CHRISTOPHER
25
CISTERCIANS
in the latter half of the second rentury. In the be-
ginning the chorepiscopi seem to have exercised all
episcopal functions in their rural districts, but from
the second half of the third century they were subject
to the city bishops. The thirteenth canon of the
Synod of AncjTa (314) and the tenth canon of the
Synod of Antioch (341) forbade them to ordain
deacons or priests without the wTitten permission
of the bishop; the sixth canon of the Synod of Sardica
(343) decreed that no chorepiscopus should be conse-
crated where a priest would suffice; and the fifty-
seventh canon of the SjTiod of Laodicea (380) pre-
scribed that the chorepiscopi should be replaced by
ireptoSevTal, i.e. priests who have no fixed residence
and act as organs of the city bishops. Thus the
chorepiscopi in the Eastern Church gradually disap-
peared. The Second Council of Xicaea (787) is the last
to make mention of them. Among the Nestorians
they existed till the thirteenth century, and they still
exist among the Maronites and Jacobites. In the
Western Church they are of rare occurrence before
the seventh centup', and, as a rule, have no fixed
territory or see, being mere assistants of the bishops.
Their ever-increasing influence during the Carlo-
vingian period led to repeated sjTiodical legislations
against them (Synods of Paris in 829, Aachen in 836,
Meaux in 845), so that despite such able defenders
of their cause as Rabanus Maurus ("De chorepisco-
pis", in P. L., ex., 119.5-1206) they gradually disap-
peared in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and were
replaced by the archdeacons.
BEROi:RE, Etude historique sur tes chorHiques (Paris, 1905^; GiLLMANN, Das Institutder Chorbischofe im Orient (Munieti, 1903) ; Parisot, Les ehorirgques in Revue de VOrient Chretien, VI (Paris, 1901), 137-171, 419-443; Grisar in CiritlA Cattolica (Rome, 15 Oct., 1904; 25 Jan., 1905; 18 March, 1905); Leclercq, La Uffialation conciliaire reUitive aux chorltSques in his tr. of Hefele, Concitiengeschichle, III (Paris, 1908), 1197-1237; Weizacker. Der Kampf gegenden Chorepiscopat dea frdnkischen Reichs (Tubingen, 1S59). ^IICHAEL OtT.
Christopher Numax of Forli, minister general of the Friars Minor and cardinal, date of birth uncer- tain; d. at Ancona, 23 Mar., 1.528. In his youth he studied at Bologna and, after joining the Friars Minor, was sent to complete his studies at Paris. In 1507 he was elected vicar provincial of his order at Bologna, in 1514 vicar general of the Cismontane Franciscan families, and in 1517 he became minister general of the whole order of Friars Minor. Less than a month later he was raised, in spite of his protests, to the cardinalate by Leo X, who in presence of the Sacred College paid a splendid tribute to Christopher's great learning and prudence and to his still greater holiness of life. In 1520 he became Bishop of Alatri and Isernia in Italy, and in 1526 of Riez in Provence. He subsequently fulfilled with eminent success the office of Apostolic legate to the King of France, and later became Apostolic nuncio and commissary for the construction of the Vatican Basilica, being then invested with the temporal dominion of Bcrtinoro. During the siege of Rome by the soldiers of the Duke of Bourbon in 1527 Chris- topher suffered many hardships and insults, on ac- count of which he received letters of condolence from Clement VII, Francis I of France, and Henry VIII of England. His remains were transferred from An- cona, where he had taken refuge, to Rome and placed in the Church of Ara Coeli. Besides an "Exhortatio ad Galliarum rcgem Franciscum I in Turcas" and a number of letters addressed to that king and the other rulers concerning the liberation of Clement VII, Christopher is said by Wadding and others to have written several treatises on theological and ascetical questions, all of which appear to have perished during the sacking of Rome.
Waddin-o. Annalea Minorum ad annum ISt7, XVI, nn. xxiv and iiiv; Sbahalea, Supplementum. Pt. I (1908), 207; PicooNI, Cenni biograHre xugli uomini illuatri delta francesrana prorincia di B„logna, I (1894). 380. PaSCHAL RoBINSON.
