Abbey of Cîteaux

The abbey of Cîteaux is a Abbaye located in Coast-in Or (Burgundy), on the territory of the commune of Saint-Nicolas-the-Cîteaux. It is at the origin of the Ordre cistercian and current head office of the Famille cistercian.

History

the name even of the place, Cîteaux , would come from cistel (the reed), because the places were marshy. Another interpretation proposes cis tercium , third terminal of a Roman way.

* 1098 a group of monks arrives of the abbey of Molesme, under the control of saint Robert de Molesme with a desire to seek God in a greater loneliness and poverty. They settle in a clearing with two kilometers in the north of the current site of Cîteaux. The beginnings of the “New Monastery” are difficult: great poverty, little recruitment. The first site is quickly abandoned in consequence of the lack of running water.

Albéric succeeds Robert; its abbatiat will last nine years. One owes him the institution of the brothers convers. In 1108, it is English, Etienne Harding which becomes abbot of Cîteaux. One owes him the Charte of Charity which establishes a bond of charity and mutual aid between the various monasteries.

1113 the first foundation of Ferté gives the kickoff to the development of the abbey. The same year, Bernard of Fountain, close to Dijon, accompanied by his/her parents and friends, comes to give again hope and dash with the “New Monastery”. The foundations then will multiply: that of Ferté will at once be followed those of Pontigny in 1114, of Morimond and Clairvaux whose Bernard will be the first abbot, in 1115. In his writings and his influence, Bernard is at the origin of a true school of spirituality.

1193 Completion of the construction of the large church, started towards 1140. It is there that will be buried the dukes of Burgundy, because Cîteaux very quickly became a high-place. A place of peace also where mediations took place, reconciliations.

1298 At the beginning of XIIIe century, profiting from the action and the glare of Bernard de Clairvaux, the abbey of Cîteaux is with the head of a Ordre which counts nearly 500 houses. Large characters are made monks with Cîteaux, such Alain of Lille, a scientist of the time, which takes the dress of convers. Cîteaux is at that time one of the centers of Christendom. During this century the construction of the large monastery started. Cîteaux counts several hundreds of monks and convers. The abbot of Cîteaux acquires an always increasing importance.

1398 It is the time of the Guerre One hundred Year old. The monastery is plundered in 1360. The monks take refuge with Dijon. It will be the same in 1365, then in 1434 and 1438.

1491 the abbot of Cîteaux is recognized chief of Order by a great number of monasteries.

At the time of the Fifth war of religion (1574-1576), the Count Palatine Jean Casimir leads a troop of mercenaries to François d' Alençon and the Protestants. It plunders the monastery which is on its passage at the beginning of 1576.

* XVIIe century Following the Council of Thirty, a wind of reform blows on the Church. In 1606, creates for itself a Estroite Observance which gathers some monasteries around personalities eminent, eager to find the spirit of the origins of Cîteaux and Bernard saint. But from the conflicts emerge between the abstemious and the mitigated . It is what one called Guerre of the Observances . In addition, the abbey seat had become an policy issue: Richelieu had remained 7 years abbot elected of Cîteaux, but never obtained confirmation of Rome! It did not do anything to raise the abbey of its ruins after a new plundering in 1636.

During this century, one of the abbots of the Estroite Observance , celebrates it abbot of Rancid, devotes to the reform of sound only monastery: the Trap door. Some monasteries, in France, follow its example, but the abbey of Cîteaux prefers to remain remote of these reforming currents, and to preserve the unit of the Order, at the price of a rather moderate reform.

1791 : Nearly fifty years earlier had been elected the last general abbot of Cîteaux of the Ancien Mode: dom François Found which died in Vosne, in 1797. It is this one which made build, under the direction of the architect Lenoir, a large building - the abbey home - the only one built of a very ambitious project. This one which still currently remains, was finished in 1772.

The Age of Enlightenment develops in certain layers of the company, a hostility open to the monachism: one reproaches to the monks their uselessness.

The French revolution precipitates this movement of discredit. Confiscated, the abbey is sold in 1791 to speculators who will plunder it, will dismantle it to sell the stones of them. What in remainder becomes successively a castle, a sugar refinery, a phalanstery and a penal settlement for children, work of the Rey Father, who will continue to exploit to the stones of foundation of the old buildings to build the church.

During these events, 24 monks resulting from the Trap door, refugees to the Valsainte, in Suisse, are constrained to undertake an extraordinary adventure which leads them until in Russia. This odyssey ensures the continuity of the life reformed cistercian, because as of the fall of Napoleon, the return is organized and of new abbeys are founded.

1898 the abbey is repurchased and from the monks originating in various monasteries come to repopulate it. The beginnings are very hard.

Old buildings, only have escaped with the complete destruction: part of the library of XVe, Définitoire of XVIIe and the large building of XVIIIe, built by the Lenoir architect, where currently the monks place.

Random links: