Try living like a monk
(but without all those irritating habits)
THE monk at the welcome desk was playing Mr Grumpy with aplomb. I just wanted to look around his monastery, but he was determined to stop me seeing anything more than the gift shop. ‘Please can I have a peek?’ A shake of the head. ‘Just poke my head around the door?’ Another shake. Mrs Milton nudged me gently in the ribs. ‘Perhaps he’s taken a vow of silence,’ she said.
This was possible, but it seemed odd to put a silent monk in charge of the welcome desk.
We’d driven down to Citeaux monastery in Burgundy, the first stop on a journey into one of the most peculiar religious orders ever created. Founded in 1098, the Cistercians made hardship their guiding principle. Appalled by the worldly lifestyles of fellow monks, they established a new order based on austerity and poverty.
They wore robes of scratchy wool, ate the coarsest bread and refused to have colourful stained glass in their churches. Some, seemingly like the monk on our welcome desk, vowed not to talk.
Even more bizarre was their decision to ban underpants, in the belief that underwear was decadent.
Amazingly, their austerity creed was popular among young male drifters in the Middle Ages. Thousands signed up, and scores of monasteries were opened across Europe. Burgundy remained the heartland and the ruins of their churches and abbeys can be found in dozens of towns and villages in this vast region of eastern France.
Only one – Citeaux – is still a functioning monastery, with three dozen monks spending their days praying, fasting and not talking.
I eventually gave the monk on the welcome desk the slip and poked my head into the monastic church, where the starkness of their rule was writ large on the blank walls and undecorated altar.
Burgundy is an unlikely choice of place to found a strict religious order. This, after all, is home to some of the finest and most extravagant cuisine in all of France: panfried snails in garlic butter, boeuf bourguignon made from the local Charolais beef, and the drippingly good Epoisses cheese.
Then there’s the wine: Meursault, Aloxe-Corton and Puligny-Montrachet are just three of the globally famous wine-producing villages.
There is temptation at every turn in Burgundy, which is perhaps why it suited the Cistercians so well. Everyone can see you’re pious when you choose to drink tap water rather than Grand Cru Chablis.
One of the most spectacular monastic complexes is the Abbaye de la Bussiere, a 12th Century edifice established by a Dorset monk named Stephen Harding. He’d turn in his grave if he could see what’s become of it. These days, it’s a fivestar Relais & Chateaux hotel with a Michelin-starred restaurant and beautifully manicured grounds.
The place was still being used as a Catholic retreat until 2005 when it was bought (appropriately) by an English couple, Clive and Tanith Cummings. They restored the monastery with skill and sensitivity, respecting its medieval heritage. Luxury rooms were installed and a top-notch restaurant created. ‘It’s a never-ending job,’ says Clive. ‘It takes nine hours to mow the lawns and at least a day to trim the topiary.’ He has ambitious plans: a swimming pool, a spa centre and a cellar-cum-winery.
This is a ‘monastery’ unlike any other. In the room where Stephen-the-monk once ate gruel and coarse bread, guests now dine on grilled beef and perch swirled in butter. Fine food demands fine wine: chef Guillaume Royer and his team keep guests topped up with the finest local vintages.
ALTHOUGH Stephen Harding was extreme in his approach to religion while living at Abbaye de la Bussiere, he wasn’t as excessive as the order’s founder, Bernard of Clairvaux. He fasted so severely that he developed a terrible stomach condition – and also had appalling body odour.
Despite the hardships imposed on new recruits to the Cistercian order, their ranks continued to swell, prompting the construction of yet more monasteries – in Pontigny, La Ferte and Morimond. One of the most impressive is the Abbaye de Fontenay in northern Burgundy – a complex so huge that it’s more like a large village. Designated a Unesco world heritage site in 1981, it boasts a church the size of an aircraft hangar and a huge cloister, along with a refectory, dormitory and scores of outbuildings.
To ensure the required level of hardship, there was no heating, no windows and very little food. Since winter temperatures in Burgundy often remain below freezing for weeks, life here must have been tough indeed.
Abandoned during the 1789 revolution and later turned into a paper mill by the Montgolfier brothers, who invented the hot-air balloon, the abbey was finally bought by a banker from Lyons who paid for its restoration.
It’s a haunting place to come at the end of the day, when the crowds have gone and the buildings lie empty and silent. This was once home to 300 monks who lived in abject poverty in buildings of staggering grandeur.
The Cistercian order thrived for several centuries, but by the early 1700s it had lost large numbers of monks and its future looked uncertain. The biggest blow came at the time of the revolution, when many of the largest monasteries were confiscated, abandoned or simply destroyed.
It’s ironic that the best-preserved monastery is now a five-star hotel where luxury, rather than austerity, is the guiding principle.
If this is monasticism for the future, then I’m signing up.
Giles’s latest book, The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare, is published by John Murray at £20.