The churches, with their inordinate, flaunting, grandiose proportions and ornaments, ignored the misery of the faithful, while the wealthy monks showed little taste for working the land, preferring to devote their time to the politics of the era. Then, just when at the time warrior orders like the Templars were developing, others judged it more urgent to once again adopt the poverty and humility of the first Christians.

Some monks started a reformed Benedictine abbey in Cîteaux, in Burgundy. Remote from all politics, without any real power, the new Cistercian order remained in the shadow of the powerful Cluny monks until a man with incredible charisma, St Bernard of Clairvaux, brought the momentum to this great cultural and architectural undertaking, which, at its height, would see several hundred abbeys spread across all of Europe. In Provence, the Cistercians founded three abbeys, which later were to be called
"the three Provençal sisters" : Thoronet, a few kilometers from le Luc, Senanque next to Gordes, and Silvacane at la Roque d´Anthéron.