The leading characteristics of the Cistercians marked the new order clearly off from its fellows. Starting from their first principle of absolute asceticism, they pushed the doctrine of self-renunciation as far as human capacity allowed. They rejected soft and costly garments, lived on the plainest and simplest food, and would not tolerate splendour even in their churches, where, instead of gold and silver crosses, they contented themselves with painted wood. The very vestments of their priests were of coarse stuff without gold, or silver, or costly embroidery. Their churches and monasteries were built as simply as was possible. Towers and belfries were rejected as useless luxuries. Choosing for their abode remote valleys and wildernesses far from the haunts of men, they carefully avoided the proximity to town-life, which was a stumbling-block in the way of the older orders. Even the cure of souls was prohibited as likely to lead the monks into the world and its sins, and to celebrate Masses for money was denounced as simony. Thus the old Benedictine rule was upheld, and the monk reminded that he was no clerk but a pious recluse, whose business was to save his own soul. For the occupation of the brethren labour was enjoined; and a large number of _conversi_ carried on the hard agricultural work that soon made the wilderness blossom like a garden, and filled with sheep the downs and deserts. It thus resulted that the Cistercians, despite their principles, had considerable influence in promoting the civilisation of the regions in which they settled. The interconnection of their houses made it easy for them to spread a tendency or an idea from land to land, as when they transmitted the first rudiments of Gothic architecture from its north French home to Italy.[12] While wealth and idleness were thus kept at bay, elaborate efforts were made to keep watch over backsliders. While the example of Cluny had led all the great monasteries to strive to get from the Pope exemption from episcopal authority, Cîteaux ostentatiously professed canonical obedience to the Bishop of Châlon, and every daughter house was founded with the consent of the diocesan, to whom its abbot submitted himself as a subject. Moreover, the constitution sketched in the ‘Carta Caritatis’ provided within the order itself means for perpetual visitation and reproof of weaker brethren, that was far more effective than episcopal control. Like the Cluniacs, the Cistercians formed a congregation over which the Abbot of Cîteaux exercised the powers of a king. But an elaborate series of checks on the abbot’s power imparted an aristocratic or popular element to the government of the new order. The abbots of the four first daughters of Cîteaux [La Ferté (founded 1113), Pontigny (1114), Clairvaux (1115), and Morimond (1115)], and the General Chapter of the abbots of the order, while liable to be visited and corrected by their superior, had the