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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..597ac55 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #52581 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52581) diff --git a/old/.52581-h.zip.I23mYa b/old/.52581-h.zip.I23mYa Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index c69528c..0000000 --- a/old/.52581-h.zip.I23mYa +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52581-0.txt b/old/52581-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 4228ce6..0000000 --- a/old/52581-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2774 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fountains Abbey, by George Hodges - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Fountains Abbey - The story of a mediaeval monastery - -Author: George Hodges - -Release Date: July 16, 2016 [EBook #52581] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOUNTAINS ABBEY *** - - - - -Produced by deaurider, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - - FOUNTAINS ABBEY - - [Illustration: _Fountains Abbey_ - - _J. M. W. Turner, R.A. pinxit._ _Art Repro. Co._ - - _From a drawing in the possession of J. E. Taylor, Esq._] - - - - - FOUNTAINS ABBEY - - THE STORY OF A MEDIÆVAL - MONASTERY BY GEORGE HODGES - D.D. DEAN OF THE EPISCOPAL - THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL CAMBRIDGE - MASSACHUSETTS - - LONDON: JOHN MURRAY - ALBEMARLE STREET W - - MCMIV - - BALLANTYNE PRESS - LONDON & EDINBURGH - - - TO MY WIFE - I INSCRIBE THIS FRUIT - OF A GOLDEN SUMMER - - - - -PREFACE - - -The materials out of which this book is made were taken mainly from two -sources: a description and explanation of the Abbey ruins by Mr. W. H. -St. John Hope, and a collection and annotation of the Abbey records by -Mr. John Richard Walbran. - -The ruins have been minutely examined by Mr. St. John Hope, who has left -no stone unconsidered. He has brought to his study of the Abbey a -profound knowledge of monastic architecture. The account of his -investigations is published in the fifteenth volume of the “Yorkshire -Archæological Journal,” to which is appended a historical ground-plan of -the Abbey, drawn by Mr. Harold Brakspear. The Marquess of Ripon has had -copies of this plan framed and placed in various parts of the buildings -for the information of visitors. Through the courtesy of Mr. Hope and -Mr. Brakspear I am enabled to give a reduced version of this excellent -plan. - -The records have been gathered together by Mr. Walbran, and printed, -with many learned and interesting notes, in two volumes of the -publications of the Surtees Society, entitled “Memorials of Fountains -Abbey.” They begin with a contemporary narrative of the foundation of -the Abbey, and extend to the grant which the king made of the Abbey -lands after the suppression. They include the chronicle of the -administrations of the abbots; the deed of the ground on which the Abbey -stands; a series of royal charters and a series of papal privileges; -various records of the dealings of the Monastery with its neighbours, -clerical and lay; letters to Thomas Cromwell from Layton and Legh, the -commissioners at whose demand the Abbey was surrendered, and from -Marmaduke Bradley, the abbot who surrendered it; and the king’s -assignment of pensions by name to the abbot and the monks after the -dissolution. - -Of these documents, the longest and most interesting is the contemporary -account of the foundation--_Narratio de fundatione Fontanis Monasterii_. -It was written by Hugh, a monk of the daughter house of Kirkstall, upon -information given him by Serlo, an aged brother then resident in that -abbey, who had once lived at Fountains. Serlo was almost a hundred years -old when he sat in the sun in the cloister of Kirkstall, and told this -story of his early days, answering Hugh’s questions. “It is now,” he -says, “the sixty-ninth year of my conversion. When I first went to -Fountains to associate myself to that holy brotherhood, I was, as I -remember, about beginning my thirtieth year.” The Abbey, at that time, -as he tells us in another place, was five years old; but he had been -acquainted with the brethren before. “When the monks left the monastery -of York, I myself was present. I had known their names and faces from my -boyhood; I was born in their country, was brought up amongst them, and -to several of them I was related by ties of blood. And although I am, as -thou may see, far advanced in years, I am very grateful to my old age -that my memory remains unimpaired, and particularly retentive of those -things committed to it in early years. Such things, therefore, relating -to the origin of the Monastery of Fountains, which I personally -witnessed, or have gathered from the credible report of my elders, I -will now relate.” - -Serlo spent ten years at Fountains, leaving in 1147, with the colony -which founded Kirkstall. After that, the chronicler writes not from -personal observation, but from near acquaintance. There would naturally -be frequent communication between the mother and the daughter house. The -reminiscences end with the death of the sixth abbot, in 1190. Thence the -history proceeds, by the hand of Hugh and others, to recount the -administration of the seventh and eighth abbots, and mention is made in -the last sentence of the ninth and tenth. - -In addition to these books, information is to be had concerning the -Cistercian Order in its official documents. These are the Life of St. -Stephen Harding, the chief founder; the Exordium (1120), a history of -the beginning of the Order; the Charta Charitatis (1119), its -constitution; the Rule of St. Benedict, to whose strict keeping the -Cistercians were pledged; the Usus Antiquiores or Consuetudines, the -Customs of the Society; and the Instituta Capitali Generalis, or laws -passed during several hundred years by the General Chapter for the -government of the Order. A life of St. Stephen, in English, was -published in 1844, under the editorship of John Henry Newman, as the -first in a projected series of lives of the English saints. The Rule of -St. Benedict is admirably summarised in the article on Monachism in the -“Encyclopædia Britannica.” The Institutes have been printed in -successive numbers of the “Yorkshire Archæological Journal” (vols. ix., -x. and xi.) by the Rev. J. T. Fowler. The other documents are assembled -in the 166th volume of Migne’s “Patrologia Latina.” - -In the Rites of Durham, a contemporary account of the customs of a -Benedictine abbey, light is thrown upon obscure passages in these -official documents, and much help is given in the way of homely detail -towards an understanding of the routine of the monastic day. Dean -Stubbs, in his lectures on Ely Cathedral, and the Rev. John Henry Blunt, -in his account of Sion House, prefixed to his edition of the “Myroure of -oure Ladye,” take us pleasantly into the refectory, telling us what the -monastic folk had for dinner, and with what curious signs they -communicated one with another during the silent meal. - -The writer gratefully acknowledges the friendly services of the Dean of -Ripon and of Charles Edward Eardley Childers, of Pittsburg, and the -courtesy of the Marquess and Marchioness of Ripon during his -locumtenency of Studley Church, in the summer of 1901. - -THE DEANERY -CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS -_Sept. 1903_ - - - - -CONTENTS - - -CHAPTER I - -THE BEGINNING - - PAGE - -The Abbey and the Elm 1 - -St. Stephen Harding 3 - -The founding of Citeaux (_Cistercium_) 4 - -The pursuit of Poverty 6 - -The coming of St. Bernard 8 - -Cistercians at Rievaulx 9 - -Discontent at St. Mary’s, York 10 - -Departure of the Monks 12 - -_The founding of Fountains_, 1132 13 - -St. Bernard receives the Abbey into his Order 14 - -The starving time 15 - -The arrival of prosperity 16 - - -CHAPTER II - -THE GROWTH OF THE ABBEY - - -I. COLONIES - -The Monks appreciated by their neighbours 20 - -Newminster founded, 1137 22 - -Kirkstead, 1138 23 - -Louth Park, 1138 23 - -Woburn, 1145 23 - -Lisa-Kloster, 1146 24 - -Kirkstall, 1147 25 - -Vandey, 1147 25 - -Meaux, 1150 27 - - -II. BUILDINGS - -The Cistercian plan 28 - -The Architect 29 - -_Nave and transepts_ [in their present form] 30 - -Built by Abbot Richard, the first, 1132-1139 31 - -And Abbot Richard, the second, 1139-1143 32 - -Abbot Henry Murdac, 1143-1147 33 - -The Fire 35 - -_Eastern range of cloister, and part of Western_ 36 - -Built by Abbot Richard, the third, 1147-1170 36 - -Abbot Robert the Strenuous, 1170-1179 37 - -_Builds Southern range and completes Western_ 38 - -Abbot William, 1179-1190 38 - -Abbot Ralph Haget, 1190-1203 38 - -Abbot John of York, 1203-1211 40 - -Abbot John of Ely, 1211-1220 42 - -Abbot John of Kent, 1220-1247 43 - -_Builds Chapel of Nine Altars and Infirmary_ 44 - - -CHAPTER III - -THE DAILY LIFE OF THE MONKS - -The wall, the porter’s lodge 45 - -The chapel, the mill, bake-house and brew-house 46 - -The guest houses 47 - -The Cellarium - -Cellarer’s office 50 - -Vestibule, cellar, buttery, passage 51 - -Refectory 52 - -Dormitory 53 - -The lay brothers, _Conversi_ 53 - -The Church - -Porch 58 - -Gallery 59 - -Nave 59 - -Retro-choir 61 - -Choir 62 - -Chancel 63 - -North transept: Tower 65 - -South transept: Sacristy 66 - -Chapel of the Nine Altars 68 - -At service in the Abbey 69 - -The West walk: Novices 73 - -The dormitory 74 - -The North walk: living-room 77 - -The cloister brothers, _Monachi_ 80 - -The chapter-house: morals 84 - -The day’s work 90 - -The parlour 94 - -The warming-house: recreation 95 - -The refectory 96 - -The bill of fare 100 - -Under the dormitory 105 - -The Abbot’s lodgings 106 - -Scriptorium and Muniment room 109 - -Coal-yard and rubbish-heap 110 - -Misericord 111 - -The Infirmary 113 - -The end of the day 115 - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE SUPPRESSION - - -Abbey lands and dignities 117 - -Abbot John Darnton, 1479-1494 117 - -Abbot Marmaduke Huby, 1494-1526 119 - -_Builds the tower_ 119 - -The Monasteries and the Reformation 120 - -Abbot John Thirsk, 1526-1536 123 - -Abbot Marmaduke Bradley, 1536-1539 125 - -The coming of the King’s commissioners 125 - -_The spoiling of the Abbey_, 1539 126 - -The subsequent owners 129 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - -Fountains Abbey, from a water-colour -drawing by J. M. W. Turner, in the -possession of J. E. Taylor, Esq. -(photogravure) _Frontispiece_ - -The East End of the Abbey (photogravure) _To face page_ 24 - -The Interior, looking west (photogravure) “ 40 - -Historical Ground Plan (coloured) _The End_ - -The Cellarium (photogravure) “ 52 - -Principal Patterns of the Roman Floors -at Fountains Abbey, from a print by -Wm. Fowler of Winterton “ 72 - -The Abbey from the South-East (photogravure) “ 80 - -The Abbey from the South-West (photogravure) “ 96 - -Fountains Hall (photogravure) “ 128 - -Plan of the Precinct _The End_ - - [These plans are derived from the _Yorkshire Archæological Journal_ - vol. xv.] - - - ERRATA - - - Plate facing page 52. _For_ “The Cloisters” - _read_ “The Cellarium” - - Page 9, lines 3 and 13. _For_ “Rievaux” - _read_ “Rievaulx” - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE BEGINNING - - -The first Fountains Abbey was a forest tree. In the days of the simple -beginning, the brethren ate and slept and said their prayers under an -elm which stood in the middle of the valley. - -The elm lived into the eighteenth century, and toward the end of its -life was made to divide its honours with a group of venerable yews. Some -said that the monks found their first shelter under the yews. But Serlo -settled the matter, hundreds of years ago, in favour of the elm. -_Ulmus_, he said, _Ulmus erat vallis in medio, lignum frondosum_. The -yews were there, however, in the first days, and one or two of them are -still surviving. - -They are propped up on either hand, like an old man leaning on his -staff; but they live. The elm has wholly disappeared. Mr. Walbran’s -maternal great-grandfather remembered “the stump of an enormous elm tree -in the last stage of decay, which was called ‘the Fountain’s elm.’” It -stood “between the river Skell and the stream from Stank’s pond, not far -from the eastern boundary of the Abbey site.” But the smooth turf covers -the place. Only the yews look down from their gentle hill upon the -broken walls. There they were when the monks came, a little adventurous -company, to begin their life of seclusion and prayer. Their leaves were -green when the Abbey rose in splendour, and mitred abbots walked in -their shadow. They saw the expulsion of the convent and the ruin of the -monastery. They are a symbol of the persistence of the quiet, elemental -forces amidst our human chance and change. - -The monks of Fountains Abbey belonged to the Cistercian Order. - -In the twelfth century, when the Abbey began, this was the newest -religious society. The Benedictines, after splendid services to -civilisation, had encountered the temptations which accompany the -praises and the gifts of grateful communities, and had been worsted. -They had verified the wise saying, “When anybody does a good thing, all -the neighbours join together to keep him from doing it again.” They had -grown rich in the treasures which are subject to the invasions of moth -and rust and thieves, but they were growing poor in the accounts of -heaven. The purpose of the Cistercians was to return to primitive -monastic simplicity. Gregory the Great had said that he who would see -angels must have his head pillowed on a stone. The Cistercians believed -it. - -Stephen Harding, who founded the Cistercian Order, was an Englishman, -from Dorsetshire. He spent his early years in the monastery at -Sherborne. Thence he went wandering, in the free fashion of the time, -partly to see the sights, partly to save his soul, and made a pilgrimage -to Rome. On his way back, in Burgundy, he chanced upon a little company -of monks, who were encamped in a clearing in the midst of a thick -forest. They had built a chapel with the trunks of trees, and around it -had gathered a forlorn group of huts made of the boughs, and were -freezing and starving to their hearts’ content. All this filled Stephen -with devout envy. He joined this monastery, and thereafter saw England -again no more. - -But presently, the rule seemed to many of the brethren to be too hard -for human endurance, and they relaxed it, and began to live more softly, -so that Stephen was dissatisfied. And out he went, and a few like-minded -brethren with him, in quest of hardship, which they found at Citeaux. -This was a wild place in the dark woods, with a deep stream running -through the midst of it, the banks of which were the residence of beasts -of prey. Here Stephen was made prior; the honest severity of Benedict’s -laws was sought again; the brethren lived in holy simplicity. - -And then friends appeared. This good life was appreciated by rich and -powerful neighbours, and they brought gifts and built a church; and one -of them was buried there. This was Odo, duke of Burgundy, whose son -Hugh, with a company of friends, people of the court, took a fancy for -going to church at the monastery chapel, so that the plain place shone -with their silks and jewels, and the simple brethren were distracted in -their prayers by the neighbourhood of all this fine array. The chapel -was becoming a fashionable church. By this time Stephen was the -abbot--abbot of Cistercium, which was the Latin for Citeaux. And Stephen -stopped it. He turned all these gay worshippers out of doors, forbade -them ever to come in again, and shut the monastery gate in the face of -all his influential friends. - -Then he made the plain services more plain. He forbade that “in the -House of God, in which they wished to serve God devoutly day and night, -anything should be found which savoured of pride and excess, or can in -any way corrupt poverty, that guardian of virtue, which they had chosen -of their own accord.” There must be no gold or silver in the church, -except a silver cup for the sacramental wine. A single candlestick must -suffice for light, and that must be of iron and straight from top to -bottom. Vestments must be of common stuff, no more of silk or -cloth-of-gold. All the pictures must come down. The brethren said their -prayers in a chapel as severe as a Puritan meeting-house. In the midst -of a time of monastic splendour, when monks of St. Benedict and even -monks of Cluny rode abroad like knights or princes, Stephen Harding’s -household were separate from the world in all sincerity. - -Once, when the poverty which they invited came and lodged with them so -long that the pantry was bare even of crumbs, one of the brothers went -out to beg for bread, and came home with a great apronful. But when -Stephen found that the bread had come from one who had made his money by -dishonesty, he took it off the table, carried it into the fields and -gave it to the shepherds. The brethren used to notice that in the -evening, when the abbot went into the church, he often stopped, after he -had shut the door, and pressed against it with his hand. And when they -asked him what it meant, he said, “I am forced during the day to give -free course to many thoughts for the ordering of the house; all these I -bid remain outside the door, and tell them not to venture in, and to -wait till the morrow, when I find them all ready for me after Prime has -been said.” - -It seemed, for a time, as if this severity of discipline and this -unworldliness of spirit would forever bar the door against new-comers. -Brethren died, and nobody took their places. At last, however, all this -good planting came to its proper harvest. One day, in the year 1113, -thirty men appeared at the gates of Citeaux, asking to be received as -novices. And their leader was a man whose character and strength made -him presently the greatest churchman of his time. With the accession of -Bernard, the Cistercian monastery grew speedily into the Cistercian -Order; and the Cistercian Order came in due time into England. - -Turstin, Archbishop of York, wrote to Bernard at Clairvaux, asking for -Cistercian monks; and Bernard, being now, in Stephen’s old age, at the -head of the Order, sent over a colony which settled in the valley of the -Rie, at Rievaux. There they lived their new life of simple devotion. -And presently the fame of the sanctity of the monks of Rievaux began to -vex the consciences of their neighbours. - -The Benedictine abbey of St. Mary of York was a rich and vast -establishment. It had received gifts from William the Norman, and from -William his son. It was so fine that Richard the prior and a little -company of sympathetic brethren, touched by the example of the simple -manners of Rievaux, came to the conclusion that it was too good a place -to be an appropriate residence for a Christian. They determined to leave -it. - -Richard the prior, Gervase the sub-prior, Richard the sacrist, Walter -the almoner, and Robert the precentor were of one mind in the matter, -and presently a sufficient number of devout conspirators was added to -make thirteen. That was the required number for the beginning of a -monastic colony. Together they came to the old abbot and asked leave to -go. But the abbot met them with a stout refusal. The malcontents were -made to understand that they had asked a grievous thing; they had -despised their order, and brought confusion into the holy house; they -had attempted to break their solemn vows. To this, the prior made -appropriate answers, but satisfaction was impossible. Back and forth, -the matter was discussed all summer, most of the monks taking the -abbot’s part. At last, in October, the archbishop came. There was a -noisy meeting in the cloister; abbot and archbishop, monks and seculars; -with the townsfolk crowding at the abbey gate. “Your church is -interdicted!” cried the archbishop, raising his voice above the din. -“Interdict it, for aught we care, for a hundred years!” shouted the -brethren. Then they made a rush for the prior and his friends, who got -with great haste into the church, the archbishop being with them, and -barred the door for fear of their lives. Finally, they escaped in -safety. The affair made a great commotion in a day when abbots and -bishops were seldom on good terms. The abbot sent messengers to the -King, the first Henry; the bishop wrote to the legate of the Pope. But -the thing was done, and stayed done. - -Two Richards, two Ralphs, Gervase, Walter, Robert and Alexander, -Geoffrey, Gregory, Thomas, Hamo and Gamel thus abandoned St. Mary’s, and -for the moment were lodgers in the archbishop’s house. Even this little -company were not all of one mind, for presently two of them were -homesick and went back; of whom Ralph “made terms with his flesh and his -belly clave to the ground,” that is, he remained in the old way, but -Gervase again repented and cast his lot with the reformers. Ralph’s -place was taken by a second Robert, a monk of Whitby. - -Archbishop Turstin had a country seat at Ripon, to which he went to -keep the Christmas of 1132, bringing the thirteen brethren with him. And -on the morrow of the festival, taking them out three miles into the -country, he established them upon a piece of his own land, in the narrow -valley of the Skell. The deed of gift of this land--the “charter of -foundation”--is still preserved at Studley Royal. William the dean of -York, William the treasurer, Hugh the precentor, Robert and William the -archdeacons, five canons of St. Peters, five canons of St. Wilfrid, and -nine laymen signed it as witnesses. - -The place, as the narrative says, was a long way out of the -world--_locum a cunctis retro seculis inhabitatum_; it was full of -thorns and rocks, and seemed a better dwelling for wild beasts than for -men. But they accepted it with gratitude. In the midst of the valley -they made a thatched hut, with the trunk of the great elm for roof-pole, -and having chosen the prior Richard to be their abbot, they began with -contented minds to live the life of devotion and straitness for which -they had longed amidst the pernicious comforts of the Abbey of St. Mary. -They named their little monastery _De Fontibus_, from the springs which -abounded in the valley. “O ye wells, bless ye the Lord,” they -sang--_Benedicite, fontes Domino_, and the words were echoed back in the -frosty air from the cliffs on either side. - -The same spirit was in all their hearts--the spirit of religion, the -desire to devote themselves more perfectly to God. They took life very -seriously. They had stout convictions, and purposed to live in -consistency with them, and sought a place where that should be possible. - -In the following spring, the brethren sent messengers to St. Bernard at -Clairvaux, asking to be admitted to the Cistercian Order. Bernard was at -that time the greatest man in Europe. He had just decided between two -rival claimants which was the true Pope. He received the men of -Fountains with great kindness, finding in them a spirit kindred with his -own. He sent them back with a gracious letter, which is still preserved. -_Fratribus charissimis et desideratissimis_, he wrote, _Ricardo abbati -et hiis qui cum eo sunt, frater Bernardus abbas Clarevallis, in Domino, -salutem_. And he sent with them Geoffrey, a monk of his own monastery, a -person of ability and experience, to teach them the new ways. Thus the -new life began; and presently their number was increased. Seventeen new -brethren came, seven of them being in orders. - -Their number was increased, but their resources were in no way enlarged. -The archbishop, indeed, continued to be good to them, and the neighbours -occasionally sent things in,--housewives at their weekly baking -remembering the brethren and putting in an extra batch for them. - -A little money they earned by making mats. But that year there was a -famine in the land, till the abbot had to go out through the surrounding -country to find food, and even then found none; so that for a time they -lived on leaves which they boiled with salt in the water of the -stream--the friendly elm, as the narrative says, affording them food as -well as shelter. One day, they said, the Lord Christ knocked at the -door, in the guise of an ill-clad, hungry man, and asked an alms in the -starving time, when they had but two loaves and a half, and no prospects -of more. At first, they had prudently refused him, but when he continued -asking had given him one loaf. And behold, within a half-hour, two men -appeared from Knaresborough Castle with a plentiful supply of bread, -over which the monks recited the “Inasmuch as ye have done it” of the -Gospel. - -Finally, the situation became intolerable. The brethren had, indeed, -made choice of poverty, and had come out into the wilderness in devout -search of her; but this was a different matter. This was destitution -rather than poverty, so that, the next year, when there appeared no -likelihood of any betterment, the abbot made a journey to Clairvaux, and -begged St. Bernard to give them lands in France, or in any place where -they might live and not die. And Bernard agreed to give them a -habitation near his own abbey. - -Happily, they did not need the gift. Abbot Richard, on his return, found -a change in the fortunes of the house. The colony had been joined by -Hugh, the dean of York. He had been in the company of the archbishop on -the day of his stormy visitation, and had seen the men of Fountains as -they faced the reproaches of their brethren; and being now an old man -and tired of the world, he had resolved to say his prayers for the rest -of his life with them. Thus he had resigned his high position, and -turned his back on his splendid minster, and had cast in his lot with -the starving colony. And he was fortunately rich, and brought books with -him, and money. Part of the money they gave to the poor, part they put -into the general fund, part they used to pay the carpenters and masons -who were building the church and cloister. - -After this, prosperity continued. Canon Serlo, of York, who, like the -dean, had witnessed the escape of the monks from St. Mary’s, and whose -name is still to be seen among the witnesses to the charter of -foundation, now became a brother of Fountains; and with him Canon Tosti, -who is remembered in the narrative as a pleasant person. And each added -to the treasury. Then Robert and Raganilda de Sartis, owners of the -neighbouring estate of Herleshow, gave it to the monks, adding -to it the forest of Warsall. Also Serlo de Pembroke, a young -courtier--_juvenis quidam de domo regis_--lying at the point of death, -gave them his country-seat at Cayton, and when he died was buried in the -monks’ graveyard, _inter sanctos_. This was probably the first interment -in the little cemetery which awaited the brethren to the east of the -rising church. About the same time, the abbot got a farm at -Aldbrough--_grangiam fertilem_--in a place which even from Roman times -had been a fruitful region. - -Presently, in 1135, King Stephen being at York, the monastery was -exempted by him from payment of “taxes, danegelds, assises, pleas and -scutages.” Also, a little later, in 1141, Pope Innocent exempted the -monastery from payment of tithes. - -From that day, says Serlo the narrator, who had now become a member of -the monastic household, the Lord blessed our valleys with the blessing -of heaven above and of the deep that lieth under, multiplying the -brethren, increasing their possessions, pouring down showers of -benediction, being a wall unto them on the right hand and on the left. -What perfection of life, he cries, was there at Fountains! What -emulation of virtue! What stability of discipline! The house was -enriched in wealth, without; still more in holiness, within. Its name -became famous, and the great people of the world reverenced it. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE GROWTH OF THE ABBEY - - -I. THE COLONIES - -The goodness of the brethren made a deep impression upon the community. -Turbulent and cruel as were the times, there was, nevertheless, some -attention paid to the voice of conscience. It is true that this voice -commonly made itself heard after the event, and served rather to -reproach men than to deter them; but it did speak, and men listened. The -deeds which they did were incredibly bad, but after they had done them, -and the fierce heat of passion had died down, they were both sorry and -afraid. Then they remembered that “the effectual fervent prayer of a -righteous man availeth much.” Doubting the value of their own prayers, -they looked about for righteous men to make intercession for them. God -sat on His throne, like the king, and had His court about Him, part of -angels, part of saints in glory, and part of holy persons still in the -flesh. The sinner’s hope of success in his petition lay in the securing -of the kindly offices of some of these influential courtiers. And these -were to be found most readily on earth in monasteries. Accordingly, -these companies of praying men seemed, even to the sinners of the -neighbourhood, to be engaged in an important and essential business. If -the sinner had money enough, he engaged a group of them to pray for him -in particular. He built a monastery, and established them in it for that -necessary purpose. - -Thus Ralph de Merlay, chancing on his travels to spend a day at the -Abbey, and there beholding the pious conversation of the brethren, made -up his mind, from what he saw, that these were the kind of men to have -influence with God; and being in need of friends at that court, he -asked the abbot to let him have some of them, _pro redemptione animae -suae_. This was the first colony which went out from Fountains. The year -was 1137. The knight took the monks into his castle at Morpeth, in whose -neighbourhood he presently built them a monastery, which they called -Newminster. The abbot of this new brotherhood was the Robert who had -come from Whitby to take the place of the inconstant Gervase after the -flight from York: a good man, modest in his bearing, gentle in his -conversation, bearing rule with mercy, and at last enrolled in the -honourable list of the saints. The abbey, like the mother house, was -built beside a little river; and its three daughters, Pipewell, Sawley -and Roche, sat likewise, in the true Cistercian manner, on the banks of -narrow streams. - -In the next year another nobleman, Hugh of Tatshall, in Lincolnshire, -resolved to establish a Cistercian house, and sent to Abbot Richard for -advice and monks from Fountains, and founded Kirkstead Abbey on the -river Witham. At the same time the Bishop of Lincoln asked the abbot for -more men--the two companies of colonists leaving Fountains on the same -day--and settled them, after some wandering, at Louth Park. Their abbot -was the Geoffrey who forsook his companions at the bishop’s, and went -back to St. Mary’s, to return in deep penitence; who was thus assured of -their entire confidence in him. - -In 1145, Hugh de Bolebec, for the redeeming of his sins, begged for the -services of the brethren of Fountains, and an abbey was built at Woburn. - -In 1146, the Bishop of Bergen came to Fountains, and his heart was set -on having a Cistercian house in Norway. Thirteen brethren were found to -brave the sea and the unknown land. Thus was erected the monastery of -Lisa-Kloster, the abbey of the valley of light. One of the Ralphs of -the original settlement was the abbot. In the library of Corpus Christi -College, Oxford, is a manuscript life of St. Olaf, which was once among -the books of Fountains. It is bound with other manuscripts in the skin -of a seal. Ralph came back after many laborious years to spend his last -days in the mother house. He may have brought with him this memento of -the Norway mission. It is pleasantly told of him in the narrative that -he used to sleep a good deal in his old age, and that the Lord sent a -prompting angel to awake him when he slept too long--_si sompno, -forsitan, per noctes diutius indulgeret, eum excitaret_. - -The next year, 1147, saw three colonies go out from Fountains. Henry de -Lacy, of Pontefract Castle, having meditated upon his misdeeds during a -long illness, vowed that he would build a Cistercian house to the honour -of the Virgin - -[Illustration: _Fountains Abbey_ - -_The East End._ - -_Photo. Watson._ _Art Repro. Co.] - -Mary. Its tenants were Fountains men, under the abbacy of Alexander, -another of the founders. They had many troubles, some on account of the -climate, some on account of their neighbours. Serlo, our narrator, was -one of them, and might have made his story longer had he chose. It is -from another record that we learn that Alexander objected to the -nearness of the parish church, whose services distracted the attention -of his monks, and for the sake of peace and quiet pulled the building -down in spite of the parishioners. The parish appealed to the Archbishop -of York, then to the Pope, but the monks prevailed in both courts. The -neighbourhood, however, was naturally hostile thereafter, and presently -the abbot found a more convenient situation, where they built Kirkstall -Abbey. - -Five days after the departure of these brothers from the gates of -Fountains, another company went, at the petition of the Earl of -Albemarle, to found the abbey of Vaudey, the house of the valley of -God. The monk Adam, who had been architect of the buildings at Kirkstall -and Woburn, and was now in charge of the monks at Vaudey, found that the -Earl of Albemarle was disposed to do yet more. He had once vowed, for -his sins, to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and had never gone, and now -was old and fat and could not go. This, as Adam faithfully reminded him, -was a serious matter; but it could be made right. If the earl would -build another abbey, Adam promised that his Order would persuade the -Pope to take that good work as an equivalent. The promise was performed, -through the kindly offices of St. Bernard, and the earl told Adam to -choose a suitable site. The monk, accordingly, looked about this way and -that in Holderness, where the earl’s lands lay. It was the country which -the Conqueror had bestowed upon Odo, his brother-in-law. The son of Odo, -the earl’s father, had complained of its sterility, saying that it gave -him only oaten bread to eat. But presently at Meaux, some four miles -east of Beverley, Adam came upon a fair hill, which by prophetic -coincidence had been named St. Mary’s Mount. Woods were growing all -about, with open lands which promised good harvests, and streams running -through them. There he thrust his staff into the ground, and cried, -“Verily, this place shall be called the house of the heavenly King.” And -there the monastery was built, in spite of the reluctance of the earl, -who had already selected the place for a park. The first abbot was the -enterprising Adam. This was in 1150. - -Thus within a space of less than twenty years, St. Mary of Fountains had -become the mother of eight fair daughters. Meanwhile, the Cistercian -Order had been growing at some such rate as this in many other places: -too fast and too far, they feared at Clairvaux. In 1152, the General -Chapter discouraged the founding of new monasteries. After that, no more -colonies went out from Fountains. - - -II. THE BUILDINGS - -Meanwhile, the thatched hut about the elm had given place to a group of -noble buildings. - -A Cistercian monastery consisted of certain invariable structures -arranged according to a prescribed plan. St. Stephen’s Abbey of Citeaux, -St. Bernard’s Abbey of Clairvaux, determined all other abbeys of the -order. At the heart of the abbey was the cloister, an open square of -green, on whose four sides stood the essential monastic houses. On the -north was the church; on the east was the chapter-house, with a -book-room on one side and a parlour on the other, and the dormitory in -the second storey over all; on the south was the refectory, with the -warming-room on one side, and the kitchen on the other; on the west was -the store-house, having over it the dormitory of the lay brethren. -Outside of this cloister group, wherever it was most convenient, stood -an infirmary, and a guest-house, and whatever barns and mills and -workshops were needed for the maintenance of the conventual life. - -During the administration of the first two abbots--Richard (1132-1139), -who had been the prior at York, and Richard (1139-1143), who had been -the sacrist--these buildings were erected, part of wood and part of -stone. The architect was Geoffrey of Clairvaux, whom St. Bernard had -sent to instruct the monks at their entrance into the Order. The stone -came from the steep banks of the valley. The labourers were the monks -themselves, assisted by their neighbours, some of whom were hired, while -others gave their day’s work as an investment in the securities of -heaven. It is interesting to find that the little company of poor monks, -rich in faith, laid out the foundations of their church upon the great -lines on which it stands to-day. Other generations built the chapel of -the nine altars and raised the noble tower, but the vast nave with its -transepts was both planned and completed by the men who began the -monastery. These large proportions did not necessarily mean that they -expected a great number of monks to say their prayers within these wide -walls. They were not adjusting the building, after our manner, to the -size of the congregation. They were intent upon the glory of God. The -church was to be an evidence of their conception of the dignity, the -strength, and the splendour of the Christian religion. - -First, they built the chancel, which was pulled down in the next century -and built over again larger and finer. There they probably held their -services while the masons and the carpenters were busy with the other -work. Then they built the transepts, and the south wall of the nave as -high as the sills of the windows; then the lower courses of the west -wall. After that, they finished the south wall, because that was on the -cloister side; and built its great bays. Then, the north wall, and the -rest; roofing it all in. Mr. St. John Hope is of the opinion that the -church, passing through these various stages, and waiting at intervals -for additions to the building fund, was quite completed before 1147. The -west wall of the cloister belongs to the same period. - -Meanwhile, in the midst of all this building, Abbot Richard was called -away to Rome. Bishop Alberic of Ostia, making a visitation of the -country as papal legate, and meeting Richard, was so impressed by the -abbot’s piety and sense that he made up his mind that the Pope had need -of him. So he took him away from Fountains--whether for a temporary or a -permanent absence is uncertain--and brought him down to the Papal Court. -There, however, the good man fell ill of a fever, and presently died. -This was in 1139. - -Richard, the sacrist, who succeeded him, was a man of great humility. He -had been chosen, the narrative informs us, by the advice of St. Bernard, -by the unanimous voice of the convent, and under the invocation of the -Holy Ghost; but still he held back, diffident and honestly reluctant, -from the honours of the abbacy--_Homo simplex et timens Deum, et totius -religionis ardentissimus emulator_. Three times he went to Clairvaux -hoping to be released, and finally St. Bernard heard him; but when he -returned with this permission to retire, the whole assembly of the -brethren rose up with such grief and remonstrance that he consented to -continue. He died, however, at Clairvaux, where he was attending a -meeting of the General Chapter, and was there buried by St. Bernard, in -1143. - -Bernard nominated as Richard’s successor a Yorkshireman who had for -some years been abbot of Vauclair, and he was elected by the brethren. -Henry Murdac was a strict disciplinarian. He proceeded at once to -destroy such tares as he discovered in the field of the Lord. The second -Richard had always insisted that he had no ability or even wish to play -the part of Martha. It is likely that under his gentle rule some of the -brethren demonstrated the fact that a change of names is not necessarily -a change of natures. The Benedictine abbey of St. Mary of York had been -forsaken for the Cistercian abbey of St. Mary of Fountains, but the new -resolutions had not driven out of all minds a secret preference for a -modicum of comfort. So Henry found occasion to amend the monastic ways. -He was a great abbot--_magnifice administravit_. He added to the -possessions of the house, and carried on the construction of the -buildings. - -Unhappily, Henry became deeply involved in the ecclesiastical politics -of the time. The good Turstin, the benefactor of the Abbey, had been -succeeded at York by William, who was accused of having obtained his -preferment by bribery. William had cleared himself of this charge before -a competent council, and had been consecrated archbishop by the -direction of the Pope. But he had not received the pall when the Pope -died, and Eugenius, a pupil of St. Bernard, became Pope in his stead. -Bernard believed in the guilt of William. He prevented the new Pope from -investing him with the pall. Bernard’s representative in England was the -Abbot of Fountains, who had already made a journey to Rome to protest -against William’s appointment. When, therefore, this ill news came to -the archbishop’s friends in Yorkshire, and they looked about for -somebody on whom to visit their indignation, Henry Murdac seemed the -person most eligible to that distinction. So they set out, a -considerable company of them, well armed, and made their way with clamor -of voices into the secluded valley, and forced the monastery gates and -sacked the place. Much they broke, some they plundered, and the rest -they set on fire. There it blazed, then, that great work, built, as they -said, in the sweat of their own brows--_in suo sudore constructa_. The -church, however, escaped great injury. Indeed, the abbot himself, who -was lying prostrate at the foot of the altar, was not discovered, being -protected by the hand of God. It is likely that the buildings which were -thus destroyed were temporary structures, for the most part, made of -wood. Whatever damage was done was speedily repaired. The neighbours -came in--_de vicinia viri fideles_--and the reconstruction was -undertaken with such zeal that the new was better than the old. Then the -chapter-house was built, and the dormitory over it down to the river, -and the guest-house by the bridge. To this time belong also the north -walls of the malthouse and the bakehouse. The fire took place in 1146 or -1147. - -This violence was much more disastrous to the archbishop than to the -abbot, for the Pope deposed William and confirmed Henry, who was elected -in his place. Thus the monastery lost its third abbot. - -It is interesting to remember that William was vindicated after all. -When Henry died, in 1153, a friendly Pope restored the deposed -archbishop to his place. One of William’s first acts on entering his -diocese was to visit Fountains, to express his contrition for the harm -which his friends, without his knowledge, had committed, and to promise -proper compensation. When he died, he was