Bringing back Cistercian chant into historic Cistercian churches: Here's a selection of historic Cistercian churches which seem especially appropriate for concerts and chant festivals with Cistercian chant:
Cadouin (http://www.semitour.com/site-touristique/cloitre-de-cadouin)
Flaran (http://abbayedeflaran.fr/)
Fontenay (http://www.abbayedefontenay.com/)
Fontfroide (http://www.fontfroide.com/)
Le Thoronet (http://thoronet.monuments-nationaux.fr/)
Maulbronn (http://www.kloster-maulbronn.de/)
Otterberg (http://www.evpfalz.de/gemeinden/otterberg/navigation_abteikirche.htm)
Pontigny (http://abbayedepontigny.eu/)
Royaumont (http://www.royaumont.com/)
Sénanque (http://www.senanque.fr/)
Silvacane (http://www.abbaye-silvacane.com/)
Also see the charta of European Cistercian locations: http://www.cister.net/?lang=en
Several of these churches are quite large, so it seems appropriate also for larger chant ensembles to sing there. It would be great if some of the concerts could also be made available in the WWW as audios/videos.
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I met Damien two weeks ago at the Abbey du Thoronet in order to sing and celebrate together the weekly mass. I gave you the link, because I had forgotten about the other discussion, where Alberto already communicated it.
Most of his recordings are based on 12th-century manuscripts, when the Abbey was founded (we have this splendid list of sources made by Dominique). Despite that the neumes are notated on staff, especially ornament signs are still used (very similar to the contemporary notator of Hildegard's Riesenkodex, but also to contemporary Cistercian chant books of Brandenburg and Silesia—Wrocław has a great collection and we had three important Cistercian foundations around Berlin, Chorin, Lehnin and Zinna at the North, the town Berlin developed much later during the 18th century).
Concerning the square notation of the 13th century and Jérôme's / Hieronymus' distinction between modus ecclesiasticus and modus organicus, I do not know. Cistercian customs were copied by many contemporary and later reform orders, and maybe the monodic ornamentation of ligatures was in connection with square notation in general.
Concerning St Bernard and his reform, there was this hypothesis, that his reform group refused polyphony (see the publications by Cecile Sweeney) and an organum treatise ascribed to Guy de Cherlieu, one of the reforming cantors. But other scholars around Christian Meyer made editions of later sources and found, that the Cistercian attitude to the modus organicus was not that simple. We have this fine and detailed neumatic notation on staff, but we have also manuscripts like the Codex Las Huelgas, obviously both options existed during the same time.
We have treatises of cantare supra librum, treating a polyphonic performance in fauxbordon out of monodic foliants since the 13th century (probably the practice already existed for a long time), we have a more refined later description treating also the use of syncopating rhythm before cadences in a treatise by Petrus dictus palma otiosa and many believe that the author was Cistercian or closely related to Cistercian communities. I think these are the relevant sources for those who are interested in the history of performance practice at Cistercian monasteries.
Jerome's polemic against Gallian cantors is obviously a reaction to Parisian customs at Notre-Dame and Saint Denis.
I was going to say the same!
More important for me:
In the manner of singing, who would be is in favour of applying Moravia to Cisterian chant? It looks like Dominican manuscripts were based on Cistercian ones.
If so, which of Moravia's method should be used? only the simple method, and not the French one, because we should assume that Cistercians wanted something simple as opposed to Bénédictins who wanted something elaborate?
I have never been able to decide
You might be interested in the initiative of Damien Poisblaud and « Les chantres du Thoronet »:
http://chantgregorien.over-blog.com/