CREATING CISTERCIAN NUNS

The common picture of the early Cistercian order is that it was unreceptive to religious women. Male Cistercian leaders often avoide d institutional oversight of communities of nuns, preferring instead to cultivate informal relationships of spiritual advice and gui dance with religious women. As a result, scholars believed that women who wished to live a life of service and poverty were more lik ely to join one of the other reforming orders rather than the Cistercians.