V.

ARRIVAL AT CITEAUX.

 

Travellers are often struck with the picturesque situations of ancient abbeys. The fact is, that those parts which are now the most beautiful, were in former times the wildest and most solitary. Little nooks, which are even now so lonely that the relentless hand of civilization has left them in their primitive beauty, must have been mere wildernesses, far from human habitation, in ages when so much of the earth was uncultivated. Besides which, rocks and mountains may be very picturesque to look at, and yet very uncomfortable as dwelling-places; and many a stream, the banks of which are now visited for the sake of a beautiful ruin, at the time when the monastery was built flowed through pathless wilds and uninhabited forests.

So it was with Citeaux; at the time when Stephen and his companions first came to dwell there, it was a very different place from what it was when the stately abbey was built, which contained the tombs of all the dukes of Burgundy. Citeaux was the name of a spot situated in the midst of a wild wood, in the diocese of Chalons and the province of Burgundy. It was only tenanted by wild beasts, who found shelter in the thickets with which the place was overgrown, and into which no one ever cared to penetrate. A small stream ran through it which took its rise from a fountain, about a league from Dijon, called Sans-fonds, because it was so deep that no one had ever found the bottom. This stream had also a strange peculiarity connected with it, that in the time of rain it was languid and shallow, but when the heat had dried up all other rivers, it ran merrily along in a copious stream, as if it defied the power of the sun. The industry of the monks in after-ages collected its waters into three noble ponds, filled with fish; but at the time of which we write, it was ever overflowing its banks, so that the place is said to have derived its name from an old word expressive of the flags and bulrushes which the marshy soil produced in abundance.

On the borders of the wood were several scattered cottages, where dwelt the peasants who cultivated the estate of the viscount of Beaune, to whom the place belonged; and there was also a rude and small church, for the use of this rustic population. The lord of Beaune gave them leave to take possession of this most unpromising tenement, and they forthwith began to clear away the briars and the sedge, and to cut down the trees, so as to leave an open space for their habitation. They then rudely put together the trunks of the trees which they had felled, and constructed the monastery, such as it was. The rudeness of their dwelling, however, raised for them a most unexpected friend.

Odo, the then duke of Bur­gundy, had been originally one of the wildest of the iron nobles who infested the land. A few months, however, before their arrival at Citeaux, the majestic looks and bearing of our own Anselm had cowed the ducal robber, who had set out in full armour to seize upon what he conceived to be the rich coffers of Canterbury, as the saint passed through his dominions. The eye of the archbishop seems to have converted him, for from that moment he became an altered man. Hearing from the archbishop of Lyons that a number of holy men had come to build a monastery in his territory, he inquired about them. So miserable, however, was their dwelling-place, that fearing lest they should die from the roughnesses which they had to bear in this barren and dreary spot, he sent workmen to assist them in rearing their monastery.

At length all was ready for their reception, and they chose the 21st of March, 1098, for the solemn inauguration of the new abbey. A double festivity in that year fell on that day; it was not only Palm Sunday, but also the feast of St. Benedict. They canonically elected Robert as their abbot, and he received the pastoral staff at the hands of Walter, bishop of Chalons, who thus regularly erected the monastery into an abbey, under the name of Novum Monasterium, or New Minster, in honour of St. Mary, to whom, from this first wooden edifice, all churches of the order were afterwards dedicated. The brethren then one by one vowed to pay him obedience according to a form preserved in the Exordium Parvum. "That profession which I made in thy presence at the monastery of Molesme, that same profession and stability I confirm before God and his saints in thy hands, that I will keep it in this place called New Minster, in obedience to thee and to thy successors to be regularly substituted in thy room." Odo of Burgundy and Rainaldus of Beaune had before given them the allodium, or freehold estate on which the monastery was built; the serfs also who tilled the ground were given over to them, as well as the church in which they used to worship. It is characteristic of these first Cistercian fathers, that they refused to receive this church from the viscount of Beaune, as an appendage to the estate, nor would they have anything to do with it, unless it were given up entirely into their hands, by his abandoning his rights in a separate act; for "the abbot and the rest of the brethren thought it by no means right to receive the church from his hands, be­cause he was a layman."

