"I do not speak," he writes, "of the prodigious height of the churches, of their immeasurable length, of their unnecessary width, of their sumptuous ornaments, of their curious paintings, which draw the glances of those who are at prayer, and prevent them from praying. As a monk, I address myself to monks, and I say to them: You who should be poor, what do you with this gold in the sanctuary? Other than this should be the conduct of the bishops, other than this that of the monks. The bishops, as we know, extend their solicitude to the foolish as well as to the wise. That they should seek to arouse by exterior ornament the devotion of a carnal people insensible to the ornaments of the soul, we can well understand; but we who have come forth from the bosom of this people, who, for the love of Christ, have left the world and all which is precious and apparent, we who regard as dung all that shines by beauty, all that flatters the ear by harmony, that pleases the senses of smell and touch, in a word, all that can give rise to sensual pleasure, whose devotion do we aspire to arouse by these ornaments?
"And to speak my thought openly, is it not avarice, that idolatry of slaves, which inspires us, and do we not seek rather the gifts of matter than the fruits of the spirit? How so, will you reply? I will tell you. Gold is lavished on every hand that it may multiply; it is spread abroad that it may be augmented. At the sight of these sumptuous vanities which excite astonishment, men feel themselves inflamed with the will to give, rather than with the will to pray. I do not know what this penchant may be, that bids us give more willingly to him that already has much. Eyes are dazzled by reliquaries covered with gold, and the sight of them opens every purse. The more the chasse shines in beauty, the more sacred are the relics held to be. We hasten to kiss them, and we feel ourselves drawn on into giving; we admire that which strikes the eye, rather than venerate holy things. In the churches are exposed, not crowns, but wheels encrusted with pearls, and the lamps which surround them cast a light less bright than the precious stones. For candalabra, we see rise a tier of enormous weight, fashioned with a marvellous art, which glitters less by the candles which surmount it, than by the diamonds with which it is adorned.
"What seek ye in all that, I ask you; is it the compunction of penitence or the astonishment of the eye? O Vanity of Vanities, O Folly! In her buildings, the church is ashine, in her poor she is all impoverished. She clothes her stones with gold, she leaves her children naked. 'Tis at the expense of the poor that we seek to flatter the eye of the rich. The curious find wherewithal to charm them; the unfortunate seek in vain their daily bread. Do we not abuse our veneration of the images of the saints, until they are ready to rise from the paving-stones? Here one is spitting in an angel's mouth; there the passers-by tread upon the face of a saint. If you do not respect these holy images, why do you not respect at least their brilliant colouring? Of what use is it to decorate these figures if they are to be continually soiled with dust? Of what use are they to the poor, to the monks, to spiritual men?
"What is the meaning in the cloisters, before the brother occupied in reading, of those ridiculous monsters, those deformed beauties, those beautiful deformities? What do they there, those unclean apes, those fierce lions, those monstrous centaurs, those figures half man, half beast, those striped tigers, those fighting soldiers, those huntsmen who sound the horn? On one side, I see many heads on a single body; on the other, many bodies with a single head; here a beast with a serpent's tail; there a fish with an animal's head. Half a horse ends in half a goat; a horned animal bears a horse's croup. Everywhere appears a multitude of varied and uncouth forms. More pleasure is taken in reading on marble than in books; we choose rather to pass the whole day in looking upon these pictures than in meditating upon the Divine Law. Great God, though we blush not at such follies, let us blush, at least, at the sums they cost!"[107]
However worthy such ideals might be from the spiritual point of view—and no one, surely, can read Bernard's letter without feeling its power and sincerity—it is obvious that, like those of the later Puritanism, they bore within them the germs of their own destruction. No community of man, even in those glorious days of the early middle ages, could live, for long, up to that standard; and as the order established itself all over Europe, almost, the diffusion of its forces resulted necessarily in a swift falling away, and loss of prestige. That change, though, perhaps, a disaster for the Christian church, was the salvation of Western Europe; for, had the ideals of Citeaux finally prevailed over those of Cluny, the glorious Gothic arts of the next three centuries, upon which Cluny certainly exercised great influence—of which, indeed, she was the mother—would not have attained the same development.
Among the distinguished visitors to Citeaux, were Louis le Gros, in 1127; Pope Eugène III., who presided over the chapter general, in 1148; Louis VII., in 1166; and Louis IX. (St. Louis), who came here from Vézelay, in 1244.
On that occasion, according to custom, the Duke of Burgundy, Hugues IV., preceded the royal cortège up to the limit of his lands. As they approached Citeaux, coming in sight of the church, all left their horses, and advanced on foot in the attitude of prayer. The prelates, the abbots who were there, and the monks, to the number of five hundred, came forth in procession to welcome the monarch visiting them for the first time. Louis IX. and Queen Blanche did not lodge in the abbey, but in the Hotel du Duc de Bourgogne, without the walls. They were specially authorized to eat meat during their stay, on condition that such permission would not be granted on a future occasion.[108]
Upon the fair fame of the later history of the order there rests one indelible stain. Citeaux was largely responsible for that series of awful crimes and massacres known as the Albigensian crusade. Early in the thirteenth century, Innocent III., weary of vain attempts by spiritual force to crush out heresy from the church, decided to employ the not unwilling Cistercians to preach a new crusade. A great army of "Crusaders," under the command of Eudes III., Duke of Burgundy, crossed the Rhône at Avignon, and passing through Montpellier, came to Béziers, where they proceeded to indulge in "the greatest massacre ever committed in all the world; for they spared neither young nor old, nor even infants at the breast." It seems a cruel irony that from Arnaud, Abbot of Citeaux, a successor of St. Robert and St. Bernard, should have come the answer to the question how they were to deal with the heretics: "Kill them all; God will know His Own!"