Cistercian order begins rapid expansion

1103

With Stephen Harding as abbot of Citeaux and a new constitutional Charter of Charity under discussion, the white monks began founding daughter houses at an accelerating pace. Within forty years the order would have three hundred monasteries across Latin Europe. Their insistence on manual labor and remote, undeveloped sites transformed swathes of wilderness into productive farmland, from the Yorkshire dales to the forests of Brandenburg.