The Benedictines otherwise known as the Black Monks were not an Order in the same respect as those detailed
below. The Benedictine abbeys and monasteries all followed the Rule of St. Benedict but they were
all self contained and were not dependant on a mother house. Known originally as the Black Monks because they
wore black cloaks they became known as Benedictines later on when new Orders began to appear to distingish
them from the others.
The Cluniac Order was founded by a Benedictine monk called Odo who believed that the strict rule of St. Benedict
was not being followed. He founded the abbey of Cluny in 910. In this order the daughter houses were all
dependant on Cluny itself for their funds and any money the daughter house received had to be sent back to
Cluny. When Cluny started using its funds to increase its own grandeur its daughter houses suffered and
popularity of the order began to wane. Monks in this Order dedicated so much time to prayer that they had
to employ workers to tend the fields and gardens. In England the order set up many proiries the
first and most important was in Lewes in the south. Bermondsey, the second, was finally elevated to an Abbey
in 1399. Other priories include those at Wenlock, Castle Acre, Lenton, Montacute and Thetford to name a few.
Alien Priories
The Cluniac priories were classed as 'alien priories' which meant that they were dependant on a foreign mother
house; in this case Cluny. During the Hundred Years War, when the English and French were fighting, these alien priories
were seen as a security risk. They also sent their English income back to France. In 1414 the alien
priories were confiscated by Henry V and the English Crown. Many were taken over by other religious orders.
The first of the Cistercian Order were Benedictine monks at the abbey at Citeaux who were unhappy
that the rule of St. Benedict was not being followed.
Lead by Abbot Robert of Molesme the monks built a wooden monastery
and chose to live an extremely hard life. Robert was replaced first by
Alberic and then, when he returned to the abbey at Molesme, by Stephen Harding .
Stephen Harding was an Englishman born at Sherborne in Dorset and one
of the original founding monks. Before Stephen died he had transformed
a very poor monastery into the centre of one of the most powerful
monastic Orders of the time.
Although already popular, the success of the Cistercians was to
increase with the arrival of Bernard of Fontaines who joined the
order in 1112. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, as he is now known, was
very persuasive. He became the Abbot of Clairvaux in 1115.
By the time that Bernard died in 1153 there were up to 340 Cistercian abbeys in Europe.
From Citeaux the Cistercians spread across France and then in
1128 moved across the Channel to create its first abbey in Britain at Waverley in Surrey.
Location
In general the Cistercians built their monasteries in remote
places far from civilisation and refused to accept donations apart
from the land on which they built.
Affiliations
All Cistercian abbeys were descended from the mother church at Citeaux, but unlike Cluny and the
Cluniac Order, the Cistercian daughter houses were more independent and were administered by their
own abbots. There were far too many daughter houses for Citeaux to administer alone.
For
a diagram showing the relationship between the abbeys click here: -
Affiliations of Britain's Cistercian Abbeys
| Order Name | Mother House | Rule | Number of houses |
| Cistertian | Citaux | St. Benedict | > 600 |
| Cluniac | Cluny | St. Benedict | |
| Carthusian | Grande Chartreause | Carthusian Rule | |
| Premonstratensian | Premontré | St. Augustine | |
The Carthusians were founded in 1084 by Saint Bruno at Grande Chartreuse (or La Cartreause) and
were descended from the Benedictines. In England their houses were known as Charter-houses.
The Rule that these monks followed was possibly the most strict of all the orders. Being a
Carthusian monk meant that the ideal of leaving the world behind when entering a monastery was taken literally.
Each monk lived in solitude in a small cell where he did his own cooking and slept. He had a small
area of garden in which to grow food and only meet his fellow monks once a week. As the life was so strict
and the order did not communicate with the outside world the number of abbeys remained less than ten in number.
Only two Carthusian houses were founded before the middle of the fourteenth
century, those being Wilton and Nottinghamshire in around 1180 and Hinton and Somerset in around 1227.
The Augustinians were not monks like the Benedictines or Cistercians but were canons.
Canons were priests who lived in communities such as Cathedrals or collegiate churches. These
canons were not bound by the strict rules like the monks but followed the rule of
St. Augustine. St. Augustine was a bishop at Hippo, a city in Algeria, northern Africa. Here in
around the year 400 A.D. he wrote many books on many subjects. One of these books gave directions
on how a monastic community should be run and this was the basis for the Augustinians rule.
The Augustinian canons wore black robes and were known as the Black Canons.
The Premonstratensians were founded by St. Norbert at Premontré. They followed the rule of
St. Augustine but organised themselves in a similar way to the Cistercians and built their
churches in secluded locations and populated each house with a small number of people from
another abbey. They were known as the White Canons because their cloaks and cassocks
were white.
|
Selected Augustinian
abbeys in Britain |
|---|
Bolton Priory
Bourn Priory
Bridlington Priory
Brinkburn Priory
Cartmel Priory
Christchurch Priory
Colchester Priory
Dorchester Priory
Dunstable Priory
Haughmond Priory
Hexham Priory
Kirkham Priory
Lanetcost Priory
Lilleshall Abbey
Llanthony Priory
Maxstike Priory
Newstead Priory
Norton Priory
Porchester Priory
Portsmouth Priory
St. Botolph's Priory
St. Osyths Priory
Thornton Priory
Walsingham Priory
Waltham Priory (Abbey ??)
Wigmore Prioty
Woodspring Priory
|
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