By the mid-twelfth century, the Cistercians had, albeit often reluctantly, begun to assimilate a considerable number of diverse eremitical and semieremitical groups into their growing ranks. At precisely the moment when Eugenius III (1145–53), himself a Cistercian, returned to the Order's mother house in September 1147 to be received with honour, the presence there of three religious who represented a second wave of would-be recruits, pointed to ‘the coalescence around Cîteaux of a remarkably variegated movement of monastic reform, involving numerous independent houses’. Attended by more than three hundred abbots from within the Cistercian family, presided over by Raynard of Cîteaux (1134–50) and accompanied by the charismatic figure of Bernard of Clairvaux (1113–53), the occasion has been described as one of the most important ecclesiastical gatherings of the century. Meanwhile, waiting at the gates of Cîteaux, metaphorically at least, were those who sought incorporation or affiliation for their religious foundations. Stephen of Obazine (c.1085–1154), a cleric from the Bas-Limousin region, had come on behalf of the eponymous male community which he directed between 1130 and 1147, together with its two daughter houses of Bonnaigue and Le Pestre and a further settlement of female followers at Coyroux. Likewise present was Serlo of Vaubadon, third abbot of Savigny (1140–53), supported by Osmund of Beaubec (1127?–56), abbot of the senior male house of the Savigniac family.