The Cistercian World by Various

Author:Various
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141960722
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2009-12-11T00:00:00+00:00

5 While Aelred was in the neighbourhood of the city of York, where business to the archbishop of that diocese2 had brought him, he learned, by a happily timed report from a close friend,3 how some two years earlier certain monks had come to England from across the sea. These remarkable men, famed for their religious life, were known as white monks after the colour of their habit, for they were clothed angel-like in undyed sheep’s wool, spun and woven from the natural fleece. Thus garbed, when clustered together they look like flocks of gulls,4 and shine as they walk with the very whiteness of snow. They venerate poverty – not the penury that stems from negligence and sloth, but a poverty regulated by voluntary privation, sustained by perfect faith and rendered congenial by the love of God. So strong is the mutual love which binds them that their society is as terrible as an army with banners. Trampling the ()S. of S. 6:10() flowers of the world with the foot of forgetfulness, counting riches and honours as dung, battering the face of all things mutable with ()Phil. 3:8() the fist of conscience, they renounce in food, drink, act and affection the pleasures of the world and the flesh. So, in abundance as in dearth, they run in their use of this world’s goods an even course between the limits of what is fitting, and always present a consistent image of discretion, using only so much and such means of sustaining life as will just take care of the body’s needs without diminishing the fervour of their worship. Everything with them is fixed by weight, measure and number. A pound of bread, half a pint of drink, a dish ()Wisd. 11:21() of cabbage and one of beans make up their meal. If they sup, the remnants of the previous meal are put back on the table, except that fresh vegetables, if any are available, are served in place of the two cooked dishes.5 They sleep girded, one to a bed, in cowl and tunic winter and summer alike.6 They have nothing to call their own;7 they do not even talk together,8 and no one undertakes anything of his own volition. Their every occupation is begun, or changed, at the superior’s nod.9 Great and small, wise and ignorant, all are governed by the one law, be it at table, in procession, at communion or in other observances and rites. Differences of degree are ironed out and each is on a level with his fellows, without anyone being singled out from the generality unless it be the man whom greater holiness raises above the rest; for the only distinction that exists between them is between degrees of goodness.10 Therefore the humbler the man, the greater he is among his brothers, and the more lowly in his own esteem, the higher he stands in the opinion and appraisal of the rest. Neither women, hawks nor dogs, save those whose ready barking helps to drive thieves away from dwellings,11 enter the gates of the monastery.

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