Stephen Harding
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Saint Stephen Harding (died March 28, 1134), is a Christian saint and monastic abbot, one of the founders of the Cistercian Order.
While Stephen Harding was born in Dorset, and though his name is Anglo-Saxon, he was a speaker of Norman French, as well as Latin. He was placed in the abbey of Sherbourne at a young age, but eventually put aside the cowl and became a travelling scholar of sorts. He eventually moved to the abbey of Molesme in Burgundy, under the abbot Saint Robert of Molesme (c. 1027 – 1111).
When Robert left Molesme to avoid its corruption and laxity, Stephen and Saint Alberic went with him. Unlike Alberic, however, Stephen was not ordered to return, and he remained in solitude with Robert. When twenty-one monks deserted Molesme to join Robert, Stephen Harding, and Alberic, the three leaders formed a new monastery at Citeaux.
At Citeaux, Saint Robert was initially abbot. However, Robert returned to Molesme after a year, and Alberic took over, until his death in 1108. Stephen Harding, the youngest of the three men, therefore became the third abbot of Citeaux after Robert and Alberic. As abbot, Stephen Harding guided the new monastery over a period of great growth. Bernard of Clairvaux came to visit in 1112 and brought with him his followers. Between 1112 and 1119, a dozen new Cistercian houses were founded to contain the monks coming to the new, austere, reformed monastic movement. In 1119, Stephen wrote up the Charta of Charity, which is a defining document in the Cistercian Order and establishes its unifying principles.
Stephen ruled the house at Citeaux for twenty-five years. While no single person founded the Cistercian Order, most of the credit for the shape of Cistercian belief and its rapid growth in the 12th century goes to Stephen Harding. In 1133, he resigned the head of the order, due to his age and increasing blindness. He died the following year.
His feast day is April 17. The north aisle of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate was formerly a chapel dedicated to him (it became the Musicians' Chapel in the 20th century).
