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monopolised the wool trade of the kingdom. They changed the colour of the Bene- 

 dictine habit, wearing a white gown and a hood over a white cassock. The reason 

 assigned for the change of the habit is the devotion of St. Mary, observable in the 

 order from the beginning. It was a standing law that all Cistercian monasteries 

 should be founded and dedicated to the memory of the Queen of heaven and earth — 

 Holy Mary. The immediate cause of the adoption of the white habit is mysterious. 

 It seems difficult to account how it should all at once appear without the sanction 

 of any statute of the order, especially as it was opposed to the custom, if not to 

 the rule, of the primitive Benedictines. A tradition is even current in the order 

 that Alberic saw the Blessed Virgin in a vision putting upon his shoulders the 

 white garment, and that he changed the tawny colour of St. Mary Magdalene to 

 the joyful colour sacred to the Mother of our Lord, in consequence of the consola- 

 tion which the vision aflforded him in the difficulties with which he was then 

 struggling. The vision has not much historical authority, though the tradition 

 of the Order and the strange circumstance of the change of colour itself are in 

 favour of its truth. The one thing certain is that it was assumed in honour of the 

 spotless purity of St. Mary, the special patroness of the Cistercians ; and the cir- 

 cumstance that she was chosen to be the peculiar saint of the rising Order, is in it- 

 self characteristic. The black monks reproached the Cistercians with wearing a 

 garment fit only for a time of joy, whilst the monastic state was one of penitence. 

 But the white monks answered that the life of a monk was not only one of peni- 

 tence, but was like that of the angels, and therefore they wore white garments to 

 show the spiritual joy of their hearts. And notwithstanding their coarse bread 

 and hard beds, there was a cheerfulness about the Cistercians, which may, in a 

 great measure, be traced to what we should now call a sympathy with nature. 

 When they went beyond the walls of the monastery they also wore a black cloak, 

 as monks were to be their own millers and bakers, farmers, and gardeners, and 

 doubtless such strict observers of the rule as the brethren of Citeaux. While their 

 bodies were bent in agricultural labours their souls were raised to heaven. Again 

 they had an expedient by which they were enabled to remain within a short dis- 

 tance of the cloister, however scattered their farms might be, and lose no time in 

 journeying to and from the place of their labour, and they could always return to 

 the duties of the choir and be within the monastery at the times set apart for 

 meditation. Amongst a great number of monks many were lay brothers, who 

 could neither read nor write, and had not faculties for learning the choir services. 

 It was natural that these should be employed in the many menial offices which a 

 large monastery would require. Hence arose the institution of lay brethren. It, 

 however, appears to have taken its most systematic shape at the very beginning 

 of the Cistercian Order. Some of them dwelt in the Abbey itself ; others in the 

 scattered and lonely granges around it. They kept the flocks and the herds of the 

 communit}', and worked as shoemakers, tailors, and blacksmiths. Those who were in 

 the granges were excused from the fasts of the Order, except in Advent and on the 

 Fridays from the 14th of September to Lent. Whenever the bell of the abbey 

 rang for a canonical hour they fell on their knees, and in heart joined the brethren 

 who sang the office in the Abbey church. There were thus in every Cistercian 



