ABSTRACT
The monastic movements of the eleventh and twelfth centuries will always be most closely associated with the Cistercian order and the name of St Bernard of Clairvaux. The outcome was a form of monasticism little different in origin from the Benedictine, into which countless small communities were swept. The monastic life was popular with secular patrons as well as with the would-be religious. The Norman barons who invaded England provided their favourite Norman abbeys with lands and churches near their new headquarters in England, and often seem to have expected the monks to serve the churches in person. In the period between 1050 and 1150 the monastic orders old and new drew in great numbers of intellectual leaders and famous teachers. The monastic impulses and the new orders of the age are the theme of a seminal book by Giles Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century, published in 1996.
