A few words as to Cistercian ideals, and especially as to Cistercian rule, as compared with that of Cluny, may not be out of place here. For the sites of all their monasteries, they chose invariably lonely and wild lands, marshy valleys, swamps, or lake, or forest, where the monks would be under no temptation from the vicinity of worldly attractions, nor from too close contact with the secular clergy, whose influence was sometimes harmful. The Cistercian's first duty was the first duty of man--to reclaim the dark places of the earth from watery desolation to culture and fertility; just as, later on, the first duty of preaching friars was to win back the souls of men, from the power of Satan unto God. Faurtride, third abbot of Clairvaux, quotes St. Bernard as giving another reason. "It is not sufficient for a monk to allege illness (as an excuse for shirking the austerities of the rule). The holy fathers, our predecessors, sought deep damp valleys for their monasteries, so that the monks might be often ailing, and having death always before their eyes, should never live in security."[106] It may be well imagined, that an order founding its houses upon such sites, and for such a reason, did not err upon the side of indulgence. The rule was more strict, even, than that followed by Cluny in early days, both as regards abstinence from food and the rigid enforcement of silence. Vegetables were not to be served with fat or butter; meat was absolutely forbidden, unless sometimes to the sick; and fish, except herrings during Advent and Lent, was allowed only on rare occasions. When Pope Innocent II. visited Clairvaux in 1131, the monks had a hard task to find a single herring for his table. In the matter of clothing, too, they were much more simple than the Clunisians, and closer to the Benedictine rule; for instance, the gloves, boots, and furred pelisses, permitted in the older abbey during the winter, were forbidden to monks of the rival order. The whole secret of Citeaux's influence may be summed up in two words--simplicity and self-sacrifice. These principles extended right through the life of the order, even to its architecture and to its art. Already, at the time of the coming of St. Bernard, the Clunisians were beginning to lighten with sculpture the splendid severity of their Romanesque buildings, to deck their statues with precious stones, and with beautiful glass; to adorn with gilding and voluptuous colour the gray stones of aisle and nave. [Illustration: ST. JOHN. BURGUNDIAN SCHOOL]