Etienne Harding

Etienne Harding , born with an unknown date and dead the March 28th 1134, is prior then abbot of Cîteaux of 1099 with 1122. It writes the rule cistercian.

Regulate cistercian

Etienne in the long term carried out the liturgical reform started before him. To take again the ordinance of the Rule, there was to make much compared to the practice of Cluny, with off the ﬁ these inordinately lengthened, abundant ostentation. One thus rejected all that, by the number or the length, exceeded the directives of the Rule. By preoccupation with an authenticity, as for the Bible, one sought what seemed the best, and for this reason one did not hesitate to go until Metz and even until Milan: one recopied there texts and music of the liturgical books, hymnaire, gradual, antiphonaire. Etienne in detail enacted also rules firm and precise for all that related to the church, the ornaments, the liturgical objects, the vestments, cutting off all pitilessly that felt ostentation and the super ﬂ U, founding everywhere poverty and simplicity to support the rise in the heart towards God.

Bible of Cîteaux

Etienne Harding, become abbot of Cîteaux, sent his copyists to Metz (seat of the tradition of the song Carolingien) and to Milan in order to recopy the known sources oldest for the anthems of Saint Ambroise. It is based on the Latin of Jerome, the Vulgate, corrected and revised Bible. It results a critical recension from it from the Latin text starting from the Hebrew text, with the assistance of Rabbin S Jews.

Thus towards 1110 Etienne Harding specifies with the foreword of the hymnaire (collection of all the anthems adopted by the cistercians): We make known with wire of the holy church that these anthems, certainly composed by the happy Ambroise archbishop, we made them bring back church of Milan where they are sung, in this place which is ours, namely the New Monastery. By mutual agreement with our brothers, we decided that they only, and null other, from now on would be sung by us, and by all those which will come after us. Because these are these anthems ambrosiennes, that our happy father and main Benoît invite us to sing in his rule, that we decided to observe in this place with the greatest care .

Stylistics this Citeaux

Three styles can be distinguished in the Enluminure S from Cîteaux at the 12th century:

the first, most known, is characterized by extraordinary vitality from its subjects. That they are human beings, animals or vegetable interlacings decorating the Lettrine S or letters made up they-even of several characters, the inspiration whom the monks painters drew from their daily environment allied to the artistic quality of the execution make works of this series one of the tops of illumination, and this in spite of certain restrictions imposed by the requirement for simplicity suitable for Cîteaux, like the reduced number of the colors employed or the use of the parchment itself like bottom.

the second style, which opens out as from the years 1120, is known as “ Byzantine ” because of the Eastern influences which it reveals. Those appear in the hieratic character of compositions being able to occupy a full page, but also in certain decorative details, Greek or arabesques.

It is with the exhortations of holy Bernard in favor of the examination that one allots the third style, characterized not monochromic letters, which does not prevent polychromy within the same word by juxtaposition of letters of different colors. Being given the imposed constraints, the artistic creativity takes refuge in the smoothness of the feature and the richness of the filigrees which reach tops then, while the pallet used grows rich by new colors. This style appears at one period of definition of the operating rules of the Order in full expansion which is, consequently also, a moment of great production of books.

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