This took place in the very heat of the contest about investitures, and thus at the very outset of their order, the Cistercians chose their side in the momentous contest, though they could as yet but show it in a small way. A few days before that Palm Sunday, St. Anselm, whom they had left at Lyons, had set out on his way to Rome, and on that very Sunday, while Citeaux was being solemnly founded, the same saint had left his train at a small town on the road to Italy, and had gone with two monks to an unknown monastery, to celebrate the feast of St. Benedict. The simple brethren did not know who he was, and bade him beware in his journey, because the lord archbishop of Canterbury had, as was reported, been stopped on his way to Rome, by the perils of the road. Anselm and the monks of Citeaux were at the same moment, in different parts of the world, fighting the same cause, and yet neither party knew what the other was about; but true monks everywhere have a sort of instinct of what is the good and the right side; they have no earthly interests to dim their vision of what is God's cause, and we may trust a monk for being ever in his place—for the Church against the world.

The officers of the New Monastery, thus quietly esta­blished, were now appointed; Alberic returned to his old situation which he held at Molesme, that of prior; Stephen was made sub-prior. In this peaceable state everything remained for a year under Robert's guidance, but he was not destined to see the full fruit of his labors. The monks of Molesme again found that they could not do without him. It required a firm hand to rule those refractory spirits who had once broken loose, and could only be kept in order by an authority which they respected. The secession also of such men as Robert, Alberic, and Stephen, from the convent had brought it into disrepute, and this could only be done away by regaining their abbot. The authority of the archbishop of Lyons, however, who had countenanced Robert's departure for Citeaux, rendered it a difficult matter to win him back. The only authority to which they could ap­peal was Rome, and to Rome they went, nothing daunted by the length of the way.

A council was celebrated at Rome in the third week after Easter, 1099; it was convened by Urban II for the condemnation of investitures, and for devising means for carrying on the crusade. Thither the monks repaired, and represented to the pope the widowed state of the church of Molesme, deprived of its first abbot and pastor. Urban seems to have suspected them: he describes in his letter to Hugh, archbishop of Lyons, the great clamour with which they entered into the council, and seems rather to have yielded to their importunity, against his own judgment. He did not directly command Robert to return to Molesme, but he bade Hugh do his best to bring him back if it could be done; and at all events he orders him to take care that the inhabitants of the wilderness of Citeaux (as he calls it) should be left in peace, and that the monks of Molesme be made to keep their rule.  

 The legate held a consultation on the subject at a place near Lyons, called Pierre encise, and determined that the only way to restore peace, both to Molesme and to the New Monastery, was to give up Robert to Molesme, and to forbid the two convents to have any further communication with each other, except such as St. Benedict enjoins on houses, between which there is no connection but the common profession of religion.   

Gaufridus, the abbot who had been elected in the room of Robert, was willing to yield the government of the abbey, and nothing now remained but that Robert himself should quit Citeaux, and return to the post which he had so often quitted and resumed. He again gave up his own will to obey his superiors, and returned to the bishop of Chalons the pastoral staff, which he had a year and a few months before received from his hands.   

He then freed the monks of Citeaux from the obedience which they owed to him, and went back to his old charge at Molesme. He was indeed a perfect pattern of obedience, and suffered himself to be bandied about from one convent to another as the will of his superiors directed; notwithstanding his aspirations for a more perfect way, he abandoned them at the command of God, knowing that no sufferings are acceptable to God, if not undertaken according to His will in charity. 

Doubtless he merited more in God's sight by giving up his brethren at Citeaux for his   refractory subjects at Molesme, than he could have done by the most austere life. His obedience was rewarded, for Molesme appears to have nourished under his rule, if we may judge from the fact that several monasteries were founded from it. One nunnery, that of Juilly, in which St. Bernard's sister afterwards took the vows, owed its origin to St. Robert. It is probable that he still assisted Stephen and Alberic with his counsel, but his direct connection with Citeaux ceased with his last departure for Molesme. He died about the year 1110, and was canonized by Pope Honorius III.

 

STEPHEN AS PRIOR.