This article looks at the role of the Cistercian Order in the creation of the cultural identity of medieval Europe. Of this broad, multifaceted problem only one aspect is examined here. It concerns the impact of the internal structure, legal constitution and cultural activities of the Cistercian Order on the formation of ideas which helped to shape some of the attitudes and ways of acting that were common in various parts of Latin Christendom. The identification of such patterns of influence opens up the question of their value as a possible reference point for the contemporary process of European unity. The official documents that are concerned with centralization and filiation links within the Cistercian Order reveal that the institutional structures established and put in the service of that community, notwithstanding their natural fluctuations over long time spans, bear some remarkable direct analogies with forms and ideas created at other times, whose primary function was to consolidate a wide-reaching community. In their day and age, the Cistercians formulated in many ways a modem concept of a pan-European, religious community, which had a considerable influence on all spheres of social life. The grey monks, as they were called, processed and diffused all kinds of information which fed into the cultural identity of the European societies. Their branch network served as a carrier of new ideas in a number of fields, the economy, architecture, the arts, and manners. It seems that the Cistercians played a major role in the shaping and consolidating the cultural unity of our continent until the modem age, though at no time as their impact as strong as the 13th century. Acknowledging the pan-European cultural contribution of the Order, the Council of Europe established the Cistercian Route in 1990. The primary objective of this initiative was to promote the idea of uniting the nations and countries of Europe by cultivating and broadening the knowledge of the common roots of our [European] cultural identity.