§ 13. The Cistercian order took its name from the abbey of Cîteaux in Burgundy, which was founded in 1098 by Robert, abbot of the Benedictine house of Molesme. His monks aimed at a literal observance of the rule of St Benedict on the most austere lines. Meat was banished from their meals: their buildings followed simple laws of construction and were free from ornament. The real founders of the order were Stephen Harding, an Englishman, who became abbot of Cîteaux in 1109, and his disciple St Bernard, who in 1115 became abbot of the first daughter house, Clairvaux. Largely owing to the energy of St Bernard, the order spread with extraordinary rapidity. When Waverley abbey, its first English house, was founded in 1128, it possessed more than thirty houses. In 1152 an order forbade the foundation of new abbeys; there were then fifty houses in England and Wales out of 339. In spite of this prohibition, the number in the thirteenth century exceeded 600. In all, the houses of the order in England and Wales numbered 75, some of which possessed cells. § 14. Cîteaux, like Cluny, stood at the head of a federation of religious houses exempt from episcopal authority. These houses, however, were ruled by their own abbots, not by priors dependent on the abbot of Cîteaux; and thus the Cistercian abbeys were saved from the difficulties which befell the Cluniac in common with other alien houses. The Charter of Charity, drawn up in 1119, regulated the growth of the order and the relations between its monasteries. When the numbers of any house grew too large, it might, with the consent of the annual chapter at Cîteaux, send out at least twelve brethren, with a thirteenth as abbot, to found a new monastery. Thus Waverley was colonised from the abbey of L'Aumône in Normandy. Fountains, founded in 1132 and augmented from Clairvaux in 1134 or 1135, sent out colonies to Newminster in Northumberland (1138), Louth Park in Lincolnshire (1139), Woburn in Bedfordshire (1145) and Lysa in Norway (1146). The right of visitation of Cistercian houses belonged to the abbots of their parent monasteries: the abbot of Cîteaux was visitor of Clairvaux, the abbot of Clairvaux visitor of Fountains, and so on; while Cîteaux itself was visited by the abbots of Clairvaux and its three other eldest daughters. Monasteries thus founded were to be in places remote from the conversation of men. Such names as Vaudey (_Vallis Dei_) and Valle Crucis mark the favourite site of such abbeys in secluded valleys: it was seldom that the rule was transgressed, as in the case of St Mary Graces near the tower of London. The churches were dedicated in honour of our Lady: stone bell-towers were forbidden as well as wooden towers of excessive height, the windows were filled with plain glass, all paintings were prohibited save painted wooden crucifixes, and vestments and other ornaments were of the plainest kind compatible with dignity. All workshops, stables, etc. were within the abbey precincts, and