Cistercian Houses in the Kingdom of Jerusalem

Abstract

In the later twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a network of Cistercian daughter-houses was established throughout the Latin East, both on the Syrian mainland and also in Cyprus and in Frankish Greece.¹ In contrast to other religious orders, however, and despite the great interest that St. Bernard is known to have shown in the affairs of the kingdom, there seems to have been an initial reluctance on the part of the Cistercians to establish themselves in the Kingdom of Jerusalem itself.