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The analysis of some English customs in the thirteenth century permits us to reopen the debate on the relationship between law and custom during the High Middle Ages. Twelfth-century Cistercian codification and early thirteenth-century pontifical efforts tried to build a unified monastic law, which was perceived as opposed to customs by one movement. This movement echoed and sometimes anticipated the building of classical Canon law. However, when monks redacted their customs, probably under this centralizing pressure, they tried to resist uniformity, to protect their autonomy, and to organize an internal monastic "citizenship," while paying lip-service to the rigidity of law. This suggests a parallel with the redaction of lay customs during the same period.