The Cistercian Order, no less than the Orders already mentioned, owed its origin to the desire to revive the primitive monastic rule from which the Cluniacs had fallen away. The wonderful success which it met with made it the chief rival of that Order. The parent monastery of Citeaux, near Dijon, was founded by Robert of Molesme in 1098 under the patronage of the Duke of Burgundy. But the monks kept the rule of St. Benedict in the strictest manner, and their numbers remained small. In 1113, however, they were joined by the youthful Bernard, the son of a Burgundian knight, together with about thirty friends of like mind, whom he had already collected with a view to the cloister life. At once expansion became not only possible but necessary, and the abbot of the day, Stephen Harding, by birth an Englishman from Sherborne in Dorsetshire, sent out four colonies in succession, which founded the abbeys of La Ferte (1113), Pontigny (1114), Clairvaux and Morimond (1115). The first general chapter of the Order was held in 1116: the scheme of organisation drawn up by Stephen Harding was embodied in _Carta Caritatis_, the Charter of Love, and received the papal sanction in 1119. By the middle of the century (1151) more than five hundred monasteries were represented at the general chapter, and despite the resolution to admit no more houses, the number continued to increase until the whole Order must have contained upwards of two thousand. [Sidenote: Mode of life.] The entire organisation of the Cistercian Order made it a strong contrast to the Cluniacs, both in the mode of life of its members and in the method of government. The Cluniacs had become wealthy and luxurious: their black dress, the symbol of humility, had become rather a mark of hypocrisy. In order to guard against these snares the Cistercians, to the wrath of the other monastic Orders, adopted a white habit indicative of the joy which should attend devotion to God's service. Their monasteries, all dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, were built in lonely places, where they would have no opportunity to engage in parochial work. This indeed was strictly forbidden them as detracting from the contemplative life which should be the ideal of the Cistercian. For the same reason they were forbidden to accept gifts of churches or tithes. The monastic buildings, including the chapel, were to be of the simplest description, without paintings, sculpture, or stained glass; and the ritual used at the services was in keeping with this bareness. The arrangements of the refectory and the dormitory were equally meagre. Hard manual work, strict silence, and one daily meal gave the inmates every opportunity of conquering their bodily appetites. [Sidenote: Organisation.]