The first Cistercian Hymnal is dated approximately 1108, under the abbacy of Stephen Harding. He sent monks from his Abbey in Burgundy to Milan in order to copy the hymnal kept there. It was considered to be Saint Ambrose’s original, and Ambrosian hymns enjoyed great prestige in the Rule of St. Benedict since they were purported to have been in use at Milan since the 4th Century. The Cistercians, working from what they found in Milan, compiled a hymnal of 34 texts on 19 different melodies and used this for about twenty years.Chrysogonus Waddell, The Primitive Cistercian Breviary (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Ms. Lat. Oct. 402) with variants from the "Bernardine" Cistercian breviary (Fribourg 2007). At the end of the 1130s, after Stephen Harding’s death, the General Chapter entrusted Bernard of Clairvaux with the revision of the hymnal (and other parts of the Office) because they considered the first version to be repetitive, and the Ambrosian melodies grated on their Burgundian sensibilities.
