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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Late twentieth-century scholarship on the Cistercian monastic order was dominated by the distinction between elite and popular. The terminology was specific to the Cistercian debate -namely, ‘ideals’ versus ‘reality’ rather than ‘elite’ versus ‘popular’ – but the logic of a high Cistercian culture and a low Cistercian culture is one that students of any elite/popular debate will find familiar. The indispensable modern survey of Cistercian history, published in 1977, is the key promoter of this argument, with its title presenting an eloquent statement of its thesis: The Cistercians: Ideals and Reality. Although the focus of current investigations into elite and popular religion is undoubtedly the extent to which both varieties of religion are legitimate cultural forces which influence and depend on each other, the Cistercian argument was formulated in a much more hierarchical way and clearly saw the elite Cistercian life as the more legitimate of the two monastic expressions. The argument is that members of the Cistercian order exhibited a more or less ideal form of corporate religious life during the first one hundred years of the order’s existence, but that after the late twelfth century the order gradually lost its purity. Two aspects of popular life infiltrated the enclosed world of the cloister: first, the grubby realities of economics; and, second, interactions with women, generally meaning interactions with the increasing numbers of Cistercian nunneries.
1 Lekai, Louis J., The Cistercians: Ideals and Reality (Kent, OH, 1977)Google Scholar. For the wide influence of the ideals/reality logic, see Sommerfeldt, John R., ed., Cistercian Ideals and Reality (Kalamazoo, MI, 1978).Google Scholar
2 Any number of works could be cited. John Van Engen’s work repays thoughtful reading; see his ‘The Christian Middle Ages as an Historiographical Problem’, AHR 91 (1986), 532–52 Google Scholar, and ‘The Future of Medieval Church History’, ChH 71 (2002), 492–522.Google Scholar
3 Strongly argued by Hill, Bennett D., English Cistercian Monasteries and their Patrons in the Twelfth Century (Urbana and Chicago, IL, and London, 1968), 150–5.Google Scholar
4 As Lekai put it, twelfth-century Cistercian leaders feared that involvement in nuns’ affairs might ‘endanger the purely contemplative character of the Order’: The Cistercians, 347.
5 For criticisms see Constance Bouchard, B., ‘Cistercian Ideals versus Reality: 1134 Reconsidered’, Citeaux: Commmentarii Cistercienses 39 (1988), 217–31 Google Scholar, and Berman, Constance H.’s The Cistercian Evolution: the Invention of a Religious Order in Twelfth-Century Europe (Philadelphia, PA, 2000), 39–45 Google Scholar, and ‘Were There Twelfth-Century Cistercian Nuns?’, ChH 68 (1999), 824–64.Google Scholar
6 journal Degler-Spengler, Brigitte, ‘The Incorporation of Cistercian Nuns into the Order in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Century’, in Nichols, John A. and Shank, Lillian Thomas, eds, Hidden Springs (Kalamazoo, MI, 1995), 85–134.Google Scholar
7 For the (now-challenged) idea that early Cistercian nuns were opposed by the wider Cistercian order, see Thompson, Sally, ‘The Problem of the Cistercian Nuns in the Twelfth and Early Thirteenth Centuries’, in Baker, Derek, ed., Medieval Women, SCH.S 1 (Oxford, 1978), 227–52.Google Scholar
8 Even the outstanding book by David H. Williams still confines nuns to a separate chapter at the end (The Cistercians in the Early Middle Ages [Leominster, 1998]), thus following the same approach as Lekai’s The Cistercians.
9 The term has a rich heritage in studies of medieval women’s religion; e.g. Bolton, Brenda, ‘Thirteenth-Century Religious Women: Further Reflections on the Low Countries “Special Case”’, in Dor, Juliette, Johnson, Lesley, and Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn, eds, New Trends in Feminine Spirituality: the Holy Women of Liège and their Impact (Turnhout, 1999), 129–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10 The figures come from Knowles, David and Hadcock, R. Neville, Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales (London, 1971) [hereafter: MRHEW], 271–7 Google Scholar, which in turn come from Power, Eileen, Medieval English Nunneries c.1275 to 1535 (Cambridge, 1922), 685–92.Google Scholar
11 Engen, Van, ‘The Future of Medieval Church History’, 516–17.Google Scholar
12 Graves, Coburn V., ‘Stixwould in the Market-Place’, in Nichols, John A. and Shank, Lillian Thomas, eds, Distant Echoes (Kalamazoo, MI, 1984), 213–35, 213.Google Scholar
13 MRHEW, 271; Thompson, Sally, Women Religious: the Founding of English Nunneries after the Norman Conquest (Oxford, 1991), 98 Google Scholar; Graves, Coburn V., ‘English Cistercian Nuns in Lincolnshire’, Speculum 54 (1979), 492–9, 493 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Elkins, Sharon K., Holy Women of Twelfth-Century England (Chapel Hill, NC, and London, 1988), 84–8.Google Scholar
14 Canivez, Joseph M., ed., Statuta Capitulorum Generalium Ordinis Cisterciensis, 8 vols (Louvain, 1933–41)Google Scholar [hereafter: Statuta], on Tarrant, 2: 271 (ann. 1243, no. 62) and 2: 434 (ann. 1257, no. 50); on Marham, 2:355 (ann. 1250, no. 43) and 2: 363 (ann. 1251, no. 26).
15 Oxford, Keble College, MS 36, fol. 9r. In 1859 Thomas Phillipps bought the manuscript from Guglielmo Libri, the infamous pillager of French libraries, hence possibly suggesting a French origin.