enrolled among the saints, and -the Abbot of Fountains was one of the judges who decided that he was -worthy to be canonised. - -This was Abbot Richard, who had two predecessors with brief terms, -Maurice and Thorold. Richard had a long and troubled rule. Our ancient -enemy, the devil, disquieted by the peace of the holy house, tempted the -brethren, who behaved so proudly towards the abbot that he had to expel -some of them. After that, the Lord blessed him abundantly. So he died, -in 1170, and was buried in the new chapter-house, the first of nineteen -abbots who were to lie there under the monks’ feet. - -Robert of Pipewell was the next abbot. He was a strenuous -person--_strenue administravit_, says the narrative; and again, _multa -strenue gessit in administratione sua_. He is praised for many virtues, -and among others for his zeal for building, but the particular additions -which he made are not named. He beautified the church, and erected -sumptuous buildings, probably the southern range of the cloister--the -refectory side--and the western guest-house. The northern part of the -west wall of the cellarium appears to have been made about this time. - -William of Newminster (1179-1190) and Ralph Haget of Kirkstall -(1190-1203) carried on the Abbey into the thirteenth century; but -without any notable, or, at least, discernible, erection of buildings. - -With William’s administration, old Serlo’s narrative stops. He praises -William, but says that he may perhaps (_forsitan_) have been just a -shade too strict. The acts of Ralph are described by Hugh of Kirkstall, -who has written up to this point at Serlo’s dictation. Here, says Hugh, -the old man made an end of speaking. You yourself, says Serlo, know well -what to say about the holy Abbot Ralph. - -Hugh had become a monk while Ralph was Abbot of Kirkstall, and had lived -under his rule for seven years. Happy would he have been, he says, -could he have continued in that blessed state. Yet those were troubled -years at Kirkstall--_adversa foras pugnas, intus timores, domesticorum -insidias, rei familiaris inopiam, bonorum distractionem_. Everything -went wrong; without were fightings, within were fears. There was famine, -and spoiling of goods, and misconduct of bad brethren. And Abbot Ralph -made but an ineffectual effort to cope with these distresses. He was no -strenuous administrator. He was busy dreaming dreams, and seeing -visions. Once, he told Hugh, he even had a revelation of the Blessed -Trinity, in which he distinctly saw three Persons--_intribus personis -apparentem_! But these celestial sights seem not to have made his -terrestrial way plain. Nevertheless, on the death of William he was made -Abbot of Fountains; and, curiously enough, he seems to have done fairly -well in this larger place. He enforced the rule, both in the mother -house and in the dependent monasteries. He was particularly kind to the -poor, who, on the occasion of a famine and a fever, flocked to the Abbey -gates and were lodged there by the abbot in huts made of branches of the -neighbouring trees, where physicians and priests ministered unto them. - -Three Johns ruled Fountains during the first half of the thirteenth -century, and substantially completed the fabric of the Abbey. John of -York (1203-1211), like his predecessor Ralph, had been a novice at -Fountains, and had passed thence to the abbacy of a daughter house. He -was recalled to the Abbey from Louth Park. John was a good man, of whom -but one complaint has found its way into the chronicle: some envious -persons said that he desired to be a bishop. This aspersion, however, -seems to have been due chiefly to his unusual grace of manner, and to -his large and liberal administration. Bred, though he was, in the -monastery, and getting absolutely - -[Illustration: _Fountains Abbey._ - -_The Interior looking West._ - -_Photo. Frith._ _Art Repro. Co.] - -nothing--as the chronicler assures us--from his native place but his -name, he appears nevertheless to have been acquainted with the world. He -was a hospitable person--_Dapsilis in mensa, communis in victu_--and -excelled in magnificence all who had preceded him. The King of England, -at that moment, was of the same name as the abbot; whom, however, he -resembled in no other particular. King John perceived the great wealth -of the religious houses, especially of the Cistercians, and began to lay -hold of it with a rapacious hand. But Abbot John, partly by courtly -manners, partly by his prudent use of the Abbey’s money, won the King’s -favour, and was thereby enabled to aid other houses in distress. - -It may have been this general danger, and the comparative immunity of -Fountains in the midst of it, which at this time greatly increased the -monastic household. There were now so many brethren that the choir was -too small for them, and there were not altars enough. Abbot John, -accordingly, conceived the idea of rebuilding and vastly enlarging the -east end of the church. To him is commonly ascribed the plan of the new -chancel, and of the chapel of the nine altars. He had already laid the -foundations of these splendid structures, to the amazement of his -contemporaries, and had raised certain columns, when in the midst of his -work he died--_feliciter migravit ad Dominum_. - -The second John (1211-1220) took up the great task and carried it -forward. The chronicle has now come to an end, and we know nothing from -its pleasant pages about this John or his successors. There is, however, -a letter in existence which was written to him nine days after Magna -Charta, by King John himself, in which the king directs that certain -treasures hidden by him for safe keeping at the Abbey--_vasa, pocalia, -aurea et argenta_--be now immediately and privately sent back. King -John, in anticipation of trouble, had trusted the monks of Fountains. -Now, expecting peace, he takes his valuables into his own house. Abbot -John soon came into relation with the other great actor in the Magna -Charta matter, for in 1220 he was made bishop by Stephen Langton. Thus -he removed from Fountains to Ely, where he died five years after, and -was buried in the choir of his cathedral, wearing his episcopal ring, -clad in his robes, and having beside him his stout pastoral staff. - -John of Kent (1220-1247) succeeded John of Ely. He splendidly completed -(_gloriose consummavit_) the great beginnings of his predecessors. The -chapel of the nine altars and the great infirmary were finished in his -time. So were the new choir, and a reconstruction of the cloister, and a -guest-house--or the improvement of the existing guest-houses--and a new -paving of the church floor in tiles of a geometrical design. This abbot -built also the bakehouse, and the bridge. Leland, in 1541, speaks of -many shafts of black marble in the chapel of the nine altars, in the -chapter-house and in the refectory; and Mr Walbran traces the stone to -the Abbey lands at the upper end of Nidderdale, and to the hand of a -prosperous stone-worker of that neighbourhood, Thomas _Marmorius de -Sallay_. - -Thus the completed Abbey stood in splendour, the work of a whole -century: part of it done while Henry and Stephen and Henry Plantagenet -were ruling England, while Becket was Archbishop of Canterbury; part of -it done in the reigns of John and the third Henry, in the time of -Stephen Langton. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE DAILY LIFE OF THE MONKS - - -The completed monastery had a stout stone wall about it, for security -and peace. It enclosed an area of about four hundred yards in width, and -more than twice that space in length. The longer reaches of the wall ran -through high fields and woods on either side of the valley. At each end -it crossed the river: at the west end was the main gate. - -Beside this gate stood the gate-house. Abbot Huby, in the sixteenth -century, built a house here and established in it Robert Dawson and -Ellen his wife; Robert to be porter and Ellen to be laundress. Robert -was to keep the gate; and Ellen was to wash or cause to be washed -(_lavabit vel lavari faciet_) the linen sheets (_linthiamina_) of the -abbot and abbey guests, and to do it without unnecessary -tearing--_congrue et honeste sine lesione voluntaria vel ruptura -eorumdem_. The fact, however, that at Citeaux there was an outer as well -as an inner gate-house, suggests that Abbot Huby was but erecting a new -lodge in the place of an old one. Here, at the outer gate, long before -Robert Dawson’s day, the almoner dispensed his daily alms. Here the -porter, at the sound of a knock, rose up crying, _Deo gratias_, an -expression of joy at an opportunity to be hospitable; met the guest, -blessing him with a _Benedicite_, and hastened to inform the abbot of -his arrival. - -The abbot led the visitor along the road, having the river on his right -and the high bank on his left, until they came to the little chapel, -built in the twelfth century, a part of whose west wall remains, with a -round-headed window. There they said a prayer, after which the -hospitaller took the guest in charge. The stables and barns were -probably hereabouts. The mill is still standing, across the river, being -now used as a dairy-house; but most of the present structure belongs to -the thirteenth century. The bakehouse and the malthouse, a hundred yards -to the east, supplied the brethren with bread and beer; their ovens and -vats may be traced amidst the ruins. - -Through the great gate, the visitor passed into the presence of the -Abbey itself. There, across a wide expanse of green, stood the buildings -of the cloister group: on the left, the church; then the long range of -the cellarium; and on the right, the guest-houses. - - -I. THE GUEST-HOUSES - -The guest-houses had the river on two sides, being set in a sharp angle -of the stream. On the north a wall led from the river to the western -guest-house, and was continued to the eastern, making two secluded -courts. Close to the corner of the eastern house a door opened in the -wall, through which the hospitaller led his guest into the inner court. -There at his feet rose a great staircase which gave access to the second -storey of that house. From the upper landing of these stairs a bridge -led to the second storey of the other house. - -The two houses may have been for the use of different classes of -visitors, in a day when social distinctions were scrupulously drawn. In -that case, the better people were probably lodged in the eastern house. -There, entering the upper storey, they found their sleeping-rooms, with -deep-set windows looking to the north and east; and with two good -fire-places, one in the middle of the east wall, the other in the gable -end to the north. In these rooms was never a bed, a table, a stool or a -candlestick which had been made by a machine. All had come from the -hands of craftsmen who brought to their labour a determining quality of -personal interest. Descending into the courtyard, a door near the north -end brought the guest into the great hall--“a goodly brave place much -like unto a church”--where a central row of fair pillars upheld a -vaulted roof. This was for the ceremonies of the table. The arrangement -of the western guest-house was according to the same plan, with two -differences: it was =L=-shaped, the letter being turned about so that the -base lay by the river, while the shaft extended to the north; and the -hall, which was in the base of the =L=, was divided into two rooms. The -northern wing may have been the kitchen for both houses. A small -building by the river, where the two guest-houses met, may have been the -office of the hospitaller. - -These houses were a hostelry, wherein decent wandering persons, “both -noble, and gentle, and what degree soever that came thither as -strangers,” were made welcome and given free entertainment. This was -the Abbey inn, known to all instructed wayfarers. In a day when towns -were far apart, and the roads bad and beset with peril, the sight of a -monastery tower in the late afternoon was pleasant to a traveller’s -eyes. In the guest-house hall he ate; in the guest-house chamber he -slept; and on the following morning, after mass, refreshed and blessed, -he went upon his way, thanking God for monks and monasteries. - - -II. THE CELLARIUM - -The long range of building, extending from the church to the river, was -called the cellarium, because it was under the general charge of the -cellarer or steward of the monastery. It is likely that he had his -office in the room which stands out from this building at the middle of -its length. In this chamber, having a good window to the west, and a -fireplace between two narrow windows to the south, he kept his office -hours. St. Benedict himself, in his rule, had counselled all cellarers -to be punctual in this matter, that nobody be kept waiting. - -The great vaulted hall, now open from end to end, was then divided into -five rooms by screens and partitions. The first room included the first -two bays of the north end. Instead of pillars, it had in the midst two -piers of masonry supporting a staircase, which ascended out of the -church into the room above. These piers made this a double room, whereof -the western half served as a vestibule to the church, while the eastern -half, once opening from the cloister, may sometime have been the -treasury, as at Durham. - -The second room began at the southern pier and extended to the fourth -pillar, thus including four bays. This was probably the storehouse for -the domestic supplies of food and drink. A door in the west wall opened -conveniently upon the outer court. - -The third room was between the fourth pillar and the sixth. It had a -door in its south wall, and appears to have been the buttery. - -The wall which crossed at the sixth pillar ran between two doors, an -outer door into the court and an inner door into the cloister. Thus this -fourth room served as an entrance way. Its southern wall had the eighth -pillar in the middle of it, and this bay beside the entrance may have -been the outer parlour, the _auditorium juxta coquinam_, or room beside -the kitchen, which was provided for in the Cistercian arrangements. Here -in a niche of the east wall, now blocked, the porter sat beside the -cloister door. In this room the brethren of the Abbey met their friends -who lived in the world; here merchants came to show their wares. - -All the rest of the hall, from the eighth pillar to the end over the -river, was open then as it is now, and served as the refectory of the -lay brothers. They came - -[Illustration: _The Cloisters._ - -_Photo. Frith._ _Art Repro. Co.] - -in by the door in the west wall between the eighth and ninth pillars; -their tables were set along the side walls under the windows; their cups -and plates may have been kept in cupboards against the blank wall of the -last two bays in the south-west corner; their food came in from the -abbey kitchen by a hatch which opened opposite the outer door. - -An outside stairway--the day stairs--rose beside the cellarer’s office -at this door, and led to the dormitory of the lay brothers. At the north -end of the dormitory another stairway--the night stairs--went down into -the church. At the south, a room at right-angles, over the river, where -they made their toilet, gave access to the infirmary where they went -when they were sick, and in which they lived in peace and Christian -comfort when they were old. - -The lay brothers were monks, like the others, in that they were subject -to the usual monastic vows, amenable to the regulations of monastic -life, and clad in a habit; but they were quite distinct from their -brethren of the choir and cloister. At the beginning of monasticism, -most of the monks were laymen. They had separated themselves not only -from the world but from the church. They believed that the deserts were -better places for prayer than any sanctuary builded by the hand of man. -They felt that they could best draw near to God, each in the silence of -his own soul. In an age whose faith was in salvation by services, they -turned their back on all the services. In an institutional time, when it -was commonly accounted essential to be in the communion of the church, -the monks were individualists. The fact is written in the letters of -their name. A monk--_monos_--is a man who lives alone. The time came -when a monk was never, under any circumstances, alone; but at the -beginning he was a solitary person, living his own life by himself. - -It is true that the wise church quietly and patiently followed these -mystics in their wanderings, followed these enthusiasts who had forsaken -the priests and the sacraments, and carried to them the altars which -they had left behind, and by-and-by most of the monks were priests. But -that was a long process, and during a great part of the time the -convents of monks were lay fraternities, having only such priests as -were needed for the rites of the church. Thus the monastic services were -composed and arranged for the use of laymen. Indeed, the monasteries -were never thoroughly adjusted to the conventional church system. They -were never under the control of the diocesan bishop. Sometimes, they -defied him openly; sometimes, they gave him the nominal office of -visitor, and defied him privately. In general, he had little more -authority over Benedictines or Cistercians than he has at present over -Presbyterians or Methodists. - -Accordingly, the lay brothers of Fountains were so named not to -distinguish them from their brethren in priests’ orders, but to mark a -difference between them and the cloister brothers. The _conversi_, as -they were called, were divided from the _monachi_ not by a barrier of -ordination, but by a barrier of education. They were monks who could not -read. When the Cistercian Order began, there were many such persons, -some of good birth, many of good ability, but ignorant of letters. It -was characteristic of the Cistercians that they made a place for the -piety of these men. Unable to read, they could not take part in the -regular offices of monastic devotion. But they could work. They could -plough and spade, they could brew and bake, they knew how to work on a -farm or in a mill; at the humblest, they could fetch and carry. And -these acts, the Cistercians taught, may be as religious as the -recitation of a litany. So there were the lay brothers, like St. -Christopher at the ford of the river, consecrating their hands and their -feet, their strength and their obedience, to God. They were sanctifying -the homeliest tasks by doing them as the servants of Heaven. - -The lay brothers were in the department of the cellarer, to whom they -were responsible, as the cloister brothers were to the prior. They -attended to the secular side of the common life. Having to work hard, -they did not rise so early as the others; in summer, not till dawn. But -they said prayers at night, coming down into the nave, where their -stalls were ranged along on either side against the great pillars. In -the day, they might recite their appointed offices, stopping in the -midst of their work in the mill or in the field. When it was possible, -however, they had their service in the church, chanting softly in the -nave while the other monks were singing in the choir, and having forms -of their own which they had learned by heart. - - -III. THE CHURCH - -The essential purpose for which Fountains Abbey was founded was the -pursuit of religion. The prevailing interpretation which was put upon -religion made it to consist, in great measure, of the saying of -services. Out of the confused noises of the common street, the monks had -retired into the quiet of the monastery in the hope of meeting God. And -they sought God in the church. - -The church had a western porch, a dozen feet in width, extending along -the whole front. Part of the porch floor was made of gravestones, -beneath which lay the dust of devout laymen, who had begged the -privilege of being buried at the door of the house of prayer. The porch -roof touched the base of the great window, which was filled with the -glorious colours of the inimitable glass of the middle ages. Over the -window, in a niche, was a figure of the Mother and Child. Abbot John -Darnton had this made, and inscribed his name upon the supporting -corbel: an eagle, the symbol of the fourth evangelist, to mean _John_, -perched on a cask or _tun_, with a scroll beneath marked _dern 1494_. - -Entering beneath the Norman arch of the west door, the visitor found -over his head a gallery which carried the great organ. A screen -supported the gallery, making a vestibule for the church, keeping out -the wind. A fragment of the base of this screen remains on the south -side, near a bit of the pavement which was put in by John of Kent. -Standing in the screen door and looking to the east, the high roof -reached over the nave, the choir, the presbytery, and the chapel of the -nine altars, to the splendour of the east window. The Norman nave and -transepts, with their great pillars and round-headed clerestory windows, -represent the primitive Puritan simplicity of the Cistercians. The -choir and presbytery and the nine-altars chapel are in the style called -Early English. The great windows, east and west, replacing plainer -windows, are, like the tower, in the style called Perpendicular. To-day, -by the destruction of the choir and presbytery, the whole church in its -great length lies open to the view, but in the middle ages it was -crossed by three stone screens. - -The first partition, called the rood screen, crossed the middle alley -between the seventh pair of pillars, counting from the west door. It