Читать книгу English Monasteries - A. Hamilton Thompson - Страница 17

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Cîteaux, like Cluny, stood at the head of a federation of religious houses exempt from episcopal authority. These houses, however, were ruled by their own abbots, not by priors dependent on the abbot of Cîteaux; and thus the Cistercian abbeys were saved from the difficulties which befell the Cluniac in common with other alien houses. The Charter of Charity, drawn up in 1119, regulated the growth of the order and the relations between its monasteries. When the numbers of any house grew too large, it might, with the consent of the annual chapter at Cîteaux, send out at least twelve brethren, with a thirteenth as abbot, to found a new monastery. Thus Waverley was colonised from the abbey of L'Aumône in Normandy. Fountains, founded in 1132 and augmented from Clairvaux in 1134 or 1135, sent out colonies to Newminster in Northumberland (1138), Louth Park in Lincolnshire (1139), Woburn in Bedfordshire (1145) and Lysa in Norway (1146). The right of visitation of Cistercian houses belonged to the abbots of their parent monasteries: the abbot of Cîteaux was visitor of Clairvaux, the abbot of Clairvaux visitor of Fountains, and so on; while Cîteaux itself was visited by the abbots of Clairvaux and its three other eldest daughters. Monasteries thus founded were to be in places remote from the conversation of men. Such names as Vaudey (Vallis Dei) and Valle Crucis mark the favourite site of such abbeys in secluded valleys: it was seldom that the rule was transgressed, as in the case of St. Mary Graces near the tower of London. The churches were dedicated in honour of our Lady: stone bell-towers were forbidden as well as wooden towers of excessive height, the windows were filled with plain glass, all paintings were prohibited save painted wooden crucifixes, and vestments and other ornaments were of the plainest kind compatible with dignity. All workshops, stables, etc. were within the abbey precincts, and precautions were taken against the growth of any colony of lay-folk near the monastery by the order that any house built outside the precinct wall was to be pulled down. A similar precaution regulated the establishment of the abbey farms or granges at a specified minimum distance from each other. Temporary guests were admitted under special conditions; but, after the dedication of the church and its octave were over, the presence of women within the precinct was forbidden.