Benedictine monasticism was enlivened, enriched, re-thought by the Cistercians in the twelfth century. Much more than the black monks, these white monks set out to live a life detached from contemporary social and economic developments. In theory and practice, early Cistercian abbeys remained self-contained units divorced from ecclesiastical, political–feudal ties, with a unanimity of observance. Theoretically at least, they possessed a clear and detailed uniform code throughout the Order according to which departure from the expressed norm could be corrected by the frequent visitations of abbots. They consciously divested themselves of the accretions of customs to which they believed black monks had needlessly and excessively succumbed. They saw as their primary task the organisation of a self-contained common life for their monastic family centred round labour, reading and prayer, Therefore, they radically shortened the Cluniac liturgy. In the early days, contact with commerce and trade was almost nil.