had -two openings, between which stood an altar. Over the altar, on a beam -which topped the screen from pillar to pillar, was a great cross or -rood. This screen formed the east end of that part of the church which -was assigned to the lay brothers. On the right hand and on the left, -this sanctuary was shut off from the aisles by walls, which ran along -the inner side of the pillars, making a long narrow chapel, with the -stalls of the lay brothers set against them. Thus the pillars were -hidden in the aisles, an observer at the west door seeing only the -capitals and upper portions of them above the walls. - -The second partition, called the choir screen, crossed the tenth pair of -pillars, and a door in the middle of it gave access to the choir. The -space between these two screens, called the retro-choir, was intended -especially for aged and convalescent brethren from the infirmary. There -was probably a great bench for them against the back of the rood screen. - -In the midst of the retro-choir, between the eighth and ninth pairs of -pillars, stood two altars, one on the north dedicated to St. Mary, and -the other on the south dedicated to St. Bernard. The reredoses of these -altars made a screen between the ninth pillars, having a doorway between -them. In this passage, between the altars of the saints, three abbots -were buried, in the fifteenth century. From the top of the two reredoses -to the top of the choir screen, a loft was built, called the pulpitum, -extending from the ninth and tenth pillars on the north to the ninth and -tenth pillars on the south, and on the north side carried out over the -aisle. Here, over the aisle, stood the choir organ. - -Passing under this gallery, through the door of the choir screen, the -visitor stood in the central sanctuary, the church of the monks of the -cloister. On either side were twenty stalls, and against the screen, -facing the east, were three stalls on the right of the entrance, and -three on the left. The number of the stalls is determined by the -discovery of nine earthen pots buried in the masonry which underlay -them. These pots were, no doubt, as in several other churches, an -acoustic experiment. The distances between them indicate how many there -were in the whole range. In front of the stalls of the monks were lower -seats for the novices. In addition to the entrance through the choir -screen, there were two other ways of access, at the east end of the -stalls, on either side. Here is still on either side a stone step, -significantly worn. On the north side, stairs led to a high seat over -the door. In the middle alley, where the lecturn may have stood at which -the lessons were read at matins, an abbot was buried. - -The presbytery, or chancel, began at these choir doors, and was raised a -step or two. Across the long space of its shining floor stood the third -partition, called the altar screen. Against it was the high altar. - -Thus the church was divided into three churches; one for the brothers of -the cellarium, ending at the rood screen; one for the infirmary -brethren, ending at the choir screen; one for the brethren of the -cloister, ending at the altar screen. On the two sides of this -three-fold sanctuary ran long aisles, from the west wall to the chapel -of the nine altars. In the middle of this distance, the aisles opened -into transepts, north and south. The nave aisles, at first unobstructed -for passage around the church, were presently cut up by cross partitions -into chapels; but the choir aisles continued to be used as ambulatories. -The transepts served as antechambers for the chapels which opened out -from them to the east. - -Each transept had originally three of these chapels, but the building of -the new chancel had taken away the inner one on each side. Of the two -which thus remained, the outer chapel of the north transept had been -changed into a store-house when the tower was built, so that only the -chapel which was in the middle remained. Over the door, under a bracket, -is still to be read an inscription which informs us that it was -dedicated to the Archangel Michael. - -The north transept ended in the noble tower of four storeys, the third -of which was probably for the bells, whilst the second may have served -as the sleeping-room of the men who rung them. The inscriptions which -ran round the outside of the tower are still in great part legible. - -“Blessed be the name of Jesus Christ,” said the stones above. - -“Blessing and wisdom and honour and power be to our God for ever”; “To -the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, be honour and glory for ever,” -said the middle lines. - -“To God alone, to Jesus Christ, be honour and glory for ever,” was -thrice repeated, east and north and west, below. - -The words were part in praise, part in apology. The beautiful tower was -forbidden by the ancient regulations of the Order. The Cistercian chapel -was to have but a modest tower, rising no more than a single storey over -the roof. These high parapets were a symbol of the pride of life: they -indicated that the ambitions of the outer world had successfully invaded -the monastery. Not so! cried the abbot who built them, repeating again -and again in great letters on the tower the assertion that it was raised -solely for God’s glory. - -In the south transept, out of which, in the south-west corner, stairs -led up to the dormitory of the monks, the chapel which was originally -the middle one of three, was turned into a sacristy; and a narrow door -in the south wall gave access to a large room built against the chancel, -which may have been the office of the sacrist. In the sacristy, and in -other safe places, were kept the Abbey treasures. Here were the copes -which the monks wore when they went in procession, on great days. At the -time of the suppression, when an inventory was taken, there were eighty -of them. Six were made of cloth of gold, twenty-six of white damask, -four of white velvet, two of white fustian. Five old copes were of -embroidered work, and six of flowered work. One was “very well wrought -with images”; one, wrought with images, was of green damask; six were of -red silk, worked with flowers and stars; one was of black velvet. Some -of these splendid cloaks may have been given by noble benefactors out of -their own wardrobes. For Richard of the Lion Heart presented to the -prior of Durham his Parliament robe “of blue velvet, wrought with great -lions of pure gold”; whilst Queen Philippa, making a visit to Ely, gave -the prior her “jewelled robes of State, powdered with golden squirrels.” - -Here, also, hung surplices, and eucharistic vestments of cloth of gold -and silk and velvet and serge. Here the abbot may have kept his two -mitres, one for common days, the other for high feasts; but both of them -shining with plates of silver, and garnished with pearls. Each had its -cushion; a word which the writer of the inventory laboriously spelled -“qweshan.” Here were processional crosses; chalices and patens reserved -for great festivals; shrines to be borne about the church on the -festival of Corpus Christi, one containing a rib of St. Lawrence, -another a bit of St. Anne’s scalp set in a plate of silver; and an image -of St. James, and another of our Lady, both of silver-gilt; a table, or -reredos, for the high altar at great services, bearing three images of -silver-gilt, embellished with gold and precious stones; and, most -precious of all, a cross of solid gold, set with gems, and having in it -a piece of the true cross of Calvary. - -The “chapel of nine altars” had seven of these holy tables against its -east wall, the three which would naturally have stood under the great -window being combined into one. Each altar had its aumbry or closet for -the sacred vessels, and was parted from its neighbour by a low barrier -of wood, while a similar wall ran along the front of the whole row, -with doors admitting to the altars. There was a gallery over the altar -screen which parted the chapel from the presbytery; and a little gallery -over the door in the south-west corner, which was connected by a long -overhead passage with the abbot’s lodgings. It is likely that at -Fountains, as at Durham, there was a closet against the south wall, -where at the time of saying mass the sacristan provided the monks with -bread and wine for their various altars. - -Having thus examined the church, we may imagine ourselves at service in -it upon some high occasion. The lay brothers in their brown gowns are in -their stalls. The monks are in their places in the choir. They are -dressed in white woollen cassocks, tied with a black girdle, and have -over breast and back a scapulary--a straight breadth of black cloth -before and behind, the two pieces fastened at the shoulders. Over this -plain garb, each monk now wears one of the gorgeous copes of the -sacristy. There are two candles on the high altar, and behind them is -the tablet with the three images, probably our Lord on the Cross, with -St. Mary on one side and St. John on the other, with “beads and plate of -silver-gilt, and some part gold and set with stones.” Back of the altar, -suspended high against the screen and falling to the floor, is a -tapestry hanging, of Arras work. The holy table is spread with white -damask embroidered with flowers. On a shelf in a carved recess of the -south wall are a basin and ewer for washing the priest’s hands; a -boat-shaped vessel for incense, with a spoon; two cruets, a pair of -silver censers, and a chalice and a paten for the bread and wine. Over -the head of the celebrant as he prays hangs a silver basin in which -burns a candle. All these things were in the Abbey when the final -inventory was made. - -Thus the service begins; the commemoration of the supreme -self-sacrifice. The smoke of incense drifts across the light of the east -window; and there is a sound of chanting, imploring, adoring voices. -Hands are outstretched to receive the mystic bread and wine. And -presently they go out to undertake again their homely tasks in the name -of Him to whom belong the church and themselves. - -To these repeated acts of worship, the monks came with a faith which -asked no questions. The services, it is true, were very frequent, and -human nature was with them what we know it to be with us; the thoughts -of the brethren would sometimes wander, and the devout words would be -words only. They were of our own kin and kind. Thomas Kydde and Lawrence -Benne, and Henry Jackson and John Walworth, and their fellows who were -here at the time of the suppression had their bad and their good, as we -have, and in about the same proportion. They were trying, the best way -they knew, to magnify the good, to make the ideal real, and to gain the -approbation of God. In the church they found assistance. There it was, -with doors open, day after day; its aisles fragrant with holy -associations, as with the incense of the prayers of the saints; its -shining altars, its appealing music, its mute assurance of divine -nearness. To it they brought their trials, their perplexities, their -hopes, their aspirations, their resolutions. It was the house of prayer -and the sanctuary of blessing. It was the heart of their life. - - -IV. THE CLOISTER - -Out of the nave, near the south transept, a door opens into the -cloister. At the corner, where nave and transept met, is the pedestal -which held a bowl for holy water. Here the brothers stopped to dip their -fingers and sign their foreheads with - -[Illustration: Principal Patterns of the Roman Floors at Fountains Abbey - -From a print by Wm. Fowler of Winterton - -_To face p. 72] - -the sign of the cross. The green cloister court, without, had a porch -about it on its four sides, and these covered places, whose width is now -indicated by the grading of the turf, were called walks. - -In the west walk, against the cellarium wall, sat the novices, busy with -their books, studying church music and grammar and theology. Apt -students, when they became monks, were sometimes sent to complete their -education at Oxford, where they lived in the Cistercian Abbey of Bewley -(founded in 1280), or in the Cistercian College of St. Bernard, now St. -John’s (founded in 1432). There they learned to preach, and teach some -simple theology to the novices who succeeded them. There they learned -also to interpret and apply the canon law: they became the lawyers of -the monastery. - -It is likely that Fountains, like other great houses, maintained a -grammar school for the sons of the neighbours. The master of such a -school would not be a monk but a secular person, employed by the Abbey -but not a member of the family. The school-house has not been -identified. The building which once stood across the river at the south -end of the cellarium would have been conveniently placed for this -purpose. A glimpse of the discipline of such a school is had in the fact -that, in the sixteenth century, a schoolmaster, receiving his degree of -bachelor of arts, was presented with a birch as a symbol of his office, -and was required forthwith, in the presence of his examiners, to flog a -boy hired for that exercise. - -Over the roof of the east walk, a line of windows opened out of the -dormitory. This was a long room, with two rows of beds from end to end, -like a ward in a hospital. The beds were provided with sheets of -linsey-woolsey, and the monks lay on straw which was emptied out of its -blue ticking and renewed once every year. At Durham, the custom was to -carry his blue bed to the brother’s funeral, and hold it as a canopy -over the grave during the service; so that every night when he lay down -to rest he was profitably reminded of his last sleep. The monks laid -aside their scapulars, but slept in their woollen cassocks, so that they -woke ready dressed. The day stairs to the dormitory are in the -south-east corner of the cloister. There was a room at the head of the -stairs, extending south to the end of the dormitory, which may have -corresponded to the master’s chamber in a like position in a school. -Here the prior may have slept with an attentive ear for any breach of -order. It is uncertain whether there were partitions between the beds, -or whether the brethren were denied even such scanty privacy as that. It -is plain that they had no “cells.” The building which opened at right -angles with the dormitory beside the river was the toilet room, the -_necessarium_. Through its hall communication was had with the abbot’s -lodgings. The abbot, according to rule, must sleep in the common -dormitory. He probably gave this regulation a liberal interpretation, as -the house grew great, and considered that this hall made his room -“constructively” a part of the chamber of the monks. - -At two o’clock in the morning a great bell rang in the tower, and a -little bell in the dormitory answered it. Then every brother bestirred -himself. He threw a cloak about him, thrust his feet into his shoes, and -descended the night stairs at the end of the room into the dark church. - -The night service, called matins, consisted of a reading of many lessons -and a chanting of many psalms, and was performed to the accompaniment of -the organ. A light burned before the high altar, and there was a light -in the loft at the organ, and another for the reader at the lecturn, -perhaps still another at the chant-book of the precentor. But otherwise -the great church was in darkness. The psalms were sung from memory. Now -and then some one went about among the singing brothers to make sure -that no man slept. This lasted for an hour or more. - -After this service, the monks came out into the north walk of the -cloister, where cressets flamed uncertainly against the walls, and there -continued until dawn, reading or meditating, but having their hoods well -pulled back from their faces to make it evident that they were wide -awake. This study-hour was, of course, short in summer, but long in -winter. When the weather was very bad, they sought refuge in the -chapter-house. In some cloisters there was glass in the open stone-work -of the porch; but, at best, this was a cold place of an early morning. -The dormitory was cold, the church was cold, and the cloister was as -cold as the sky; but they were used to it, like all their neighbours. - -This north walk was the living-room and study of the monastery. The -books in most frequent use were kept in a case which stood in a shallow -recess still to be seen in the transept wall. Others were stored in two -capacious closets on either side of the chapter-house door. Every year, -at the beginning of Lent, all the books of the monastery were spread out -on a carpet on the floor of the chapter-house, and a general accounting -was had. A roll was called of brothers and of books. Each monk rose at -the sound of his name, produced the book which had been assigned to him -the year before, and returned it, humbly confessing if he had not read -it through. Then the books were newly distributed and charged. At Ripley -Castle, bound in an octavo volume, are several of the Fountains books: a -Latin grammar, some sermons and some music, and a paraphrase of Ovid, in -which that irresponsible writer is made to serve as a mediæval -moralist. There is also a fragment of a book on medecine, to which they -might profitably have added, as at Meaux Abbey, a book on eating,--_De -Edendo_. No catalogue remains, but we can guess at the titles from the -lists of other mediæval libraries. There were writings of the fathers, -ancient and modern, with a pretty full set of the works of St. Bernard; -and several commentaries on the Bible; and a good deal of biography, -mostly ecclesiastical; and books on law and ritual. - -So the brethren sat in the cold cloister reading their good books. The -Benedictines, who were scholars and literary persons, provided by rule -that these precious manuscript volumes should be handled with becoming -care. “When the religious are engaged in reading in cloister or church, -they shall if possible hold the books in their left hands, wrapped in -the sleeve of their tunics, and resting on their knees.” - -Who were these men? Whence had they come? and why? - -As for their origin, they belonged, so far as we can now discover, to -the same class from which the ministry is still mainly recruited: to the -great company of those who are neither rich nor poor, who neither earn -their living by their hands nor inherit the means of living from their -fathers, represented in mediæval England by the gentry, as distinguished -on the one side from the peasantry, and on the other side from the -aristocracy. - -As for their motive, each had his own. “What are you here for, -Bernard?”--the great saint of the Cistercians had the question written -on his wall. _Ad quid venisti, Bernarde?_ To this inquiry the abbey -might have returned as many as fifty different answers. Some of the -white-gowned men came in pure love of God, deeming a life of continual -prayer the most blessed of all lives, delighting in it - -[Illustration: _Fountains Abbey._ - -_From the South East._ - -_Photo. Watson._ _Art Repro. Co.] - -all, finding in the cloister the four-square city of God which is -pictured in the Book of the Revelation. Some came from love of leisure, -or of simple peace and quiet: the worse ones, disposed to be respectably -idle; the better, finding the outer world too boisterous for their -gentle souls. Some came because they were disappointed; some because -they had failed; some because they had suddenly seen the emptiness of -common life, the baseness of much of it, the flagrant evil of some of -it, and had come out of it that they might live to a good purpose. - -Thus Ralph, the seventh abbot, had begun life as a soldier. He was a -contemporary of Robin Hood, who in the ballad met a friar of Fountains -and by him was soundly ducked in the middle of the little river. Richard -of the Lion Heart was at that time ruling England after his fashion. Men -were marching across Europe to the Holy Land. The profession of arms -must have appealed strongly in those days to the heroic, and even to -the religious nature of many men. But Ralph did not like it. It -displeased him much. And one day, coming to Fountains, where his father -had already become a monk, he consulted a lay-brother, whose name was -Sunnulph, _homo simplex et illiteratus_ but wise in the counsels of God. -And presently, the soldier and the brother each had a dream in the same -day. The knight dreamed that he was in a church, and that the figure on -the crucifix cried saying, “Why do you not come? Why do you wait?” To -which he replied with tears, “Behold, Lord, I come!” The monk, sleeping -in the long dormitory over the storehouse, saw the soldier dressed in a -monastic habit. So Ralph became a monk, and presently an abbot. - -The possibility of that promotion brought some men into the monastery. -In a world hopelessly divided into classes, the monastery was the -residence of democracy. Here the humblest man, if he could but read and -write, might rise as he deserved, to be the kitchener, the hospitaller, -the sacrist, the cellarer; some day--who could tell?