The Premonstratensian canons, founded by the enigmatic St Norbert of Xanten (✤ 1134), spread rapidly across Europe after their establishment in the remote valley of Prémontré in 1121. By the end of 1124 there were sixteen houses. The second quarter of the twelfth century was a golden age for the order, for some two hundred houses were founded during that period. The desire of the Cistercian general chapter (1152) to call a halt to the rapid expansion which their order enjoyed throughout Europe, coupled with the great similarity between their lifestyle and that of the white canons, contributed greatly to the growth of the latter and the patronage which they received from the nobility when their golden age had elapsed. The first abbot of Prémontré and confrère of St Norbert, Bl. Hugh of Fosse, borrowed to some extent from the Cistercians' customary when formulating the order's first statutes (ante–1140), and adopted their method of holding general chapters and governmental structures, such as the system of ‘filiation’ between individual abbeys. Each house had a pater abbas – not necessarily from the abbey that sent the house's first inmates – who had powers to visit the abbey annually, and eventually had the authority to supervise abbatial elections. The Premonstratensians wore a white habit, indulged in manual labour, and strove to live up to the monastic ideal of the ‘desert’.