ABSTRACT
The spirit of the new monasticism was incapsulated in a widely circulated letter of William of Saint-Thierry. The smoke thrown up by the polemics can easily obscure the fact that the propagandists of the reformed monasticism shared with their more traditionalist opponents a large area of common ground. Saint Peter understood the fresh winds that were stirring the complacency of the monastic world. Cardinal Matthew of Albano had been prior of Saint-Martin-des-Champs at Paris before Pope Honorius II raised him to the purple, and under his regime the house had been noted for its strict observance as well as for its generous hospitality to the outside world. William's manifesto for the eremitical life was copied and read in Cluniac as well as Cistercian houses. The simple austerity of the early Cistercian observance and the fervour of its evangelists, combined with a dynamic central organisation, brought the order spectacular success.