--the abbot, wearing -a mitre, consorting on terms of equality with the noblest in the realm, -ruling his fellow men. - -But here are the brethren sitting in the chill cloister, reading their -good books, and awaiting the day. At the first light the bell rang and -they went again into the church for the psalms of lauds. After that, -they returned to the dormitory and washed their hands and faces in the -room over the river. By this time the sun was fairly up, and the hour -was come for the psalms of prime. The first psalm, according to the -gracious arrangement of St. Benedict, they said very slowly, in order to -give late-comers time to get in. Prime was followed by mass or by -chapter meeting, the order differing with the season of the year. The -monastic year was in two parts: winter began on September 14, being -Holy Cross day, a date still used in the Prayer-Book for determining the -autumnal ember days; summer began at Easter. - -Out of the church, from prime or mass, the brethren proceeded to the -chapter-house. This great hall opened through three noble arches from -the east walk of the cloister. Two of these arches were blocked, as it -appears, by book closets; but not at the beginning. The books were -probably stored at first, as in other Cistercian abbeys, in the room -between the transept and the chapter-house. Afterwards this room was put -to other uses. - -At the further end and on the sides the brothers sat on triple tiers of -stone benches. The meeting began with a reading from the monastic book -of martyrs, how this brother and that in the old time had lain down his -life for his Master. Then there were prayers; and sometimes a sermon, -to the hearing of which the lay brothers might be summoned. Then was -read a chapter from the Rule of St. Benedict, a custom which gave its -name both to the meeting and to the house in which it was held. Thus -their high ideal was kept continually before them. Once a week a list -was read of the household duties and of the brethren to whom they were -assigned. For these homely tasks came to the monks in turn. One after -another, they cooked the dinner, or waited on the table, or swept the -dormitory. Finally, cases of discipline were considered. - -In a life which at best was somewhat monotonous and narrow, the minor -annoyances of human fellowship would easily be exaggerated. The rule of -silence could not restrain the brothers from thinking; and some of the -thoughts would naturally take the direction which is indicated in -Browning’s “Soliloquy in a Spanish Cloister.” The chapter meeting was, -accordingly, a place for the summary adjustment of all the petty -grievances. Brother Robert made his complaint against Brother William, -and Brother William confessed or explained, and whoever was adjudged to -be at fault was properly punished: sometimes by loss of precedence, -sometimes by lack of dinner; in serious cases, by flogging. Down got the -brother on the cold floor, paved with tombstones of past abbots, and -there was soundly whipped, for the good of his soul and for the -edification of the brethren. When whipping was not sufficient, he was -put in prison. Under the abbot’s lodgings, beneath the ground, were -three convenient dungeons, in whose walls and floor are to be seen to -this day the staples for the chains. - -It is not likely that these dungeons were in frequent use. Many hard -things were, indeed, said about the monks at the time of the -suppression, but it must be remembered that they were said by -interested persons in the heat of controversy. Even then, it was agreed -that in the “great and solemn monasteries,” such as Fountains, religion -was “right well kept.” The monks were slandered that they might the more -conveniently be robbed. Henry VIII. desired for various reasons, good -and bad, to destroy the monasteries and take possession of their lands -and treasures. He desired also, like all the Tudors, to keep the good -will of the people. The royal commissioners, sent to visit the religious -houses and report upon them, understood the situation and met it. They -showed that the monasteries were so bad that a good nation ought to be -happy to have its king suppress them. It is true that the enthusiasm for -the monastic life was waning; the best men were turning their energies -and finding their ideals in other directions. The strength and devotion -of the people were being put into politics, into preaching, into the -practical life of the parish. Moreover, there had gradually grown up a -social as well as a religious separation between the monks and their -neighbours. Fountains Abbey, for example, was built, as we have seen, by -the benefactions of rich and noble persons. It was on that side an -aristocratic institution. It differed in this respect from the parish -churches which were erected and maintained by the plain people, and -especially by prosperous citizens of the mercantile order. Mr. -Micklethwaite has put the situation clearly in his paper on “The -Cistercian Order.” “To a citizen or a franklin,” he says, “a monk was a -dignitary, but the parish priest was his neighbour and friend, and the -parish church was his own.” This fact, that the great substantial middle -class were no longer deeply interested in the abbeys, not only accounts -in some measure for the indifference with which they witnessed their -destruction, but for the difficulty which the monasteries found at last -in getting recruits among men of this good kind. The personal quality -deteriorated. There were bad monks, no doubt, as there are still bad -ministers; and the few bad ones attracted more attention than all the -cloistered saints. And, anyhow, the life which they were endeavouring to -live was an abnormal life, apart from the wholesome influences of -natural human society, and from the helpful engagements of the common -routine. The monasteries inevitably degenerated. But “an enemy,” as -Burke said, “is a bad witness; a robber is a worse.” The quiet judgment -of the modern historian is in favour of the monks, and finds most of -them to have been men of respectable and pious lives. The sober persons -in white cassocks, who confessed faults in the chapter meeting and -cheerfully suffered chastisement for them to which the man in the street -gave not a moment’s thought, had a passionate longing to be good. They -were intent upon the living of a righteous life. - -The day’s work would begin about seven o’clock. In the winter it -continued until three in the afternoon, making an eight-hour day. In the -summer there was a long intermission while the sun was high and hot, but -two hours of it were occupied in study. During the day the church bell -rang for the offices of terce and sext and nones; but these were brief -services, and men who were hard at work at a distance stopped where they -stood, and said them under the sky. There was a bite of breakfast called -_mixtum_--a piece of bread and somewhat wherewith to wash it down--which -was served before the work of the day began to those who were so old or -so young as to be unfit for their tasks without it. In the summer the -meal of the day was eaten at noon, and after it the brethren lay on -their beds in the dormitory and slept for an hour; or, if they chose, -read a book during that time, lying down, being careful not to stretch -out their feet into the passage between the beds, and turning the leaves -quietly so as not to disturb their sleeping neighbours. Late in the -summer afternoon there was a slight repast of bread and fruit. In the -winter, until Lent, the one meal was served when the brethren came in -from work; that is after three o’clock; in Lent, not until about five. - -The monastic ideal of seclusion from the world demanded economic -independence. Everything that was needed in the monastery was to be -produced upon the premises. That, at the least, implied a garden for -vegetables, and an orchard for fruit, and a field for corn with a mill -in which to grind it, and ponds for fish, and woods for fuel. It meant -architects, builders, masons, carpenters and plumbers. In the infirmary, -which was the abbey hospital, there must be physicians and attendants. -In the guest-house, which was the abbey inn, there must be porters, -hostlers, cooks. The common details of a domestic establishment of a -hundred men were enough to keep many persons busy. It is true that much -of the heavy work was done by the lay brothers; but every choir brother -had his share also, and went out daily with axe or spade, with -fishing-rod or pruning-hook, with basket or barrow, to his appointed -task. The crops must be planted or garnered, the apples must be picked, -the hay must be got in, the wood must be cut, the buildings must be kept -in repair, horses must be shod, sheep must be shorn, and at all seasons, -in all weather, and under all circumstances, dinner must be cooked. - -Accordingly, after the daily mass and chapter, this substantial activity -engaged the mind and muscle of the monastery. The abbot betook himself -to his executive affairs, the prior and the sub-prior to their daily -inspection of the establishment, the cellarer to his house-keeping, the -sacrist to his care of the church, the bursar to his accounts, the -infirmarius to his hospital, the terrararius to his inn, the almoner to -his dependents at the gate, the master of the novices to his school, the -scriptor to his copying, the kitchener to his cooking, others to the -fields and forests. For such as were unemployed about these matters, -there was the cloister with its books, and the church with its frequent -services. It is likely that there were idle monks; for the monk was of -like passions with us, and was beset by the same temptations which -assail us. As the Abbey increased in wealth, and the early ardour of the -monastic life began to cool, there was, no doubt, a disposition to hire -men to do some of the homely tasks which at first the monks had done -themselves. But the ideal of the monastic life was an active day, -wherein from dawn till dark there should not be an idle moment. -Indolence, as St. Benedict declared, is an enemy of the soul; and all -his arrangements of time and task were made with that in mind. Eastern -monasticism had two dominant notes, of pain and prayer. St. Benedict -took pain out and put work in the place of it. No man was to afflict his -soul or body needlessly, but every man was to devote himself, for his -physical and spiritual good, to vigorous exercise. The idle monk was -like the idle minister: he existed, but not often. - -All the work was done, as far as was possible, in silence. Out of the -east walk of the cloister, beside the chapter-house, opened the parlour. -There, as the name indicates, the monks could talk. The original rule -specified only the dormitory and the refectory as places wherein speech -was forbidden; but silence came to be the common habit of the monastic -life, its enforcement depending much upon the disposition of the abbot. -The monastery was the abode of blessed stillness. Within its walls men -lived in peace and quiet. They did their tasks without conversation. -They read their books, and ate their meals, thinking their own -uninterrupted thoughts. They sat in the cloister, where the wind and the -sun played in the grass, and were altogether undisturbed. It was not so -much a penitential as a protective silence, good for the soul, and -restful. - -There was even a bit of quiet pleasure in the midst of these silent -labours. In the south walk of the cloister, between the dormitory stairs -and the refectory, was the warming house, the abbey fireside. Here, in -the cold weather, the monks came to warm their hands. The abbot had a -fire-place of his own; the cellarer had one in his office; and the -infirmary and the guest houses were cheerfully warmed; but the common -brotherhood had but this one hearth. Here was concentrated all the heat -of the place, in the huge fire-places. One of these great openings is -now blocked, having been disused before the suppression, when the -number of monks was growing smaller, but the other is still ready for a -load of logs, whose smoke would pour out of the tall chimney. Two large -openings in the west wall gave some heat to the refectory. Here, in the -warming house, in Advent, the brothers kept a “solemn banquet” of “figs -and raisins, cakes and ale,” of whose celebration at Durham it is said -that there was “no superfluity or excess, but a scholastical and -moderate congratulation amongst themselves.” A door in the south-west -corner opened upon a little court; the woodhouse stood in the eastern -part of it, and a wooden bridge, from the refectory corner, led across -the river. Over this bridge came the stout brothers in their gowns of -brown or white, their arms full of wood. At Durham, near the warming -house, there was a garden and a bowling alley. - -The muniment room at Studley Royal contains among its treasures a - -[Illustration: _Fountains Abbey._ - -_From the South West._ - -_Photo. Frith._ _Art Repro. Co.] - -book of accounts of the bursar, kept in the time of Abbot Grenewell -(1442-1471). There it appears that they had “a pair of clavichords” at -the Abbey--the pianoforte of the Middle Ages. This would seem to imply -domestic music. Somebody must have played, while the brethren stood -about and sang. There are also various records of fees paid to persons -who went about the country from abbey to castle, from manor-house to -market-square, for the entertainment of their neighbours. Minstrels came -from Beverley, with those of Lord Arundell, of Lord Beaumont, of Lord -Fitzhugh, even of the King; who not only sang but acted as conjurers, -gymnasts, contortionists, and variety showmen. Sometimes the audience of -the Abbey was given to a story-teller--_fabulator_--“the story-teller of -the Earl of Salisbury”; with selections from the Hundred Merry Tales or -the _Gesta Romanorum_. Players came from Thirsk and Ripon. Sometimes -the entertainer was a jester, or, as they said, a fool. One of the -bursar’s items shows a payment of fourpence “to a fool called Solomon -(who came again).” These diversions would perhaps be given on the -cellarer’s terrace; that is, in the space to the west of the cellarium, -which was once enclosed within a wall, from the church porch to the -cellarer’s office. - -One of Abbot Grenewell’s purchases was a great clock, made by John -Ripley, and probably set in the south transept of the church. In the -middle of the hot day in summer, after the service of sext, and late in -the afternoon in winter, after nones, when the clock pointed to the -proper hour, a bell in the cloister rang for dinner; either a bell or a -board struck with a mallet. Outside the refectory door, on either hand, -were stone troughs with running water from the river. In the middle of -the cloister is a great stone bason. When that welcome sound was heard, -the brothers washed their hands in the troughs or in the bason, wiping -them on a roller towel which hung beside the door. Then they entered -their noble dining-hall, lofty as a church, with ceiling of wood and -floor of stone, wainscoted above the height of a man’s head, and having -down the midst a row of marble pillars. At the end opposite the door, -and along the wall on both sides, were stone benches, and in front of -them were tables of oak, covered with linen cloth. The prior commonly -presided, the abbot dining in his own lodgings. All stood in silence -till the prior was in his place, and remained standing while he rang a -little bell during a time sufficient for the saying of the fifty-first -psalm. When the bell stopped, the priest of the week said grace, and -they all sat down. - -In the fair gallery of stone in the west wall, deeply recessed and -lighted by great windows, reached by a short flight of stone steps, the -reader stood to accompany the silent meal with words of Holy Scripture -and of ancient authors. The kitchen adjoined the refectory on the west, -having its great ovens in the middle of the room, and entered from the -refectory by a service door which had a round revolving shelf across the -middle of it. Between the door to the gallery and the door to the -kitchen there was perhaps a sideboard; and in the corners toward the -cloister were cupboards for cups and plates and spoons, each provided -with a sink. There were forty-five silver spoons here when the inventory -was made, but only three small cups or mazers, and one big one, of -silver. This would appear to indicate that the cups and plates were of -some cheap material and not worth counting. - -The bill of fare showed bread and vegetables and fruit and fish. -Sometimes there was meat, but this was cooked in the kitchen of the -infirmary, and served in the misericord, or House of Merciful Meals. No -flesh which had ever walked about upon four feet was dressed in the -cloister kitchen or served in the cloister refectory. But fowls were -eaten, and eggs were a staple of monastic diet. The monks had wine and -beer for drink, according to the custom of the country. In the book of -signs--_De Signis_--which shows how the monks of Ely indicated their -wishes at the silent table, four gestures are set down to mean beer: -signifying good beer, _bona servisia_, small beer, _mediocris servisia_, -smaller beer, _debilis servisia_, and a very common beer called -_skagmen_. In the “Mirroure of Our Ladye,” the sister of Sion House who -desired an apple was directed to “put thy thumb in thy fist, and close -thy hand, and move afore thee to and fro”; for milk, “draw thy left -little finger in the manner of milking”; for mustard, “hold thy nose in -the upper part of thy right fist, and rub it”; for salt, “philip with -thy right thumb and his forefinger over the left thumb”; for wine, -“move thy forefinger up and down upon the end of thy thumb before thine -eye.” A dinner to the accompaniment of these cheerful communications, -while one read aloud from a good book, may well have been a pleasant -meal. - -At Ely, during the week beginning August 5, 1336, the brethren of the -monastery had on Sunday eggs, chickens, pigeons and dripping; on Monday, -pottage and cod; on Tuesday, fresh meat and mutton; on Wednesday, fresh -fish, white herring and cod; on Thursday, fresh meat, white herring and -cod; on Friday, white herring and cod; and on Saturday, dripping, milk, -white herring and cod. - -When Abbot Grenewell went to attend the assizes at York, as he did in -1455, at the March session of the court, he dined the first day on fish -alone; on the second day, having guests at his table, he added salt and -mustard to the fish; on the third day, fish was served with figs, -raisins and gingerbread; the fare of the fourth day was like that of -the second, and the fifth day followed the third. With this were bread -and beer and wine. - -Monastic meals, though monotonous, were wholesome; and there was a good -deal of variety in the preparation of the fish. St. Bernard, in his day, -complained of the ingenuity with which eggs were cooked in religious -houses. “Who can describe,” he cries, “in how many ways the very eggs -are tossed and tormented, with what eager care they are turned over and -under, made soft and hard, beaten up, fried, roasted, stuffed, now -served minced with other things, and now by themselves! The very -external appearance of the thing is cared for, so that the eye may be -charmed as well as the palate.” As the monasteries increased in wealth, -there would be a constant temptation to dine more abundantly. Eating is -not only one of the earliest but one of the most universal of arts, and -no cook nor convert could completely resist its allurements. For the -most part, however, the abbey fare was fit food for soldiers, for men in -training for a war with Satan. - -Thus the silent meal progressed, the level voice of the reader at his -desk in the gallery, accompanying the cheerful sounds of honest eating -and drinking. No brother was permitted to leave until the meal was -ended, nor walk about while his companions were eating. Neither was he -allowed to wash his cup with his fingers, though he might wipe it with -his hand. He was forbidden to wipe either his hands or his knife on the -table-cloth,--until he had first cleansed them on his bread. When he -helped himself to salt it must be with his knife; when he drank, he must -hold the cup with both hands. “Eyes on your plates, hands on the table, -ears to the reader, heart to God”: thus ran the rule. Then the prior -rang a sharp note on his bell. If the great mazer of silver with a gilt -band, which is mentioned in the inventory, was a grace cup, then it was -at this moment that it went its round, each brother lifting it to his -lips, holding its two handles. Then, two by two, they marched into the -church and said the miserere psalm. - -Out of the cloister, in the south-east corner, between the parlour and -the day-stairs to the dormitory, a passage led to the buildings which -lay beyond. The beginning of this passage crossed a long room which -extended to the south, whose central line of pillars upheld the -dormitory floor. The ceiling was low and the windows were at the south -end, so that its use is not apparent. It may have been the chamber of -the novices; it may have been the tool-house. It may have been an office -or checker, wherein the master of the warming house kept his hogshead of -wine, and his spices, figs and walnuts, with which to mitigate the -austerities of Lent. Or the chamberlain may have used it, whose charge -was to furnish the brethren with linsey-woolsey for their shirts and -sheets; in which case, the tailor may have sat in the light of the south -windows, mending frayed scapularies and darning holes in cowls and -gowns. - -The passage led into a gallery, with open arcading of stone on either -side, and a second storey over. Out of the gallery, to the right, opened -the abbot’s lodgings, where a long hall gave entrance into several -rooms. Beside the door a stairway rose to the upper chambers, which -appear to have been large and light, with comfortable fireplaces, and -oriel windows looking out to east and south over the river. In one of -these rooms, or in the misericord which was connected