Cistercian Carta Caritatis

Timeline

1. 1119Cîteaux Abbey · BurgundyStephen Harding presided over drafting the Carta Caritatis at Cîteaux, stipulating that daughter houses obey the mother house, that all houses follow the same rule, and establishing the annual Cistercian general chapter and visitation system. Pope Calixtus II approved it in 1119, giving the scattered reformed abbeys a workable common charter.
2. 1120–1149Network of Cistercian abbeys in Western Europe · Western EuropeUnder Bernard of Clairvaux's impetus, the Cistercians rapidly founded daughter houses in France, England, and Germany. Each house was required to keep a copy of the Carta Caritatis; mother-house visitations and the annual general chapter adjudicated discipline and new foundations on its basis, turning the charter from a single-house rule into the operating law of a transnational order.
3. c. 1152Cîteaux Abbey · BurgundyIn the mid-12th century the charter went through successive revised versions such as the prior, summa, and posterior recensions, to address the swelling number of daughter houses and jurisdictional disputes. Its federal-style governance was later regarded by religious orders and legal historians as an important milestone of medieval corporate law, and the textual tradition continues to this day.