Gualteri Mapes. De nugis curialium distinctiones quinque

38 GUALTERI MAPES [Distinc. I.
advertat uncle domus eorum ditantur, militum nepotes et iilii,
quodque magis nequam videtur, multae dignse personee sine perso-
natu pereunt.
De origine Cisterciensium. xxiiij.
Cistercienses * egressi sunt ab Anglia, vico qui Scireburna t dicitur.
Ibi nigro militabant babitu sub abbate districto monachi
plurimi ; qui cum eis arctius frena teneret, dispbcere coepit ali-
quibus, de quorum numero quatuor a fuga non abstinentes Franciam
omnis malitiei matrem petunt, circuierunt, associatis sibi debciarum
sectatoribus, quales Francia prsecipue semper exibet ; etincircuitu
suo victuaUum tandem tenuitatem incurrunt, poenaque penuriee
castigati, quid agendum sit diu debberant. Reverti nolunt, sine
qusestu vivere nequeunt. Quomodo queerant quo sit, placet eis
tandem eremum sub preetextu religionis inhabitare, non cum
Pauli vel Hylarionis | eremum in desertis LybiaB vel in inviis
nigree montanae, non in cavernis et specubus ubi nemo nisi Deus,
sed qui dominum hominem adorare statuunt, homines cum Deo
* The order of Citeaux, or of the Cis- not found elsewhere. The facts appear to
tercians, called afterwards White or Grey be correct : Stephen, who had the surname
monks, was founded in 1098, by Robert or patronymic of Harding, and who was
abbot of St. Michel de Tonnerre. A small one of the first settlers at Citeaux, and afnumber
of monks who had established terwards their abbot, was an Englishman,
themselves in the forest of Colan, near the a monk of Sherburn in Dorsetshire, and
abbey just mentioned, in order to live so- perhaps at least part of his companions
litarily and abstemiously, prevailed upon may have been his countrymen. A long
him to put himself at their head, and he account of him, and the part he took in
led them thence first to the forest of Mo- the foundation, is given by William of
lesme, and then to Citeaux, at that time a Malmsbury, De Gest. Reg. lib. iv. p. 127.
wild and solitary spot, five leagues from Stephen is said to have been the composer
Dijon, in the diocese of Chalons. of the rule of the order. He was elected
t It is well known that Walter Mapes abbot in 1109.
and his friend Giraldus Cambrensis bore a J St. Paul the Egyptian was the founder
great hatred to the Cistercian monks, who of the eremitic sect in the deserts of Egypt,
had become the richest order in England, in the third century. St. Hilarion in the
Mapes has preserved a scandalous story of fourth century laid the foundation of the
the origin of the order, which, I think, is ascetic establishments in Syria.