The Cistercian monastic order becomes a major force in the spread and improvement of watermill technology across Europe during the 12th and 13th centuries. Cistercian monasteries, often built in remote valleys, used water power for a wide range of tasks, including grinding grain, fulling cloth, tanning leather, and operating forge hammers. Their systematic approach to engineering and resource management made them centers of technological innovation, and they played a key role in the medieval 'industrial revolution' driven by water power.

The Cistercian mills and their role in medieval life are evoked in religious and pastoral poetry of the period. The sound of the watermill and the sight of the monastery's industriousness became part of the idyllic landscape celebrated in works like the poems of the Welsh bardic tradition or the vision of the ordered, self-sufficient community found in some religious verse. They represent the blend of spirituality and practical labor that defined the monastic ideal.