Welsh Journals

THE CISTERCIAN ECONOMY IN GLAMORGAN, 1130-1349 by F. G. COWLEY THE eleventh and twelfth centuries witnessed the birth and growth of a number of new monastic orders in western Europe. They owed their origins to men who were dissatisfied with the régime of the older Benedictine abbeys and wished for a life of greater austerity, a life more in keeping with the primitive simplicity of St. Benedict's Rule. Only two of these new congregations need concern us here: the order of Savigny and the order of Citeaux. Savigny was a Norman house founded by Vitalis of Mortain about 1 1 12. It attracted the patronage of Henry I and his barons, and new daughter houses colonized by Savigny began to be founded. In 1130 the second colony of monks to cross the English channel was settled on the right bank of the river Neath by Richard de Granville. The following decade marked a period of rapid expansion for the new congregation in England and saw the foundation of nine new houses. In 1140, however, this expansion came to a sudden halt. This may have been deliberate policy, for it soon became apparent that the central machinery of the new order was not functioning smoothly. The morale of the English houses was particularly bad. Abbots were evading their duty of attending the annual chapter at Savigny, and some of the monks wished to return home. In 1147 Serlo, abbot of Savigny, submitted his congregation to the authority of Citeaux and it was merged into the more powerful and highly organized Cistercian order. Citeaux had also experienced early teething troubles. When Savigny was founded it looked as if the experiment initiated by Robert of Molesme in 1098 was doomed to failure. Numbers were dwindling and the community was living in the direst