Tintern Abbey
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Index
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Introduction
The abbey was the home to a group of people in a quiet location where following a regime of
worship to God, contemplation and serious work was possible in a world that was full of
cruelty, anarchy and selfishness. Little is known of these groups of people in the
centuries before and during the Dark Ages, but they did produce from their numbers many
people who were to become saints. St. Colomba, St. Chad and St. Cuthbert to name a few.
The Orders
The Benedictine Order was founded by St. Benedict in the sixth century. This order was bound by
three vows; to poverty; to chastity and to obedience. His Rule was known as the
Rule of St. Benedict. The monks had strict
duties, celebrating the daily masses and services, meditation and labour. In Britain, the
Benedictine monasteries fell into decay over the centuries for many reasons, one being
the constant menace of the Vikings. A revival occurred around 940 lead by Dunstan, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, himself a monk. Over time the strict regime of the order
began to be ignored. That and the fact that the monasteries had become very wealthy caused
those who were devoted to the rule to decide to split and set up their own orders.
The Cluniac Order was founded by a Benedictine called Odo who believed
that the strict rule of St. Benedict was not being followed. He founded the abbey of
Cluny in 910. In this order, the daughter houses were all dependant on Cluny itself for
their funds. When Cluny started using its funds to increase its own grandeur, its daughter houses
suffered and popularity of the order began to wane.
Another split occurred towards the end of the eleventh century when certain monks
from the abbey of Molesme broke away and sited their new abbey at Citeaux. Lead by
Abbot Robert of Molesme the monks built a wooden monastery and lived a very hard life.
When Robert returned to Molesme he was replaced by Alberic and then by Stephen Harding who
was to transform the order. Stephen Harding was an Englishman from Sherborne in Dorset and
was one of the original founding monks. Before Stephen died, he had transformed a very poor
monastery into to the centre of one of the most powerful monastic Orders of the time. The order
was known as the Cistercian Order. Although very popular, the success of the
Cistercians was to increase with the arrival of Bernard of Fontaines who joined the
order in 1112. As a preacher, Bernard or St. Bernard of Clairvaux as he was known was very
persuasive. He became the Abbot of Clairvaux in 1115. When Bernard died in 1153, there
were up to 340 Cistercian abbeys in Europe.
Affiliations of Britain's Cistercian Abbeys
The Carthusians were founded in 1084 by St. Bruno a La Chartreuse. In England their
houses were known as Charter-houses. The Rule that these monks followed was possibly the
most strict of all the orders. Being a Carthusian monk meant that the ideal of leaving the
world behind when entering a monastery was taken literally. Each monk lived in solitude
in a small cell he did his own cooking and slept. He had a small area of garden in
which to grow food and only meet his fellow monks once a week. As the life was so strict and
the order didn't communicate with the outside world, the number of abbeys remained less than
ten in number.
Click here for a map of abbeys
to be completed...
