Harding, Saint Stephen

▪ Roman Catholic abbot

born c. 1060, Sherborne, Dorsetshire, Eng.

died March 28, 1134, Cîteaux, Burgundy, Fr.; canonized 1623; feast day July 16

      third abbot of Cîteaux (Latin: Cistercium) and a founder of the Cistercian Order.

      Educated at the Sherborne Abbey, Harding fled to Scotland sometime after the Norman Conquest. He studied in Paris, may have been a soldier, and made a pilgrimage to Rome. He joined the Cluniac abbey at Molesme, Fr., and assumed the name Stephen. In 1098 he and several companions, dismayed at the lax observance of the Rule of St. Benedict, left Molesme under the leadership of their abbot Robert and founded a monastery at Cîteaux. As abbot there from 1109, he proved an able administrator, founding several subsidiary abbeys, one of which was Clairvaux, where he installed St. Bernard as abbot. Bernard's subsequent fame contributed to the rapid growth and influence of the Cistercian Order.

      Insisting on simplicity in all aspects of monastic life, Stephen was largely responsible for the severity of Cistercian architecture. It has been thought that Stephen wrote all or much of three major statements of Cistercian principles, but this is disputed by some 20th-century scholars. Drawing on Jewish authorities, he prepared his own edition of the Bible (1112; manuscript preserved at Dijon).

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