There is, however, some debate about Robert of Molesme's motives for leaving Molesme. He had left several other establishments before, even though Molesme was reputed to be a model Black Monk house. According to Oderic Vitalis, it seems that Robert simply desired to lead a much more austere lifestyle than was led by his contemporaries or even required by the Rule of St. Benedict.

Robert and twenty of his brothers left Molesme and settled in the diocese of Chalone-sur-Saone, founding the what was at first called the Novum Monasterium the "New Monastery". This "New Monastery" was soon renamed Citeaux, the latin form of this - Cistercium - gave identity to the newly emerging order. Robert was replaced by Abbot Alberic when the pope of the time forced him to return to Molesme. Abbot Alberic was succeeded by Stephen Harding who inspired the founding of many daughter abbeys and in 1119 presented Pope Calixtus II the "Charter of Love" in effect the constitution of the Cistercian family. The charter gave no doubt as the need for uniformity.

The English houses derived mainly from the three mother houses of Waverly, Rieveaulx and Fountains. From these daughter houses whole colonising families of abbeys spread through the three kingdoms, nearly always attracting the patronage and protection of the aristocracy eager to please their god and the papacy.

The success of the Cistercian grange was derived form its loyal and devout army of illiterate lay-bothers who worked the land and provided the majority of the manual labour. Through grant, purchase and exchange the foundations came to control wide acres of pasture, arable and forest. The Cistercians became widely known for their keeping of sheep and production of wool, which was exported to Italy, France and the Flemish low countries. From the records of one Italian merchant,Francesco Balucci, it has been estimated that Fountains alone had available the wool of nearly 17000 sheep.

The lay brothers had largely dispersed by the mid fourteenth century, causing a contraction in the monastic world, the rule of silence was no longer enforced and meat eating was permitted on certain days of the week.

By the sixteen hundreds the spiritual fervour that had gripped the middle ages had started to fade, the monastic way of life fell under suspicion by a king whose need for spiritual freedom (and financial expansion) forced the demise of an increasingly unpopular way of life. With the publication of the Valor Ecclesiasticus in 1535, all monasteries valued under £200 per annum were suppressed and their occupants either pensioned off or moved to larger sites. By 1540 the "voluntary" surrender of all the religious houses in England and Wales had been obtained, their estates and sites granted, rented or sold and their inhabitants pensioned off.

In the four hundred years of the Cistercian expansion in Britain, they had become interwoven in the fabric of society, its great houses formed part of the greatest international organisation of its day. Its abbeys patronised by kings and nobles and its estates occupied by the peasantry, merchants and town dwellers alike.

From the Cistercians we have inherited much, agricultural practices, manuscripts and histories and above all their magnificent and inspirational buildings.