Anglican in Burgundy

St Stephen Harding, depicted in 1125, in the Commentary of St Jerome on Jeremiah now in Dijon library, Bibl Dijon ms 130 fol 104      Stephen Harding (c.1060-1134) was an oblate of the Benedictine Sherborne Abbey in Dorset who left the monastic life and went on a pilgrimage to Rome. On the way back, he passed, like so many mediaeval Englishmen, through Burgundy, where he joined the community of monks at Molesme. Already known for their striving for a more literal observance of the Rule, Stephen was one of the group of monks who then left Molesme to start up the new community at Cîteaux, under Alberic as abbot. Stephen became prior and then abbot in succession to Alberic, and was referred to in the  Exordium magnum Cisterciense  (of 1190-1210)  as having been the "dux et signifer" of the whole Cistercian movement. St Stephen wrote two of the key early Cistercian documents, the Exordium Parvum , detailing the history of the first beginnings of the order, and...