General Introduction

Cistercian Rievaulx Abbey and the ‘Transformation’ of King Henry II’s Wasteland

“…In arid-zone monasticism this goal was the desert, but as monasticism diffused from the Levant into Europe the goal adapted to that of forest and waste (Goehring 2003: 445-448). From the 11th century, the concept of a penitential journey received fresh theological emphasis and expression in the form of pilgrimage, and monastic focus, not least in Cistercian tradition (Bruun et al 2014). Cistercian teaching embedded Deuteronomy 32:10 (McGuire 1991: 285-6), a paradigm for a spiritual journey 'in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness' into the Cistercian 12th century Exordium Cistercii and thus created a 'metaphorical condition' to be sought by Cistercians (Newman 1996: 69, 94-6).…”