THE TIRONENSIANS WERE one of the earliest monastic orders to become immersed in the shift from an agricultural economy to an urban economy during the Renaissance of the twelfth century. When Tiron was founded, most monasteries were supported by tithes on the produce of their farms, and their landed endowment shaped their religious identity and their social relations with the community. The established Benedictine monasteries owned the prime real estate and the reformed orders accepted poorer and marginal land. The locus amoenus topos in their foundation legends often was a desert they had transformed into a new Eden, although sometimes charters indicate earlier inhabitation and cultivation. Tiron's first foundation at Thiron-Brunelles was truly a desert in an isolated forest on a tract unsuited to growing grain or grapes, staples of monastic life. Nonetheless the forest provided wood for heat and construction, grazing and pannage for livestock, and fur and hides for leather. The stream and ponds provided waterpower, and nearby metallurgy deposits provided iron. The monks built workrooms before they began clearing land for fields. A famine 1109– 1112 drove displaced persons to shelter in their community, including skilled agricultural workers and urban craftsmen. Lacking an agricultural base, Tiron produced and marketed artisanal goods as a matter of survival. Refoundation on a farm in Thiron-Gardais improved their food situation, but the artisans were settled members of the community. Most monasteries had a support group of craftsmen, but Tiron had cadres of bakers, smiths, carpenters, masons, and husbandmen. Their collective manpower and expertise led to surpluses that found outlets in Chartres and then through urban trading networks. Their participation in trade was exceptionally early and intrinsic to their identity.

Some indication of Tiron's involvement in trade is contained in the written sources, particularly its financial exemptions, but also in property maps. Riders and carters planned carefully to ensure shelter overnight. A traveller who covered over 15 kilometres would seek shelter instead of returning home the same day. The average day's ride for a monastic official was 25 kilometres out, 29 kilometres home. Tiron adopted spacing for the purposes of centralization similar to the spacing Cîteaux adopted as it expanded and experienced ownership and boundary problems.