ABSTRACT
The fact that all over Europe some Cistercian monasteries came into being as new foundations and others by incorporating pre-existing monastic communities meant that their economic structures were diverse and did not conform to any mythical Cistercian 'model'. White monks were not so much pioneers and innovators as adept at exploiting the opportunities that different localities offered. Certainly, they had an advantage of scale over many other landholders; and unlike lay property, Cistercians, and all other ecclesiastical institutions, were not subject to inheritance and partition. Strategic land acquisitions, the extension of landholdings by grants, exchange, sale and purchase were the result of planning over long periods of time and enabled the Cistercians to create well-connected, coherent estates, and improve their crop production in terms of both quality and quantity. This was neither evidence of any Cistercian master plan nor the accidental result of taking marginal empty land into cultivation, but a consequence of actively participating in a rural economy of which Cistercian houses were an integral part.