with this building -by a hall, the abbot dined with visitors of state. Here, at the time of -the inventory, were two gilded basins of silver, three silver ewers, -eight “standing pieces” with covers, nine “flat pieces,” all of silver, -with a goblet and some spoons: so that the abbot’s table must have -presented a shining and sumptuous appearance. The open space bounded by -the dormitory basement on the west, the arcaded passage on the north, -the rere-dorter or necessarium on the south, and the abbot’s lodgings on -the east, may have been the abbot’s garden, his _hortus inclusus_. -Somewhere, at a convenient distance, must have been the abbot’s stable -for his six horses--_sex equi ad stabulum domini abbatis_,--in charge of -his boy, whose russet suit cost fifteen pence. The chalice, paten and -cruets which were in the abbot’s house would seem to mean that one of -the rooms was an oratory, with an altar. Under the abbot’s lodgings were -the cells for offenders. - -From the north-west corner of the second story, over the entrance, a -passage opened into the upper course of the long gallery. Here was a -hall with many windows, warmed here and there with fire-places, -extending east to the infirmary, north to the chapel of nine altars, -and west to the dormitory. Here the abbot could walk; here, in the oriel -which projected into the chapel, he could say his prayers and hear mass -quite by himself. He was the only member of the monastic family who had -the privilege of privacy. - -The gallery is almost entirely ruined, but a comparison with the -arrangements of other monastic houses suggests that the upper storey of -the western part, next to the dormitory, was the library or the -writing-room. Here, where there was plenty of light, the records and -accounts may have been kept. Here the books may have been copied which -were used in the choir, and in the cloister and in the school. The -completed records, especially such as related to the abbey lands, may -have been stored in the room over the warming house, now used as a -museum for fragments of pottery and broken carvings found in the ruins. -This room, reached by the day stairs to the dormitory, had a bar at the -door by which the occupant could lock himself in. This bar is a -perplexing fact, and nobody has as yet explained why any official of the -abbey should need to defend himself against intrusion in this peremptory -fashion. If this was the muniment room, it held the great books of the -Chartulary of Fountains, of which the volume A to C is in the British -Museum. D to J is at Ripley Castle, and K to M is in the library of the -late Sir Thomas Phillips. The remaining volumes are not yet traced. Here -were kept the bundles of title-deeds, now at Studley Hall; with pendant -seals, which show that there were neighbouring farmers who attested -their signatures with impressions of Roman gems which their forefathers -had turned up with the plough. The President Book would be kept here, -with its dated list of abbots up to 1471; and the Coucher Book, with -its register of the dealings of the monks with their manors. These two -probably lay by the abbot’s side as he sat in his place in the chapter -house at business meetings. They are now preserved in the muniment room -at Studley Hall. - -The long corridor, which connected the cloister with the infirmary, -passed, as we have seen, the abbot’s lodging on the right and the -entrance-way to the chapel of the nine altars on the left. Opposite the -chapel entrance there was an opening into the coal-yard. Coal was found -here when the recent excavations were made. In the south-east corner of -this yard lay the abbey rubbish heap, the materials of which were -apparently shovelled out from the window beside it, whose sill shows the -marks of this daily exercise. Here were found various broken dishes, a -sickle blade, a copper can, bushels of oyster shells, and bones -identified as belonging to beef, mutton, pork and venison, together -with a great quantity of ashes. - -The room out of which this refuse was thrown is reached by a passage -which opens out of the long corridor close by the infirmary door. Here, -according to Mr. Walbran, stood the reservoir, fed by a lead pipe from a -spring on the high bank. - -The meat bones in the rubbish heap suggest the near neighbourhood of the -House of Merciful Meals. This is the room which lies to the south of the -reservoir and the coal-yard. A screen extended across the east end of -the misericord, and there was a dais for the high table at the west end. -Along the north wall are still remains of one of the stone benches. -Tables stood here, as in the refectory of the cloister. - -The long corridor ended at the door of the infirmary. This was a noble -group of buildings, now ruined almost to the ground. There was a great -hall, one of the finest in the kingdom, with two rows of stately -pillars. It had a fire-place at each end, and the aisles were divided by -partitions into small rooms, some having fire-places of their own. Back -of it, to the east, reached by broad stone steps, eight of which remain, -stood a two-storied structure, with vaulted basement probably for -domestic stores, and with upper apartments which may have served for the -entertainment of guests of unusual distinction. Up these stairs, then, -attended by officers of the Abbey, went the Nevilles, the Marmions, the -Mauleverers, on their visits to the monastery. In the chamber above -slept the abbot of Clairvaux, when he came on his round of inspection of -the Cistercian houses. Adjoining this lodging, on the south, was the -chapel, into which a flight of narrow stairs descended from this -guest-room. The base of the altar is still _in situ_. Next the chapel, -with a yard between, was the spacious kitchen, whose great round ovens -are still in place. Here, was cooked the food for the infirmary, for the -misericord, and for the occupants of the lodging. A staircase beside the -chapel-door seems to have led from the kitchen to the guest-room, over -the arch of the entrance. - -Here, in the infirmary, were gathered the old men, who had been monks -for fifty years. Here the sick were cared for. Here regularly, in -groups, a fourth part of the brethren at a time, came all the monks in -succession for the periodical _minutio_, or letting of blood, according -to the medical discipline of the time. In this comfortable seclusion -they regained their strength. The doors of the infirmary were shut -against the harsher regulations of the monastic life. Fires blazed on -the hearth and roared up the great chimneys, and there were good things -on the table at dinner time. The place was both a hospital and an old -men’s home. The buildings extended over the river, which flowed in four -tunnels beneath. To the north, beside the chapel of the nine altars, lay -the cemetery. In this quiet place, remote from even the peaceful stir of -the cloister, the monks expected to end their days. Their longest -journey out of this blessed haven was when they crept along the -corridor, and the nine-altars chapel, and the presbytery aisle, to their -place on the stout oak bench against the back of the rood screen, to -hear mass on some high festival. They awaited only one longer journey, -when they should be carried out of the infirmary chapel to the green -cemetery. - -When the time for that last journey drew near, the abbot came to -administer the sacrament, with all the brethren assembled. Then a cross -of ashes was traced upon the floor, with a merciful covering of straw -upon it and a quilt on that; there the sick man was laid. When the -brother’s breath grew faint and difficult, and it was plain that the -moment of his departure was at hand, a board in the cloister was struck -repeated blows with a mallet, and all the monks hastened to their -brother’s side. Thus he closed his eyes, amidst the prayers of his -friends, and passed from the peace of the monastery to the rest of -paradise. - -This quiet end of life was continually symbolised in the quiet ending of -the monastic day. Late in the afternoon, the office of vespers was said -in the church, somewhat elaborately, with much singing and -organ-playing. After vespers, in the twilight, the monks sat in the -cloister, about the refectory door, and somebody read aloud from a good -book, preferably the Collations of Cassian. On Saturday afternoons -during the reading, the brothers by turns sat in a row on the stone -benches which were over the lavatory troughs on either side of the -refectory door, and had their feet washed in the running water by the -cooks of that week and of the week to come. Then the compline prayers -were said, in the summer about seven o’clock, in the winter about eight. -And at the end of the service, every monk pulled his cowl over his head -and went to bed. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE SUPPRESSION - - -For two hundred and fifty years--from the time of Abbot John of Kent, -whose day ended in 1247, to the time of Abbot John, called Darnton, -whose day began in 1479--no notable additions were made to the fabric of -the Abbey. The energies of the brethren were directed to the diligent -living of their daily life. - -In Craven, the Abbey owned a hundred square miles within a ring fence; -in the neighbourhood of Ripon, their lands ran in one direction for -thirty uninterrupted miles. The monks of the daughter house of Kirkstead -had farms in Lincolnshire, forty thousand acres of pasture land in -Wildmore Fen, and property in Boston, Lincoln and London. They had -tithes of the deer in Kirkstead Chase and the swans on Witham river. -They sold wool in Flanders. They maintained several large mills and an -iron works. And Fountains was much richer than Kirkstead. These -possessions brought heavy responsibilities, and made a great demand on -the monks’ time. There were tenants and title-deeds to be looked after, -collections to be made, markets to be considered, with buying and -selling, and the care of sheep and cattle. - -In addition to these cares, the abbot was the official visitor of eleven -other abbeys--the eight daughter houses, with three which had grown out -of the first--and went about among them on journeys of inspection and -encouragement and counsel. Also, as late as the fourteenth century, he -had a seat in Parliament, where he wore his mitre and discussed the -affairs of the wide world. Early in the fifteenth century he attended -the Council of Constance, where he heard Wyclif condemned and saw Hus -burned. Late in the same century, when Henry VII., the last of the -mediæval kings, kept St. George’s Day in state at York, it was the Abbot -of Fountains who read the epistle at high mass in the Minster. - -This abbot was John Darnton, who resumed again the old enthusiasm for -making the Abbey beautiful. He put new windows in the place of the plain -old ones, in the west end of the nave, and in the chapel of the nine -altars, east and north and south. After him, on the very eve of the -Suppression, looking forward to centuries more of prosperity and peace. -Abbot Marmaduke Huby built the noble tower. - -About this time the Abbey bought a map--“a paper map of the world”--for -which the bursar paid eight pence. There it hung upon the parlour wall, -that all the monks might see what sort of place they lived in--a small -world, whose centre was at the altar of St. Peter’s Church in Rome. But -while the new glass was being put in the big new windows the tidings -came that a new world had been found across the sea; and to this -expansion it soon became necessary to readjust the horizons both of maps -and of ideas. In the process of this readjustment the Abbey came to an -end. - -When the Reformation began, the abbeys were all against it. To the men -of the cloister, living by rule and wonted to silence, the bold ideas of -the robust prophets of the new time had a harsh and forbidding sound. -Rumours of the current sayings and doings found their way into the -Abbey--the farmer made report to the cellarer when he brought in his -beets and onions--and the brethren shuddered to hear them, as men shake -and shiver upon whom the cold wind blows around the corner after a day -spent by the warm fire. In the quickening contention between the old -learning and the new the monks held with the past. - -Thus it was also in the increasingly embittered politics of the time. At -Jervaulx Abbey, on a July Sunday in 1536, a monk sharply interrupted the -preacher who was maintaining that the king was the head of the Church. -The monk said that he neither would nor could take the king’s highness -for to be the only and supreme head of the Church of England. He -affirmed that the Pope was the head of the Church, and not the king. And -his brethren agreed with him. That was what they held at Fountains. On -one side were the king and the bishops, on the other side were the Pope -and the monks. The contrast between abbey and cathedral--between the -monks’ church and the bishops’ church,--is of like significance with the -contrast between the castles of Kenilworth and Warwick. The two castles -took different sides in a great national division; and Kenilworth, -which chose the side of Charles, and lost, is a battered ruin, while -Warwick, which chose the side of Cromwell, and won, is a stately -inhabited mansion. The abbey and the cathedral made their choice in an -earlier division. It needs but a glance to tell which chose the side -that was defeated. - -Fountains, like the other monasteries, was ill prepared for the heavy -storm. The convent had decreased in numbers. One of the fire-places in -the warming-house, one of the ovens in the refectory kitchen, had been -blocked up as being no longer needed. The partitions down the rows of -pillars in the nave had been removed, for there were no lay brothers to -sit in the long lines of stalls. Men were asking menacing questions as -to the practical value of these vast establishments which were -withdrawing from the general life of the nation so much wealth and -strength. Parliament suppressed nearly four hundred of the lesser -monasteries, partly on the ground that they were places of evil living, -partly on the ground that their revenues were needed for the better -benefit of the people; and there were few complaints. Though the greater -abbeys were expressly exempted at that time from the accusations of -immoral conduct, even they could not escape the charge of rendering but -a scanty and uncertain service to the community. - -It was the misfortune of Fountains, at this critical time, to have an -incompetent and unworthy abbot; though even a saint could not have saved -the place from the hand of the spoiler. In 1530, the Earl of -Northumberland appealed to Cardinal Wolsey, in behalf of the brethren of -Fountains, to remove the abbot. Abbot Thirsk, he said, doth not -endeavour himself like a discreet father towards the convent and the -profit of the house, but hath, against the same, as well sold and -wasted the great part or all of their store in cattle, as also their -woods in divers countries, neither does he maintain the service of God -like to the ancient custom there. The King’s commissioners, Layton and -Legh, said worse things about him. They declared that he was defamed _a -toto populo_. They complained that there was no truth in him, one day -denying and the next confessing various sins laid to his charge. They -were especially indignant because one night he took secretly out of the -sacristy or treasure room a gold cross adorned with stones, and in -company with a jeweller, who had come from London, whom he took into his -lodgings, did abstract from the cross an emerald and a ruby, which the -London jeweller bought of him, cheating the abbot badly. It is plain -that the poor man was at his wit’s end, sorely badgered by these -insistent visitors, seeing the ruin of his holy house, and trying, if -possible, to save something out of it. Finally, he resigned his office -into the hands of the commissioners, who assigned him a scanty pension. -He took refuge in the Abbey of Jervaulx, where he became involved in the -revolutionary proceedings of the Pilgrimage of Grace, and atoned for -such misdeeds as he may have committed by being hanged at Tyburn. - -Abbot Thirsk’s successor, Marmaduke Bradley, was selected by the -commissioners. They said that he was the wisest monk in England; and he -showed that he was even as wise, as the Bible says, as a serpent, by -doing what his masters bade him. In 1539, at their demand, he -surrendered the Abbey to the King. - -The commissioners came down from London, late in the November of that -year, and called a meeting, probably in the chapter house. There they -assembled the abbot and the convent and the chief people of the -neighbourhood, to whom they duly declared “the godly determination of -the King’s majesty to alter and change that house, with many others, -from an unchristian life to a trade of virtuous and honest living.” The -thirty-two brethren were promised proper pensions. They were accordingly -advised “to submit themselves to his Majesty’s clemency and goodness, -and by way of surrender to yield up into his Grace’s hands their -monastery, with all the lands, possessions, jewels, plate, ornaments, -and other things belonging to the same.” The commissioners then took -possession of the convent seal, with all the keys, and made an -inventory. Thus politely, and even piously, was this royal robbery -effected. - -The abbot betook himself to Ripon, where he held a prebendal stall. The -prior and his thirty brethren were turned briskly out of doors to face -the approaching winter. Despoiled of their own garments they were given -suits of citizen’s clothes, and were set outside the gates of their -fair paradise to make their way, as best they could, over the strange -roads of the cold world. - -The gold and silver of the rich altars, with all things of value such as -could be moved, were put in waggons and sent to the king. Distant though -the Abbey was from any town, the rumour of these proceedings would -attract a crowd. And the crowd stole what they could. The servants of -the commissioners, who had a better chance, stole more, according to -their opportunity. They rode about in those days, from the wreck of one -abbey to the ruin of another, with rich copes for travelling cloaks and -chasubles for saddle cloths. The master thief was abroad, and it was a -pity if the little thieves could not have a share. - -Then the windows were taken out, so carefully that but a handful of the -precious glass remained in all the ruins, and were disposed of, nobody -knows how or where. The bells were taken down and carried off; one to -be hung, tradition says, in the cathedral tower at Ripon. Finally, the -roofs were pulled off, and the lead brought into the dismantled church; -and there between the great pillars, betwixt the broken altars of St. -Mary and St. Bernard, in a fire whose fuel was the carved work of the -choir stalls, it was melted into convenient shape for the market. - -An eye-witness has left a description of the spoiling of the dependent -house of Roche Abbey. “The sudden spoil fell,” he says, “the same day of -their departure from the house.... The church was the first thing that -was put to the spoil, then the abbot’s lodging, dorter and frater -[_i.e._, dormitory and refectory] with the cloister and all the -buildings thereabout within the abbey walls.... The persons that cast -the lead into fodders plucked up all the seats in the choir where the -monks sat when they said - -[Illustration: _Fountains Hall._ - -Photo. Frith. Art Repro. Co. -] - -service, which were like to seats in minsters, and burned them and -melted the lead therewith, although there was wood plenty within a -flight-shot of them, for the abbey stood among the woods.” Everybody was -busy, he says, pilfering what he could and hiding it among the rocks, -“so that it seemeth that every person bent himself to filch and spoil -what he could.” At Fountains, the ashes of such fires remained until the -last century, amidst the general wreck. - -The place was sold within a few months to Richard Gresham, a gentleman -of London, who paid seven thousand pounds for it. In 1597, the heirs of -Gresham sold it to Stephen Procter, a courtier of Elizabeth, who pulled -down some of the buildings outside the cloister that he might get -materials for his fine new Fountains Hall, near the west gate. His -affairs falling into great confusion the place was again sold, and -thereafter passed from hand to hand until, in the middle of the -eighteenth century, it came into the possession of William Aislabie, the -owner of the neighbouring estate of Studley Royal. From whose -granddaughter, Miss Lawrence, it passed by will to the Earl de Grey, the -uncle of the present owner, the Marquess of Ripon. - - Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. - London & Edinburgh - -[Illustration: HISTORICAL GROUND PLAN - -FOUNTAINS ABBEY] - -[Illustration: Plan of the Precinct FOUNTAINS ABBEY] - - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fountains Abbey, by George Hodges - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOUNTAINS ABBEY *** - -***** This file should be named 52581-0.txt or 52581-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/5/8/52581/ - -Produced by deaurider, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Fountains Abbey - The story of a mediaeval monastery - -Author: George Hodges - -Release Date: July 16, 2016 [EBook #52581] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOUNTAINS ABBEY *** - - - - -Produced by deaurider, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="full" /> -<p class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="361" height="500" alt="cover" title="" /> -</p> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="" -style="border: 2px black solid;margin:auto auto;max-width:50%; -padding:1%;"> -<tr><td> - -<p class="c"><a href="#CONTENTS">Contents.