Jamie St. Clair Collings (Centre for Medieval Studies, U of Toronto) presented a paper in Kalamazoo 2026 on "Tiles and the Role of Geometricity in Later 12th- and 13th-c. Cistercian Spiritual Practice." These examples of Cistercian craftsmanship have often been neglected because they are difficult to find. Most abbeys (whether ruins or vibrant communities) don't have these floors in their churches. The tile designs show simple geometrical forms in the tradition of grisaille windows and the geometrically decorated manuscripts we consider to be classically Cistercian. The strictness was used to avoid curiositas. Abbeys had their own quarries and kilns. Collings stated that is was remarkable that the first regulation of tiles by the General Chapter took place as late as 1218.

This capital from Zwettl Abbey ist relatively festive for early Cistercian examples, many are even more sleek and show only one leaf-like form. They are worth looking at closely, since they often reveal that typical Cistercian finesse. All the more interesting the contrast to this Romantic example from Banja Luka Abbey in in Bosnia and Herzegovina.  

First off, text almost never appears in medieval Cistercian capitals, nor do such figural representations. 

Daniel S. Berman (a student at the Graduate Center, CUNY) spoke about this image as one point in his 2026 Kalamazoo paper titled "Fragrance Sweeter than Wine: Sensorial Devotion to Christ’s Side-wound in a Fourteenth-century Cistercian Miscellany." He explained the representation of the dulce vulnus with the text wrapped around it. The Cistercian nuns praying with this manuscript looked at the life-sized image in the course of their spiritual exercises. They even documented medicinal healing which resulted from Sacred Heart devotions. The image is from the "Villers Miscellany" (KBR MS 4459–70, Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels). It was written by various scribes at the monastery of Villers, but was probably used by the nuns at Vrouwenpark.
There are a few articles on this striking image, most notably: Sara Ritchey, "The Wound's Presence and Bodily Absence: Activating the Spiritual Senses in a Fourteenth-Century Manuscript," Sensory Reflections. Traces of Experience in Medieval Artifacts, edt. Fiona Griffiths and Kathryn Starkey, (De Gruyter, 2019) 163-180.

Although fading in the secularized West, mass intentions are a major source of funding for priests who receive insufficient financial support from bishops in poor dioceses. Catholic priests are required to note mass stipends they have received, using books like the one pictured above. 
Earlier, they were a part of every priest's routine, as the following document from 1925 shows. It is a report on how many mass stipends a missionary group distributed in 1925. Catholics would order mass intentions, give the money to the church group in the USA, and that group would then distribute the stipends internationally. As a result, the priests who celebrated the masses had to keep a record of the masses they said. 

Such records are immensely valuable historical sources because they show where each priest was on each day, and the altar where he said mass, as explained here.

Idealized portrayals of monastic cells like this one (note the candle burning, above) do not reflect the reality of monastic history. "The term cell is something of a misnomer for these conventual dwellings, as they were not simply single-room constructions," writes Kathryn Santner about Peruvian nuns in the Early Modern period. "[...] they formed an extended network of small houses composed of multiple bedrooms, sitting rooms, servants’ quarters, kitchens, and outdoor patios. [...] a cell built at Lima’s monastery of Santa Catalina in 1638 included a reception room, alcove, oratory, kitchen, patio, chicken coops, balcony, and staircase to the roof. [...] Employing the same materials and construction methods used in secular buildings, these lavish cells had the kinds of amenities and fine detailing seen in Lima’s stately homes, including upper stories," Kathryn Santner, "Money and a Room of One’s Own." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 81.4 (2022) 441-455, at 442.

The Hieronymite nun Juana Inés de la Cruz had in her cell: thousands of books, scientific and musical instruments, paintings, and curiosities. See Octavio Paz, Sor Juana, or, The Traps of Faith, trans. Margaret Sayers Peden (Belknap Press 1988) 247–248, qtd in Santner.

This etching of St. Simeon the Hermit in his tenth-century cell is idealized but at least shows a number of paintings and even more modern books. 

This image is from Yates Thompson MS 3, also known as the Dunois Hours. For a solid introduction to the trope of Bernard's eight verses, click here.

Most of the sources call Rancé the founder of the Trappist movement, students of Cistercian history know that  from the early 1600s, the abbots Denis Largentier (Clairvaux) and Octave Arnolfini (Châtillon) where at the beginning of the movement. Another trope is that the monks of the Common Observance were so depraved in the seventeenth century that God himself called the Strict Observance into being. Actually, the 1600s showed the movement to be flourishing in many, if not all, abbeys. Another error is the claim that La Trappe had survived for "over 900 years," but it was closed and roundly abused in the French Revolution, as were all abbeys, and was a romantic re-foundation of the nineteenth century. 
Pointing to these errors may be nitpicking. Other authors point to the predicted closure of La Trappe as a sign of a far graver matter: "That this venerable monastery cannot find enough vocations to keep it alive is," so writes Bishop Robert Barron, "a sign of the spiritual disaster that has befallen Europe in the last hundred years." And that is much more tragic. 

This drawing from the December, 1921 issue of Chi lo sa? portrays a seminarian holding his first speech, presumably in a class on public speaking. No, he is not looking at his smartphone. The drawing was made by a fellow seminarian at the Venerable English College in Rome. Chi lo sa? is the seminary diarium. The Venerabile is the seminary magazine, old issues are online here.