Order, was we understand it, rather than ordo (state of life) was an
invention of the 12th century, principally (says she loyally) of the
Cistercians, who combined autonomous abbeys (the traditional pattern)
with mutual responsibility, visitation, and annual chapters general.
This pattern proved so efficient that the reform papacy insisted that
other ordines adopt it--unofficially by applying pressure and responding
to initiatives (as, for example, the "general chapter" of 21 benedictine
abbots at Reims in 1131, which continued and was later authorized by
papal letter); officially by imposing chapters at IV Lateran.
Until that time, as the discussion has already remarked, autonomous
abbeys with, in some cases, dependent houses was the rule. Cluny had a
widespread federation of satellite priories--perhaps giving the
Cistercians the idea--and unattached houses which followed its Customary;
but it was not an Order.
Rozanne Elder
Institute of Cistercian Studies
WMU-Kzoo
On Thu, 18 Jul 1996, Simon Marchini wrote:
> Julia Barrow wrote...
>
> There was no Benedictine order as such in the earlier middle ages. It only
> became necessary to define one after the appearance of the Cistercians,
> Carthusians, Augustinians and so forth in the late eleventh and early twelfth
> centuries
>
> Why were such orders introduced into England - were they part of the Norman
> conquest or was it a much larger re organization of the monastic life which
> took place throughout Europe at this time that England was just part of ?
>
>
> Simon Marchini
>
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