</a></p> - -<p class="c"><a href="#ILLUSTRATIONS">List of Illustrations</a><br /> <span class="nonvis">(In certain versions of this etext [in certain browsers] -clicking on the image will bring up a larger version.)</span></p> - -<p class="c">(etext transcriber's note)</p></td></tr> -</table> - -<p class="cb">FOUNTAINS ABBEY</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_i" id="page_i"></a>{i}</span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_ii" id="page_ii"></a>{ii}</span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_iii" id="page_iii"></a>{iii}</span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_iv" id="page_iv"></a>{iv}</span> </p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 401px;"><a name="front" id="front"></a> -<a href="images/i_frontispiece_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_frontispiece_sml.jpg" width="401" height="266" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -<div class="caption"><p><i>Fountains Abbey</i></p> - -<p> -<i>J. M. W. Turner, R.A. pinxit.</i><span class="spacd"> </span> -<i>Art Repro. Co.</i></p> - -<p><i>From a drawing in the possession of J. E. Taylor, Esq.</i></p></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_v" id="page_v"></a>{v}</span></p> - -<h1> -<span class="posspc">FOUNTAINS ABBEY</span><br /> -<small> -THE STORY OF A MEDIÆVAL<br /> -<span class="negspc">MONASTERY BY GEORGE HODGES</span><br /> -D.D. DEAN OF THE EPISCOPAL<br /> -THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL CAM-<br />BRIDGE -MASSACHUSETTS</small></h1> - -<p class="cb">LONDON: JOHN MURRAY<br /> -<span class="posspc">ALBEMARLE STREET W</span><br /> -MCMIV</p> - -<p class="c"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_vi" id="page_vi"></a>{vi}</span><br /> -<small><span class="smcap"><span class="posspc">Ballantyne Press</span><br /> -London & Edinburgh</span></small></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_vii" id="page_vii"></a>{vii}</span> </p> - -<p class="cb"><big><span class="posspc"> -TO MY WIFE<br /> -I INSCRIBE THIS FRUIT<br /> -OF A GOLDEN SUMMER</span></big></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_viii" id="page_viii"></a>{viii}</span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_ix" id="page_ix"></a>{ix}</span> </p> - -<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">The</span> materials out of which this book is made were taken mainly from two -sources: a description and explanation of the Abbey ruins by Mr. W. H. -St. John Hope, and a collection and annotation of the Abbey records by -Mr. John Richard Walbran.</p> - -<p>The ruins have been minutely examined by Mr. St. John Hope, who has left -no stone unconsidered. He has brought to his study of the Abbey a -profound knowledge of monastic architecture. The account of his -investigations is published in the fifteenth volume of the “Yorkshire -Archæological Journal,” to which is appended a historical ground-plan of -the Abbey, drawn by Mr. Harold Brakspear. The Marquess of Ripon has had -copies of this plan framed and placed in various parts of the buildings -for the information of visitors. Through the courtesy of Mr. Hope and -Mr. Brakspear I am enabled to give a reduced version of this excellent -plan.</p> - -<p>The records have been gathered together by Mr. Walbran, and printed, -with many learned and interesting notes, in two volumes of the -publications of the Surtees Society, entitled “Memorials of Fountains -Abbey.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_x" id="page_x"></a>{x}</span>” They begin with a contemporary narrative of the foundation of -the Abbey, and extend to the grant which the king made of the Abbey -lands after the suppression. They include the chronicle of the -administrations of the abbots; the deed of the ground on which the Abbey -stands; a series of royal charters and a series of papal privileges; -various records of the dealings of the Monastery with its neighbours, -clerical and lay; letters to Thomas Cromwell from Layton and Legh, the -commissioners at whose demand the Abbey was surrendered, and from -Marmaduke Bradley, the abbot who surrendered it; and the king’s -assignment of pensions by name to the abbot and the monks after the -dissolution.</p> - -<p>Of these documents, the longest and most interesting is the contemporary -account of the foundation—<i>Narratio de fundatione Fontanis Monasterii</i>. -It was written by Hugh, a monk of the daughter house of Kirkstall, upon -information given him by Serlo, an aged brother then resident in that -abbey, who had once lived at Fountains. Serlo was almost a hundred years -old when he sat in the sun in the cloister of Kirkstall, and told this -story of his early days, answering Hugh’s questions. “It is now,” he -says, “the sixty-ninth year of my conversion. When I first went to -Fountains to associate myself to that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xi" id="page_xi"></a>{xi}</span> holy brotherhood, I was, as I -remember, about beginning my thirtieth year.” The Abbey, at that time, -as he tells us in another place, was five years old; but he had been -acquainted with the brethren before. “When the monks left the monastery -of York, I myself was present. I had known their names and faces from my -boyhood; I was born in their country, was brought up amongst them, and -to several of them I was related by ties of blood. And although I am, as -thou may see, far advanced in years, I am very grateful to my old age -that my memory remains unimpaired, and particularly retentive of those -things committed to it in early years. Such things, therefore, relating -to the origin of the Monastery of Fountains, which I personally -witnessed, or have gathered from the credible report of my elders, I -will now relate.”</p> - -<p>Serlo spent ten years at Fountains, leaving in 1147, with the colony -which founded Kirkstall. After that, the chronicler writes not from -personal observation, but from near acquaintance. There would naturally -be frequent communication between the mother and the daughter house. The -reminiscences end with the death of the sixth abbot, in 1190. Thence the -history proceeds, by the hand of Hugh and others, to recount the -administration of the seventh and eighth<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xii" id="page_xii"></a>{xii}</span> abbots, and mention is made in -the last sentence of the ninth and tenth.</p> - -<p>In addition to these books, information is to be had concerning the -Cistercian Order in its official documents. These are the Life of St. -Stephen Harding, the chief founder; the Exordium (1120), a history of -the beginning of the Order; the Charta Charitatis (1119), its -constitution; the Rule of St. Benedict, to whose strict keeping the -Cistercians were pledged; the Usus Antiquiores or Consuetudines, the -Customs of the Society; and the Instituta Capitali Generalis, or laws -passed during several hundred years by the General Chapter for the -government of the Order. A life of St. Stephen, in English, was -published in 1844, under the editorship of John Henry Newman, as the -first in a projected series of lives of the English saints. The Rule of -St. Benedict is admirably summarised in the article on Monachism in the -“Encyclopædia Britannica.” The Institutes have been printed in -successive numbers of the “Yorkshire Archæological Journal” (vols. ix., -x. and xi.) by the Rev. J. T. Fowler. The other documents are assembled -in the 166th volume of Migne’s “Patrologia Latina.”</p> - -<p>In the Rites of Durham, a contemporary account of the customs of a -Benedictine abbey, light is thrown upon obscure passages<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xiii" id="page_xiii"></a>{xiii}</span> in these -official documents, and much help is given in the way of homely detail -towards an understanding of the routine of the monastic day. Dean -Stubbs, in his lectures on Ely Cathedral, and the Rev. John Henry Blunt, -in his account of Sion House, prefixed to his edition of the “Myroure of -oure Ladye,” take us pleasantly into the refectory, telling us what the -monastic folk had for dinner, and with what curious signs they -communicated one with another during the silent meal.</p> - -<p>The writer gratefully acknowledges the friendly services of the Dean of -Ripon and of Charles Edward Eardley Childers, of Pittsburg, and the -courtesy of the Marquess and Marchioness of Ripon during his -locumtenency of Studley Church, in the summer of 1901.</p> - -<div class="indd"> -<p class="c"> -<span class="smcap">The Deanery<br /> -Cambridge, Massachusetts</span><br /> -<i>Sept. 1903</i></p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xiv" id="page_xiv"></a>{xiv}</span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xv" id="page_xv"></a>{xv}</span> </p> - -<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> - -<tr><th colspan="2"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a><br /> -<small>THE BEGINNING</small></th></tr> - -<tr><td> </td><td class="rt"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The Abbey and the Elm</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_001">1</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>St. Stephen Harding</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_003">3</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The founding of Citeaux (<i>Cistercium</i>)</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_004">4</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The pursuit of Poverty</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_006">6</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The coming of St. Bernard</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_008">8</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Cistercians at Rievaulx</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_009">9</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Discontent at St. Mary’s, York</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_010">10</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Departure of the Monks</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_012">12</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><i>The founding of Fountains</i>, 1132</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_013">13</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>St. Bernard receives the Abbey into his Order</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_014">14</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The starving time</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_015">15</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The arrival of prosperity</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_016">16</a></td></tr> - -<tr><th colspan="2"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a><br /> -<small>THE GROWTH OF THE ABBEY - -<br />I. COLONIES</small></th></tr> - -<tr><td>The Monks appreciated by their neighbours</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_020">20</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Newminster founded, 1137</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_022">22</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Kirkstead, 1138</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_023">23</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Louth Park, 1138</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_023">23</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Woburn, 1145</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_023">23</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Lisa-Kloster, 1146<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xvi" id="page_xvi"></a>{xvi}</span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_024">24</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Kirkstall, 1147</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_025">25</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Vandey, 1147</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_025">25</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Meaux, 1150</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_027">27</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="c" colspan="2"><small><b>II. BUILDINGS</b></small></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The Cistercian plan</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_028">28</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The Architect</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_029">29</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><i>Nave and transepts</i> [in their present form]</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_030">30</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Built by Abbot Richard, the first, 1132-1139</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_031">31</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>And Abbot Richard, the second, 1139-1143</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_032">32</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Abbot Henry Murdac, 1143-1147</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_033">33</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The Fire</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_035">35</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><i>Eastern range of cloister, and part of Western</i></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_036">36</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Built by Abbot Richard, the third, 1147-1170</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_036">36</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Abbot Robert the Strenuous, 1170-1179</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_037">37</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><i>Builds Southern range and completes Western</i></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_038">38</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Abbot William, 1179-1190</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_038">38</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Abbot Ralph Haget, 1190-1203</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_038">38</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Abbot John of York, 1203-1211</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_040">40</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Abbot John of Ely, 1211-1220</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_042">42</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Abbot John of Kent, 1220-1247</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_043">43</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><i>Builds Chapel of Nine Altars and Infirmary</i></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_044">44</a></td></tr> - -<tr><th colspan="2"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a><br /> -<small>THE DAILY LIFE OF THE MONKS</small></th></tr> - -<tr><td>The wall, the porter’s lodge</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_045">45</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The chapel, the mill, bake-house and brew-house</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_046">46</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The guest houses</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_047">47</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The Cellariuma</td></tr> - -<tr><td> Cellarer’s office</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_050">50</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td> Vestibule, cellar, buttery, passage<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xvii" id="page_xvii"></a>{xvii}</span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_051">51</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td> Refectory</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_052">52</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td> Dormitory</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_053">53</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The lay brothers, <i>Conversi</i></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_053">53</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The Church</td></tr> - -<tr><td> Porch</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_058">58</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td> Gallery</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_059">59</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td> Nave</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_059">59</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td> Retro-choir</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_061">61</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td> Choir</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_062">62</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td> Chancel</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_063">63</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td> North transept: Tower</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_065">65</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td> South transept: Sacristy</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_066">66</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td> Chapel of the Nine Altars</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_068">68</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>At service in the Abbey</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_069">69</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The West walk: Novices</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_073">73</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The dormitory</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_074">74</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The North walk: living-room</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_077">77</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The cloister brothers, <i>Monachi</i></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_080">80</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The chapter-house: morals</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_084">84</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The day’s work</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_090">90</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The parlour</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_094">94</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The warming-house: recreation</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_095">95</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The refectory</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_096">96</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td> The bill of fare</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_100">100</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Under the dormitory</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_105">105</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The Abbot’s lodgings</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_106">106</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Scriptorium and Muniment room</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_109">109</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Coal-yard and rubbish-heap</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_110">110</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Misericord</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_111">111</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The Infirmary</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_113">113</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The end of the day<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xviii" id="page_xviii"></a>{xviii}</span></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_115">115</a></td></tr> - -<tr><th colspan="2"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a><br /> -<small>THE SUPPRESSION</small></th></tr> - -<tr><td>Abbey lands and dignities</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_117">117</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Abbot John Darnton, 1479-1494</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_117">117</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Abbot Marmaduke Huby, 1494-1526</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_119">119</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><i>Builds the tower</i></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_119">119</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The Monasteries and the Reformation</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_120">120</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Abbot John Thirsk, 1526-1536</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_123">123</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>Abbot Marmaduke Bradley, 1536-1539</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_125">125</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The coming of the King’s commissioners</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_125">125</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><i>The spoiling of the Abbey</i>, 1539</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_126">126</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>The subsequent owners</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_129">129</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xix" id="page_xix"></a>{xix}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="ILLUSTRATIONS" id="ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="" -style="margin:auto auto;max-width:75%"> - -<tr><td class="hang">Fountains Abbey, from a water-colour -drawing by J. M. W. Turner, in the possession of J. E. Taylor, Esq. (photogravure) </td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"> <a href="#front"><i><small>Frontispiece</small></i></a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="hang" valign="top">The East End of the Abbey (photogravure) </td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><small><i>To face page</i> </small><a href="#page_024">24</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="hang" valign="top">The Interior, looking west (photogravure) </td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><span class="ditto">”</span> <a href="#page_040">40</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="hang" valign="top">Historical Ground Plan (coloured)</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"> <a href="#end"><small><i>The End</i></small></a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="hang" valign="top">The Cellarium (photogravure) </td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><span class="ditto">”</span><a href="#page_052">52</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="hang" valign="top">Principal Patterns of the Roman Floors at Fountains Abbey, from a print by -Wm. Fowler of Winterton </td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><span class="ditto">”</span><a href="#page_072">72</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="hang" valign="top">The Abbey from the South-East (photogravure) </td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><span class="ditto">”</span><a href="#page_080">80</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="hang" valign="top">The Abbey from the South-West (photogravure) </td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><span class="ditto">”</span><a href="#page_096">96</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="hang" valign="top">Fountains Hall (photogravure) </td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><span class="ditto100">”</span><a href="#page_128">128</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="hang" valign="top">Plan of the Precinct</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"> <a href="#end"><small><i>The End</i></small></a></td></tr> -</table> - -<div class="bloc"><p class="hang">[These plans are derived from the <i>Yorkshire Archæological Journal</i> -vol. xv.]