16 Düsseldorf, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, MSC 32, fols 263V-267V, at fol. 267r. The listing of female Cistercian houses is printed in Franz Winter, Die Cistercienser des nordöstlichen Deutschlands, Part 3: Von 1300 bis zur Reformation (Gotha, 1871), 175–83, and s.v. ‘Cîteaux (Abbaye)’ in Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques (Paris, 1953), 12: cols 852–74, 860–2. On the manuscript, see Mosler, Hans, Die Cistercienserabtei Altenberg (Berlin, 1965), 45 Google Scholar, and ‘Kurzinventar der Handschriften der Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Dusseldorf’, <http://www.manuscripta-mediaevalia.de/hs/kataloge-online.htm> (consulted 13 December 2004).
17 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Top. Devon d. 5, fol. 120V. This manuscript contains Newenham Abbey’s cartulary, c. 1347, with later additions (such as the abbey listing) towards its end.
18 London, BL, MS Addit. 70510, fol. 166r. This manuscript contains Beaulieu Abbey’s cartulary. At the end are random texts, including a 1270s list of houses owing payment to Edward 1.
19 Studies of this event include Graves, , ‘English Cistercian Nuns in Lincolnshire’, and Rasmussen, Linda, ‘Order, Order! Determining Order in Medieval English Nunneries’, in Rasmussen, Linda et al., eds, Our Medieval Heritage: Essays in Honour of John Tillotson for his 60th Birthday (Cardiff, 2002), 30–49, 33–7 Google Scholar. Another nunnery in Lincoln diocese, St Michael’s Stamford, pursued the same claim independently, and won additional support from Edward I and the archbishop of York; London, The National Archives (TNA), Public Record Office (PRO), E 326/11356.
20 Multiple references appear in Visitations of Religious Houses in the Diocese of Lincoln, Injunctions and Other Documents from the Registers of Richard Flemyng and William Gray Bishops of Lincoln, A.D. 1420–1436, ed. Thompson, A. Hamilton, 3 vols (London, 1969 [1919])Google Scholar – e.g. Catesby, Heynings, Legbourne, Nun Cotham, St Michael’s Stamford, and Stixwould nunneries.
21 Three rolls from Durham are relevant. On the roll of Bishop Walter Skirlaw (d. 1405–6), Nun Cotham was identified as Cistercian. On the joint roll of Priors William of Ebchester (d. 1456) and John Burnby (d. 1464), Baysdale, Catesby, Handale, Keldholme, Legbourne, Marham, Nun Appleton, Nun Cotham, Sinningthwaite, St Michael’s Stamford, Stixwould, Swine, Tarrant, and Wykeham were all identified as Cistercian, while Farewell, Neasham, and St Bartholomew’s Newcastle all appear as ‘of the order of St Bernard’. On the roll of Prior Robert Ebchester (d. 1488), Greenfield, Handale, Keldholme, Legbourne, Nun Cotham, Rosedale, Sinningthwaite, St Michael’s Stamford, Swine, and Tarrant are identified as Cistercian, while Stixwould appears as ‘of the order of St Bernard’. The rolls are printed in The Obituary Roll of William Ebchester and John Burnby, Priors of Durham, ed. Raine, James (Durham, London, and Edinburgh, 1856).Google Scholar
22 In 1510 Elkabeth Nawton, the prioress of Neasham nunnery in Durham diocese, employed a notary to copy Lucius III’s papal bull from 1184/85 on Cistercian freedom from episcopal interference, the ‘Monastice sinceritas’; Northallerton, North Yorkshire County Record Office, ZRL 5/18. My thanks to Eddie Jones for supplying a transcript. Similarly, as part of a lengthy but sporadic history of asserting Cistercian status, in 1528 the nunnery of St Michael’s Stamford employed a notary to copy Honorius III’s 1220s bull which granted the Cistercians exemption from tithe payments; London, TNA, PRO, E 326/10568.
23 Statuta entries appear in 1491, 1520, and 1533. Letters appear in Lettersfrom the English Abbots to the Chapter at Cîteaux 1442–1521, ed. Talbot, C. H. (London, 1967)Google Scholar, and below.
24 On Huby, see Baker, Derek, ‘Old Wine in New Bottles: Attitudes to Reform in Fifteenth-Century England’, in Baker, Derek, ed., Renaissance and Renewal in Christian History, SCH 14 (Oxford, 1977), 193–211 Google Scholar, and Talbot, C. H., ‘Marmaduke Huby Abbot of Fountains (1495–1526)’, Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis 20 (1964), 165–84.Google Scholar
25 London, BL, MS Addit. 24965. Four letters are relevant: Thomas Dacre’s letter to Marmaduke Huby, 10 July 1523 (fols 166v-167r); Huby’s letter to Dacre, 18 July (fol. 26r); Dacre’s letter to William Clifton, vicar-general of Durham, 21 July (fol. 172V); and William Blithmane’s letter to Dacre, 26 July (fol. 28r). The 18 July letter is published in Memorials of the Abbey of St. Mary of Fountains, Vol. I, ed. Walbran, John R. (Durham, London, and Edinburgh, 1863), 239–42 Google Scholar. My thanks to Nigel Ramsay for introducing me to this correspondence.
26 Memorials of the Abbey of St. Maty of Fountains, ed. Walbran, 240.
27 Talbot, Letters From the English Abbots, no. 50.
28 On the distinction between the Cistercian ordo and Ordo, see Casey, Michael, ‘Bernard and the Crisis at Morimond. Did the Order Exist in 1124?’, Cistercian Studies Quarterly 38 (2003), 119–75.Google Scholar
29 See Huby’s involvement with Cook Hill priory in the 1490s; Talbot, Letters from the English Abbots, nos 66, 77; Statuta, 6: 22 (ann. 1491, no. 49). The nuns of Pinley also appear in Cistercian correspondence in the early 1500s; possibly Huby had a hand in overseeing this community also.
30 This research was supported by the Australian Research Council.