A Cistercian is a Christian monk — a man who lives in a religious community, not an ordinary family home — belonging to an order that began in 1098 at Cîteaux in France (Cistercium in Latin). Cistercians follow the Rule of St Benedict, as Benedictine monks do: prayer, work, simple food, little sleep, and a life with few comforts. Though actually they set out to keep that rule even more strictly than the Benedictines of their day. They wanted poorer buildings, more silence, more hard work in the fields, and fewer rich gifts from lords. People sometimes call them the “White Monks,” because of their undyed wool clothes, beside the Benedictine “Black Monks.” A later, still stricter branch is often called Trappist; Trappists are Cistercians, though not every Cistercian is Trappist. You will meet the word in history, church writing, and on signs at old abbeys. It is also an adjective: a Cistercian abbey, Cistercian rule.