332 Theory as to the Origin of the Crosses 



tury ' [William of Newburgh]. . . . Buried in their lonelj' wildernesses, 

 the Cistercians seem at first glance to have been intent only on saving 

 their own souls, taking no part in the regeneration of society at large. 

 While the other orders Avere . . . the working, fighting rank and file 

 of the spiritual army, the White Monks were at once its sentinels, its 

 guides, and its commanding officers ; they kept watch and ward over 

 its organization and its safety, they pointed the way wherein it should 

 go, they directed its energies and inspired its action. For the never- 

 ending crusade of the Church against the world had at this time found 

 its leader in a simple Cistercian monk, who never was Pope, nor legate, 

 nor archbishop, nor even official head of his own order— who was 

 simply abbot of Clairvaux— yet who, by the irresistible, unconscious 

 influence of a pure mind and a single aim, had brought all Christendom 

 to his feet. It was to the ' Bright Valley,' to Clairvaux, that men looked 

 from the most distant lands for Mght amid the darkness.^ 



Thurstan ^ is especially to be commemorated as the reviver of monasti- 

 cism in the North. His intercourse with the ecclesiastics of other countries ; 

 the reUgious houses which he would see during his exile, exhibiting, as 

 far as human agency could effect it, the perfection of discipline and 

 organization, would open his eyes to the wants of his diocese at home, 

 and make him eager to meet and remedy them. The example and the 

 exhortations of St. Bernard, with whom he was acquainted, would 

 strengthen and nerve his hand. The letter which he wrote about the 

 poor Cistercians of Fountains shews that he was thoroughly saturated 

 with the monastic principle. His knowledge of it was of a kind that 

 long study and practice could alone impart, and it seems to me that 

 Thurstan, together with St. Bernard and two or three others, are to be 

 regarded as the great church reformers of the twelfth century. It was 

 at Thurstan's suggestion that pope Honorius confirmed the privileges 

 of the monastery at Savigny, and he witnessed the grant of a hundred 

 marks of silver which was made by Henry I. to the monks of Clugny, 

 to which order the archbishop was especially attached. When Thurstan 

 arrived in the North he would find there a very small number of religious 

 houses, one or two of which were occupied by Augustine canons, and the 

 rest by Benedictines. A new impetus was now given to the diffusion 

 of the monastic principle. The two existing orders were reformed and 

 enlarged, and the Cluniacs and Cistercians,^ monks of a stricter rule, 

 were brought in. The time for their introduction and for the revival 

 of disciphne was well chosen. The Norman and the Saxon elements 

 in the EngUsh Church were now happily blended together. Everything 

 in rehgious as weU as civil affairs was now settled and laid down. The 

 great baronies and fees throughout the country were for the most part 



^ Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings 1. 356-8. 



^ On Thurstan and Hexham, see Raine, Priory of Hexham 1. Ixv. 



3 See pp. 132 ff. 



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