Premonstratensians

Premonstratensians (called also NORBERTINES), an order of regular canons, founded by St Norbert, a canon of Cleves, in 1119, at a place in the forest of Coucy, pointed out in a vision, and thence called Prémontré (Lat. Pratum Monstratum, 'the meadow pointed out'). Their habit was white, hence in England they were commonly called the White Canons. Norbert organised his new order, which was substantially a branch of the Canons Regular of St Augustine, as well with a view to the sanctification of the members as to their usefulness in effecting the reformation of the age. Himself a man of remarkable piety and austerity of life, his rule is a return to the primitive fervour of the monastic institute; and the great work which he proposed for his brotherhood, in addition to the daily choral services of the church, was the practical instruction of the people, and the direction of consciences in the confessional. It was taken up with ardour, and spread rapidly in France and the Low Countries, and afterwards—on Norbert's being chosen, in 1127, Archbishop of Magdeburg—in Germany; the abbot of the mother-house at Coucy, however, retaining the rank of general and of superior of the entire order. In 1512 all the abbeys in England and Wales were placed under the Abbot of Welbeck. There, just before the dissolution, were thirty-five houses; in Scotland there were six, one of them Dryburgh. It does not seem at any time to have made much progress, or at least to have established many houses, in Italy or Spain. In the same spirit of reformation Norbert established an order of nuns, which attained to equal success. Hélyot states that at one time there were as many as a thousand Premonstratensian abbeys, besides provostships and priories, and 500 houses of nuns, mostly in France, Germany, and the northern kingdoms. Lecuy, the last abbot of Prémontré, died so late as 1834. The abbeys were proscribed at the Revolution, and even in Germany, Belgium, and Austria there remain only miserable fragments of their former splendour. Small communities have been revived at Crowle and Spalding in Lincolnshire and at Storrington in Sussex.