Cistercians in the British Isles. — St. Stephen
Harding, third Abbot of Clteaux (1109-33), was an
Englishman and his influence in the earl}' organiza-
tion of the Cistercian Order had been very great. It
was natural therefore that, when, after the coming of
St. Bernard and his companions in 1113, foundations
began to multiply, the project of sending a colony of
monks to England should find favourable considera-
tion. In Nov., 1128, with the aid of Wilham Giffard,
Bishop of Winchester, a settlement was made at
Waverly near Farnham in Surrey. Five houses were
founded from here before 1152 and some of them had
themselves produced ofTshoots. But it was in the
north that the order assumed its most active develop-
ments in the twelfth century. William, an Eng-
lish monk of great virtue, was sent from Clairvaux by
St. Bernard in 1131, and a small property was given
to the newcomers by Walter Espec "in a place of
horror and dreary solitude" at Rivauk in Yorkshire,
with the hearty support of Thurston, Archbishop of
York. By 1143 three hundred monks had entered
there, including the famous St. Aelred, known for his
eloquence as the St. Bernard of England. Among the
offshoots of Rivaulx were Melrose and Revesby.
Still more famous was Fountains near Ripon. The
foundation was made in 1132 by a section of the monks
from the great Benedictine house of St. Mary's, York,
who desired to lead a more austere life. After many
struggles and great hardships, St. Bernard agreed to
send them a monk from Clair\'aux to instruct them,
and in the end they prospered exceedinglj'. The
great beauty of the ruins excites wonder even to-day,
and before 1152 Fountains had many offshoots, of
which Newminster and Meaux are the most famous.
Another great reinforcement to theorder was the acces-
sion of the houses of the Savig;ny foundation, which
were incorporated with the Cistercians, at the in-
stance of Eugenius III, in 1138. Thirteen Enghsh
abbeys, of which the most famous were Fumess and
Jervaulx, thus adopted the Cistercian rule. By the
year 11.52 there were fifty-four Cistercian monas-
teries in England, some few of which, hke the beauti-
ful Abbey of Tintern on the Wye, had been founded
directly from the Continent. Architecturally .speak-
ing the Cistercian monasteries and churches, owing
to their pure style, may be counted among the most
beautiful rehcs of the Middle Ages. To the wool and
cloth trade, which was especially fostered by the
Cistercians, England was largely indebted for the
beginnings of her commercial prosperity.
After tlie overthrow of monastic foundations at the Reformation the Cistercian habit was not seen in the British Isles until some monks of the austere reform of La Trappe (hence often called Trappists), driven out by the French Revolution, came to England in- tending to proceed to Canada. This intention was accidentally frustrated and in 1794 they were re- ceived at Lulworth in Dorsetshire by Thomas Weld. Most of them afterwards aided in restoring the great Abbey of Mount Melleray in Brittany and still later in estabhshing a new ISIount Melleray in Ireland. This flourishing house at Cappoquin, Co. Waterford, now has a community of nearly 70, of them 29 are priests. Another and more recent foundation at Roscrea, Co. Tipperary, in the Diocese of Killaloe, numbers 66 monks with 28 priests. In England, St. Bernard's Abbey, Coalville, Leicestershire, founded in 1835, is on a smaller scale and numbers only 7 priests. The only convent of Cistercian nuns in the British Isles is at Stapehill near \\imborne, Dorset- shire. It has a community of 42 members.
Cooke in The English HiM<rrical Review (Ix>nrlon. 1893), 625- 76; Daloairns, Life nj St. Stephen Harding. pH. Thurston (Lon- don, 1898); Concise History o/ the Cislercinn Order by a CisK^r- cian monk (I^ondon, 1852); Fowler, Cistercian Statistics (Lon- don. 1890); McRPHY, Triumphalia Monaslerii S. Crneis (Dublin, 1891); CooNASSO, Acta cistercicnsia in Rdmische Quartalschri/t
(•^'2)- Herbert Thurston.
