THE FOUNDATION OF THE CISTERCIAN ORDER BY STEPHEN HARDING.
Source.—William of Malmesbury, De gestis regum Anglorum, ed. Stubbs, vol. ii., p. 380. (Rolls Series.)
In his (William Rufus’) days was founded the Cistercian order, which is now believed and alleged to provide the surest path to Heaven. To speak of this here is not irrelevant to the work I have undertaken, since it is England’s glory to have bred the man who was at once the founder and the organizer of this rule. To us he belongs, and in our schools as a boy he passed his early years. Therefore, if we are without envy, we shall the more gratefully cherish his worth, the more intimately we learn of it; at the same time I am myself disposed to sing loud his praises, because it is a noble trait to approve in others those qualities, the lack of which in yourself you regret. Harding was his name among the English, and he was born of no very illustrious parentage. In early youth he was a monk at Sherborne, but when, as he grew up, worldly desires troubled him, disgusted with his cloth, he went first to Scotland and afterwards to France. There, after some years education in the humanities, he felt the prickings of the love of God, for, after his manhood had put away childish follies, he went to Rome with a clerk, his fellow-student; neither the length nor the difficulty of the journey, nor their poverty, could restrain them from chanting daily the whole psalter as they went and returned. Already, indeed, the renowned man was meditating at heart the purpose which by God’s grace he began to execute soon after; returning to Burgundy, he received the tonsure in Molesme, a new and great monastery, and readily acknowledged the first principles of the rule, as he had formerly seen them; but when other observances were proposed to him which he had neither read in the rule nor ever seen, he began to press for the reason of the same, humbly and as becomes a monk.... His opinions, spreading, as happens, from one to another, justly moved the hearts of such as feared God, lest perchance they should run or had run in vain. The question, therefore, was debated in many chapters, and ended in the agreement of the abbot himself that superfluous observances should be given up and only the essential principles followed. Thereupon two of the brethren were chosen, of equal learning and piety, to enquire by vicarious research touching the will of the founder of the rule, and to expound the results of their enquiry to the others. The abbot strove earnestly to obtain the consent of the whole convent, but it is difficult to uproot from men’s minds old habits of thought, since they are reluctant to eschew what they have earliest digested; so well-nigh all refused to accept the new doctrine, because they loved the old. Only eighteen, among whom was Harding (who is also called Stephen), persisted in their holy determination, and left the community with their abbot, declaring that the rule could not be observed in its purity in a place where the soul, in spite of struggle, was overwhelmed by wealth and gluttony. So they came to Cîteaux, a place once simple woodland, but now so marked by the abundant piety of monks, that it is deservedly held to be conscious of the divine presence itself. There, by the countenance of the archbishop of Vienne, now Pope, they entered upon a labour worthy of renown and reverence for all time.
Truly many of their rules seem severe, but these especially: they wear no fur or linen, nor that finely woven woollen cloth which we call staminium; they never have breeches, except when they are sent on a journey, and then they wash and give them up on their return; they have two gowns with hoods, but put on no added garment in winter; but in summer, if they choose, they lighten their clothing. They sleep robed and girt, and never return to their beds after matins, but they so order the hour of matins that it shall be light before the laudes; they are so careful of the rule that they deem no jot or tittle should be disregarded. Immediately after the laudes they chant the prime, whereafter they go forth to work for stated hours. They accomplish all their labour and chanting for the day without any artificial light. None is ever absent from the daily services, none from compline, except the sick; the cellarer and hospitaller, after compline, serve the guests, observing however the strictest silence. The abbot allows himself nothing that is not allowed to others, and is everywhere present, everywhere tending his flock; only he eats not with the rest, since his table is always with pilgrims and the poor. None the less, wherever he be, he is sparing of speech and food, for neither for him nor for others are laid more than two courses; only the sick may have lard and meat. From 5 September to Easter, regarding no festival except Sundays, they break their fast but once a day. They never leave the cloister except to work, nor do they converse then, or at any time, except in turn to the abbot or prior. They observe unwearied the canonical hours, adding nothing foreign thereto, except a vigil for the dead. They use in divine offices the Ambrosian chants and hymns, so far as they could learn them at Milan. They bestow care on guests and the sick, but inflict intolerable crosses on their own bodies for the salvation of their souls.... In a word, the Cistercian monks are to-day a pattern for all monks, a mirror for the diligent, a spur to the slothful.
FASHIONS AT THE COURTS OF WILLIAM RUFUS AND HENRY I.
Source.—William of Malmesbury, De gestis regum Anglorum, ed. Stubbs, vol. ii., pp. 369, 530. (Rolls Series.)
Flowing hair was then in vogue, and extravagance of dress; and the fashion of shoes with curved points was then adopted; it was the ambition of the young gallants to rival women in suppleness of limb, in mincing gait, in easy gesture and uncovered bust. Effeminate and soft, they refused to be what birth had made them.
In the twenty-ninth year (of Henry I.) an event occurred in England which may appear strange to our long-haired dandies, who forget their sex and eagerly ape the fashions of women. An English knight, who was proud of his luxuriant hair, was terrified by the pricks of conscience into a dream, in which he thought a man was strangling him with his own locks. Shaken out of his sleep, he straightway cut off his too abundant curls. The fashion spread throughout England, and, since a recent shock commonly stirs the feelings, almost all knights tolerated without ado the reasonable cropping of their hair. But this decency did not last long; scarcely had a year passed, when all who claimed to be men of court lapsed to their earlier vice; they vied with women in the length of their hair, and when they had little, they wore false; forgetful, or rather ignorant, of the saying of the apostle, “If a man have long hair it is a shame unto him.”