[CHAPTER VII]
Purity and simplicity having been always potent factors in the development of the spiritual life, it followed, as the night the day, that Cluny's ever-growing indulgencies and luxury, while they sapped her own strength, laid her open to supercession by the devotees of an uncorrupted order. By the time of Pierre le Vénérable, that rival had already arisen. The Cistercian Order, under the rule of St. Bernard, at Clairvaux, had already supplanted Cluny as the first religious power of Europe. The story of the rise of Citeaux is full of legendary and historical interest.
About the middle of the eleventh century, Eringarde, the wife of Theodoric, a nobleman of Normandy, was about to become a mother. On the eve of the expected birth, the Holy Virgin appeared to the lady, and showed to her a golden ring, saying: "With this ring I betrothe to myself the son whom you shall bring into the world." The child was baptized under the name of Robert. When he was grown up, and had heard the story of his mother's vision, he left his native home, and betook himself to Burgundy, there to consecrate a monastery to the cult of God and St. Mary. The spot he chose for the foundation, in the year 1075, was in the forest of Molême, beyond Châtillon. There a company of fellow anchorites built, of the branches of trees, a chapel in honour of the Virgin, and there, in that solitude, they led a life so austere, so laborious, so fervent, that the monks of Molême came to be known rather as angels than men.
But, before many years had passed, abundance and prosperity had brought about a general lassitude, and departure from the austerity of the early rule. Robert's disciples mutinied against their Abbot, who then knew that the time for departure was come. Early in the year 1098, a little band of Benedictine monks, twenty-one in number, including Robert, the prior, and sub-prior, might have been seen issuing from the abbey gateway of Molême. They took with them no other provision for their travels than the vestments and sacred vessels for the celebration of the most holy mysteries, and a large breviary for the due performance of the divine office. Through wild and rugged paths, by mountain and forest, they journeyed on, chanting the divine praises, until, in the midst of the great plain of Burgundy, they came upon a vast solitude, the haunt of wild beasts, which, among the forest trees, found shelter in the underwood and brambles. Here, as they wended their way along the banks of a stream, beside reed-fringed, stagnant pools, where only the discordant cry of the water-fowl broke the awful silence of nature, the travellers heard a voice from Heaven, crying "Sistite hic!" (halt here), and knew that this forest was the spot in which God willed that they should serve Him.
Obtaining grant of the land, and aid, from Eudes, Duke of Burgundy, and the Vicomte de Beaune, whose it was, they raised their monastery, which was solemnly dedicated, on the 21st March, 1098, to the Virgin Mary, and named Citeaux, in memory of the divine command they had heard.[98]
St. Robert stayed only for one year in Citeaux, before an order of the sovereign pontiff recalled him to Molême; but the new monastery continued to flourish under the guidance of Stephen Harding, a young English monk.
About this time it pleased the Virgin to show conspicuously to the brethren her good pleasure in the life they were leading in her honour. One day, when they were chanting matins, Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth, resplendent in glory, appeared to them with the first rays of the dawn, and, in a moment, with a touch of her hand, changed the tawny robes of the Cistercians into garments of spotless purity. The vision vanished; but cowl and tunic retained the dazzling brilliancy of snow.