, and there carried on a continual war with the Mahometan Moors, whose settlement in that country has already been mentioned.[77]
NOTES