The Valliscaulian priory of Pluscarden was founded by King Alexander II. The now-defunct Valliscaulian Order was small compared to the great medieval religious houses and emerged at a time when austere monasticism had spread across Europe c. 1075–1200. The founder of the Order was Viard who trained as a lay cleric at the , Leuglay. founding priory was Val des Choux around 20 km from Châtillon-sur-Seine in Burgundy. Viard, who drew up the ascetic rules governing the Order, received consent from Pope Innocent III in 1205/6; a copy of this bull was preserved in the Chartulary of Moray. The consequential legal charter, the "Ordinale", provided the exact details of the liturgy, the obligations of office bearers and the conduct of the Order. The "Ordinale" contains rules that show close resemblances to Cistercian and, to a lesser degree, Carthusian practices. The most obvious difference in approach from the Cistercian practices would have been the separate cells for the monks – most likely a partitioned dormitory as practised by the Grandmontines – and the vegetable plots where the brothers were allowed to tend their private gardens in the afternoons when not engaged in official priory duties. Another Carthusian rule adopted by the Valliscaulians was that the priory should have no more than 20 monks. This meant that with the small size of the community, survival would be difficult without wealthy patrons. The Valliscaulians only had 21 houses in total, according to JAP Mignard, the Order's 19th-century historian and three of these were in Scotland, namely Pluscarden, Beauly in Ross-shire and Ardchattan in Argyll. Despite the fact that Valliscaulians were closer to the Cistercians, the main outward aspects of the Order caused Walter Bower, Abbot of Inchcolm, to have taken the three Valliscaulian houses for that of the Carthusians. He recorded this in his Scotichronicon of 1437 and so must have been aware of their customs so soon after the establishment of the one and only Scottish Carthusian monastery in Perth in 1429.