medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I haven't really been paying attention (and am about a hundred years behind
current research), so I had been blissfully unaware that Constance H.
Berman, in her book The Cistercian Evolution (2000), had challenged the
whole early history (or mythology) of the Cistercian Order. (Her thesis is
that the Cistercian Order as we know it didn't come into existence until
about the 1160s; that the formation of any sort of Order didn't start until
the late 1140s, when it was more an Order of Clairvaux, rather than an Order
of Citeaux; that all the early Cistercian documents are either forged or
misdated; and that the Order grew rapidly by absorbing independent houses,
rather than by filiation. Oh, and that the Cistercian Nuns have been
airbrushed out of history.)
How has all this been received? Has it been
accepted/confirmed/modified/challenged/refuted?
John Briggs
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