water; on the
other days they were allowed some vegetables; but even their highest
fare on holidays was cheese and fish, and they never tasted meat at all.
Once a week they submitted to be flogged, after confessing their sins.
They spoke on Sundays and festivals only, and were not allowed to use
signs like the Cluniacs. It is to be said, to the credit of the
Carthusians, that, although their order grew rich and built splendid
monasteries and churches, they always kept to their hard way of living,
more faithfully, perhaps, than any other order.

(3.) The Cistercian order, which I have mentioned, was founded by Robert
of Moleme (A.D. 1098), and took its name from its chief monastery,
Citeaux, or, in Latin, _Cistercium_. The rule was very strict. From the
middle of September to Easter they were to eat but one meal daily.
Their monasteries were not to be built in towns, but in lonely places.
They were to shun pomp and pride in all things. Their services were to
be plain and simple, without any fine music. Their vestments and all the
furniture of their churches were to be coarse and without ornament. No
paintings, nor sculptures, nor stained glass were allowed. The ordinary
dress of the monks was to be white.

At first it seemed as if the hardness of the Cistercian rule prevented
people from joining. But the third abbot of Citeaux, an Englishman,
named Stephen Harding, when he was distressed at the slow progress of
the order, was comforted by a vision in which he saw a multitude washing
their white robes in a fountain; and very soon the vision seemed to be
fulfilled. In 1113 Bernard (of whom we shall hear more presently)
entered the monastery of Citeaux, and by and by the order spread so
wonderfully that it equalled the Cluniac congregation in the number of
houses belonging to it. These were not only connected together like the
Cluniac monasteries, but had a new kind of tie in the general chapters,
which were held every year. For these general chapters every abbot of
the order was required to appear at Citeaux, to which they all looked up
as their mother. Those who were in the nearer countries were bound to
attend every year; those who were further off, once in three, or five,
or seven years, according to distance. Thus the smaller houses were
allowed to have a share in the management of the whole; and the plan was
afterwards imitated by Carthusians and other orders.

(4.) I need not mention any more of the societies of m