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Updated: May 13, 2025
Throughout all France, and even outside of France, the passions of religion and ambition were aroused at this summons. Twelve abbots and twenty monks of Citeaux dispersed themselves in all directions preaching the crusade; and lords and knights, burghers and peasants, laymen and clergy, hastened to respond.
His noble birth would have opened to him the highest dignities of the Church, but he sought only to bear the yoke of Christ, and to be nailed to the cross; and he really became a common laborer wrapped in a coarse cowl, digging ditches and planting fields, for such were the labors of the monks of Citeaux when not performing their religious exercises.
The Cistercian Order, no less than the Orders already mentioned, owed its origin to the desire to revive the primitive monastic rule from which the Cluniacs had fallen away. The wonderful success which it met with made it the chief rival of that Order. The parent monastery of Citeaux, near Dijon, was founded by Robert of Molesme in 1098 under the patronage of the Duke of Burgundy.
A fanatic monk of Citeaux suddenly appeared in the villages, preaching to the people, and announcing that the Holy Virgin, accompanied by a whole army of saints and martyrs, had appeared to him, and commanded him to stir up the shepherds and farm labourers to the defence of the Cross.
The Abbot of Citeaux was subject to the visitation and correction of the abbots of the four daughter houses mentioned above, while he in turn visited them; and each of them kept a similar surveillance over the houses which had sprung from their houses. In addition to this scheme of inspection, an annual general chapter met at Citeaux.
They therefore informed the abbot of Citeaux that as far as they were concerned no opposition would be made, and he instantly started for Maubuisson, sending a messenger before him to tell the abbess that he was on his way.
Etienne de Citeaux said to his monks after the death of his holy predecessor: "Alberic is dead to our eyes, but he is not so to the eyes of God, and dead though he appear to us, he lives for us in the presence of the Lord; for it is peculiar to the saints that when they go to God through death, they bear their friends with them in their hearts to preserve them there forever."
'There is nothing I long for more, madame, replied Angélique, 'but I have been placed here by the abbot of Citeaux, our superior, and I cannot leave without his permission. Upon this madame d'Estrées declared that she was abbess and would take her proper position; but Angélique, merely asserting that the king and the abbot had placed her there, and there she must stay, walked calmly to her own seat, while madame d'Estrées, not having made up her mind what to do, went off to see her own nuns, who seldom were present at the early service.
"Would it not be far better to accept the colourless scheme of window-glass used at Citeaux, where a decorative effect was produced by a design in the lead lines; or to imitate the fine grisailles, iridescent from age, which may still be seen at Bourges, at Reims, and even here, in our cathedral?" "Certainly," said the Abbé. "But to return to our monastery.
Gosvin, Abbot of Citeaux, who was at his funeral with many other abbots of his order, seeing the commotion caused by the numerous miracles which were worked there, and fearing this would become prejudicial to regular discipline, approached respectfully to the coffin, and forbade the saint from performing any more miracles, in virtue of his obedience.
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