</p></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xx" id="page_xx"></a>{xx}</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xxi" id="page_xxi"></a>{xxi}</span></p> - -<h3>ERRATA</h3> - -<p class="c"> -Plate facing page 52. <i>For</i> “The Cloisters”<br /> -<i>read</i> “The Cellarium”<br /> -<br /> -Page 9, lines 3 and 13. <i>For</i> “Rievaux”<br /> -<i>read</i> “Rievaulx”<br /> -</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xxii" id="page_xxii"></a>{xxii}</span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a>{1}</span> </p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I<br /><br /> -<small>THE BEGINNING</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> first Fountains Abbey was a forest tree. In the days of the simple -beginning, the brethren ate and slept and said their prayers under an -elm which stood in the middle of the valley.</p> - -<p>The elm lived into the eighteenth century, and toward the end of its -life was made to divide its honours with a group of venerable yews. Some -said that the monks found their first shelter under the yews. But Serlo -settled the matter, hundreds of years ago, in favour of the elm. -<i>Ulmus</i>, he said, <i>Ulmus erat vallis in medio, lignum frondosum</i>. The -yews were there, however, in the first days, and one or two of them are -still surviving.</p> - -<p>They are propped up on either hand, like an old man leaning on his -staff;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a>{2}</span> but they live. The elm has wholly disappeared. Mr. Walbran’s -maternal great-grandfather remembered “the stump of an enormous elm tree -in the last stage of decay, which was called ‘the Fountain’s elm.’ ” It -stood “between the river Skell and the stream from Stank’s pond, not far -from the eastern boundary of the Abbey site.” But the smooth turf covers -the place. Only the yews look down from their gentle hill upon the -broken walls. There they were when the monks came, a little adventurous -company, to begin their life of seclusion and prayer. Their leaves were -green when the Abbey rose in splendour, and mitred abbots walked in -their shadow. They saw the expulsion of the convent and the ruin of the -monastery. They are a symbol of the persistence of the quiet, elemental -forces amidst our human chance and change.</p> - -<p>The monks of Fountains Abbey belonged to the Cistercian Order.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a>{3}</span></p> - -<p>In the twelfth century, when the Abbey began, this was the newest -religious society. The Benedictines, after splendid services to -civilisation, had encountered the temptations which accompany the -praises and the gifts of grateful communities, and had been worsted. -They had verified the wise saying, “When anybody does a good thing, all -the neighbours join together to keep him from doing it again.” They had -grown rich in the treasures which are subject to the invasions of moth -and rust and thieves, but they were growing poor in the accounts of -heaven. The purpose of the Cistercians was to return to primitive -monastic simplicity. Gregory the Great had said that he who would see -angels must have his head pillowed on a stone. The Cistercians believed -it.</p> - -<p>Stephen Harding, who founded the Cistercian Order, was an Englishman, -from Dorsetshire. He spent his early years in the monastery at -Sherborne.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a>{4}</span> Thence he went wandering, in the free fashion of the time, -partly to see the sights, partly to save his soul, and made a pilgrimage -to Rome. On his way back, in Burgundy, he chanced upon a little company -of monks, who were encamped in a clearing in the midst of a thick -forest. They had built a chapel with the trunks of trees, and around it -had gathered a forlorn group of huts made of the boughs, and were -freezing and starving to their hearts’ content. All this filled Stephen -with devout envy. He joined this monastery, and thereafter saw England -again no more.</p> - -<p>But presently, the rule seemed to many of the brethren to be too hard -for human endurance, and they relaxed it, and began to live more softly, -so that Stephen was dissatisfied. And out he went, and a few like-minded -brethren with him, in quest of hardship, which they found at Citeaux. -This was a wild place in the dark woods, with a deep stream running<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a>{5}</span> -through the midst of it, the banks of which were the residence of beasts -of prey. Here Stephen was made prior; the honest severity of Benedict’s -laws was sought again; the brethren lived in holy simplicity.</p> - -<p>And then friends appeared. This good life was appreciated by rich and -powerful neighbours, and they brought gifts and built a church; and one -of them was buried there. This was Odo, duke of Burgundy, whose son -Hugh, with a company of friends, people of the court, took a fancy for -going to church at the monastery chapel, so that the plain place shone -with their silks and jewels, and the simple brethren were distracted in -their prayers by the neighbourhood of all this fine array. The chapel -was becoming a fashionable church. By this time Stephen was the -abbot—abbot of Cistercium, which was the Latin for Citeaux. And Stephen -stopped it. He turned all these gay worshippers out of doors, forbade<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a>{6}</span> -them ever to come in again, and shut the monastery gate in the face of -all his influential friends.</p> - -<p>Then he made the plain services more plain. He forbade that “in the -House of God, in which they wished to serve God devoutly day and night, -anything should be found which savoured of pride and excess, or can in -any way corrupt poverty, that guardian of virtue, which they had chosen -of their own accord.” There must be no gold or silver in the church, -except a silver cup for the sacramental wine. A single candlestick must -suffice for light, and that must be of iron and straight from top to -bottom. Vestments must be of common stuff, no more of silk or -cloth-of-gold. All the pictures must come down. The brethren said their -prayers in a chapel as severe as a Puritan meeting-house. In the midst -of a time of monastic splendour, when monks of St. Benedict and even -monks of Cluny rode abroad like knights or<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a>{7}</span> princes, Stephen Harding’s -household were separate from the world in all sincerity.</p> - -<p>Once, when the poverty which they invited came and lodged with them so -long that the pantry was bare even of crumbs, one of the brothers went -out to beg for bread, and came home with a great apronful. But when -Stephen found that the bread had come from one who had made his money by -dishonesty, he took it off the table, carried it into the fields and -gave it to the shepherds. The brethren used to notice that in the -evening, when the abbot went into the church, he often stopped, after he -had shut the door, and pressed against it with his hand. And when they -asked him what it meant, he said, “I am forced during the day to give -free course to many thoughts for the ordering of the house; all these I -bid remain outside the door, and tell them not to venture in, and to -wait till the morrow, when I find them<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a>{8}</span> all ready for me after Prime has -been said.”</p> - -<p>It seemed, for a time, as if this severity of discipline and this -unworldliness of spirit would forever bar the door against new-comers. -Brethren died, and nobody took their places. At last, however, all this -good planting came to its proper harvest. One day, in the year 1113, -thirty men appeared at the gates of Citeaux, asking to be received as -novices. And their leader was a man whose character and strength made -him presently the greatest churchman of his time. With the accession of -Bernard, the Cistercian monastery grew speedily into the Cistercian -Order; and the Cistercian Order came in due time into England.</p> - -<p>Turstin, Archbishop of York, wrote to Bernard at Clairvaux, asking for -Cistercian monks; and Bernard, being now, in Stephen’s old age, at the -head of the Order, sent over a colony which settled in the valley of the -Rie, at Rievaux.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a>{9}</span> There they lived their new life of simple devotion. -And presently the fame of the sanctity of the monks of Rievaux began to -vex the consciences of their neighbours.</p> - -<p>The Benedictine abbey of St. Mary of York was a rich and vast -establishment. It had received gifts from William the Norman, and from -William his son. It was so fine that Richard the prior and a little -company of sympathetic brethren, touched by the example of the simple -manners of Rievaux, came to the conclusion that it was too good a place -to be an appropriate residence for a Christian. They determined to leave -it.</p> - -<p>Richard the prior, Gervase the sub-prior, Richard the sacrist, Walter -the almoner, and Robert the precentor were of one mind in the matter, -and presently a sufficient number of devout conspirators was added to -make thirteen. That was the required number for the beginning of a -monastic colony. Together they<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a>{10}</span> came to the old abbot and asked leave to -go. But the abbot met them with a stout refusal. The malcontents were -made to understand that they had asked a grievous thing; they had -despised their order, and brought confusion into the holy house; they -had attempted to break their solemn vows. To this, the prior made -appropriate answers, but satisfaction was impossible. Back and forth, -the matter was discussed all summer, most of the monks taking the -abbot’s part. At last, in October, the archbishop came. There was a -noisy meeting in the cloister; abbot and archbishop, monks and seculars; -with the townsfolk crowding at the abbey gate. “Your church is -interdicted!” cried the archbishop, raising his voice above the din. -“Interdict it, for aught we care, for a hundred years!” shouted the -brethren. Then they made a rush for the prior and his friends, who got -with great haste into the church, the archbishop being with them, and -barred<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a>{11}</span> the door for fear of their lives. Finally, they escaped in -safety. The affair made a great commotion in a day when abbots and -bishops were seldom on good terms. The abbot sent messengers to the -King, the first Henry; the bishop wrote to the legate of the Pope. But -the thing was done, and stayed done.</p> - -<p>Two Richards, two Ralphs, Gervase, Walter, Robert and Alexander, -Geoffrey, Gregory, Thomas, Hamo and Gamel thus abandoned St. Mary’s, and -for the moment were lodgers in the archbishop’s house. Even this little -company were not all of one mind, for presently two of them were -homesick and went back; of whom Ralph “made terms with his flesh and his -belly clave to the ground,” that is, he remained in the old way, but -Gervase again repented and cast his lot with the reformers. Ralph’s -place was taken by a second Robert, a monk of Whitby.</p> - -<p>Archbishop Turstin had a country<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a>{12}</span> seat at Ripon, to which he went to -keep the Christmas of 1132, bringing the thirteen brethren with him. And -on the morrow of the festival, taking them out three miles into the -country, he established them upon a piece of his own land, in the narrow -valley of the Skell. The deed of gift of this land—the “charter of -foundation”—is still preserved at Studley Royal. William the dean of -York, William the treasurer, Hugh the precentor, Robert and William the -archdeacons, five canons of St. Peters, five canons of St. Wilfrid, and -nine laymen signed it as witnesses.</p> - -<p>The place, as the narrative says, was a long way out of the -world—<i>locum a cunctis retro seculis inhabitatum</i>; it was full of -thorns and rocks, and seemed a better dwelling for wild beasts than for -men. But they accepted it with gratitude. In the midst of the valley -they made a thatched hut, with the trunk of the great elm for roof-pole, -and having<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a>{13}</span> chosen the prior Richard to be their abbot, they began with -contented minds to live the life of devotion and straitness for which -they had longed amidst the pernicious comforts of the Abbey of St. Mary. -They named their little monastery <i>De Fontibus</i>, from the springs which -abounded in the valley. “O ye wells, bless ye the Lord,” they -sang—<i>Benedicite, fontes Domino</i>, and the words were echoed back in the -frosty air from the cliffs on either side.</p> - -<p>The same spirit was in all their hearts—the spirit of religion, the -desire to devote themselves more perfectly to God. They took life very -seriously. They had stout convictions, and purposed to live in -consistency with them, and sought a place where that should be possible.</p> - -<p>In the following spring, the brethren sent messengers to St. Bernard at -Clairvaux, asking to be admitted to the Cistercian Order. Bernard was at -that time<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a>{14}</span> the greatest man in Europe. He had just decided between two -rival claimants which was the true Pope. He received the men of -Fountains with great kindness, finding in them a spirit kindred with his -own. He sent them back with a gracious letter, which is still preserved. -<i>Fratribus charissimis et desideratissimis</i>, he wrote, <i>Ricardo abbati -et hiis qui cum eo sunt, frater Bernardus abbas Clarevallis, in Domino, -salutem</i>. And he sent with them Geoffrey, a monk of his own monastery, a -person of ability and experience, to teach them the new ways. Thus the -new life began; and presently their number was increased. Seventeen new -brethren came, seven of them being in orders.</p> - -<p>Their number was increased, but their resources were in no way enlarged. -The archbishop, indeed, continued to be good to them, and the neighbours -occasionally sent things in,—housewives at their weekly baking -remembering the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a>{15}</span> brethren and putting in an extra batch for them.</p> - -<p>A little money they earned by making mats. But that year there was a -famine in the land, till the abbot had to go out through the surrounding -country to find food, and even then found none; so that for a time they -lived on leaves which they boiled with salt in the water of the -stream—the friendly elm, as the narrative says, affording them food as -well as shelter. One day, they said, the Lord Christ knocked at the -door, in the guise of an ill-clad, hungry man, and asked an alms in the -starving time, when they had but two loaves and a half, and no prospects -of more. At first, they had prudently refused him, but when he continued -asking had given him one loaf. And behold, within a half-hour, two men -appeared from Knaresborough Castle with a plentiful supply of bread, -over which the monks recited the “Inasmuch as ye have done it” of the -Gospel.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a>{16}</span></p> - -<p>Finally, the situation became intolerable. The brethren had, indeed, -made choice of poverty, and had come out into the wilderness in devout -search of her; but this was a different matter. This was destitution -rather than poverty, so that, the next year, when there appeared no -likelihood of any betterment, the abbot made a journey to Clairvaux, and -begged St. Bernard to give them lands in France, or in any place where -they might live and not die. And Bernard agreed to give them a -habitation near his own abbey.</p> - -<p>Happily, they did not need the gift. Abbot Richard, on his return, found -a change in the fortunes of the house. The colony had been joined by -Hugh, the dean of York. He had been in the company of the archbishop on -the day of his stormy visitation, and had seen the men of Fountains as -they faced the reproaches of their brethren; and being now an old man -and tired of the world,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a>{17}</span> he had resolved to say his prayers for the rest -of his life with them. Thus he had resigned his high position, and -turned his back on his splendid minster, and had cast in his lot with -the starving colony. And he was fortunately rich, and brought books with -him, and money. Part of the money they gave to the poor, part they put -into the general fund, part they used to pay the carpenters and masons -who were building the church and cloister.</p> - -<p>After this, prosperity continued. Canon Serlo, of York, who, like the -dean, had witnessed the escape of the monks from St. Mary’s, and whose -name is still to be seen among the witnesses to the charter of -foundation, now became a brother of Fountains; and with him Canon Tosti, -who is remembered in the narrative as a pleasant person. And each added -to the treasury. Then Robert and Raganilda de Sartis, owners of the -neighbouring estate of Herleshow, gave<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a>{18}</span> it to the monks, adding to it -the forest of Warsall. Also Serlo de Pembroke, a young -courtier—<i>juvenis quidam de domo regis</i>—lying at the point of death, -gave them his country-seat at Cayton, and when he died was buried in the -monks’ graveyard, <i>inter sanctos</i>. This was probably the first interment -in the little cemetery which awaited the brethren to the east of the -rising church. About the same time, the abbot got a farm at -Aldbrough—<i>grangiam fertilem</i>—in a place which even from Roman times -had been a fruitful region.</p> - -<p>Presently, in 1135, King Stephen being at York, the monastery was -exempted by him from payment of “taxes, danegelds, assises, pleas and -scutages.” Also, a little later, in 1141, Pope Innocent exempted the -monastery from payment of tithes.</p> - -<p>From that day, says Serlo the narrator, who had now become a member of -the monastic household, the Lord bles<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a>{19}</span>sed our valleys with the blessing -of heaven above and of the deep that lieth under, multiplying the -brethren, increasing their possessions, pouring down showers of -benediction, being a wall unto them on the right hand and on the left. -What perfection of life, he cries, was there at Fountains! What -emulation of virtue! What stability of discipline! The house was -enriched in wealth, without; still more in holiness, within. Its name -became famous, and the great people of the world reverenced it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a>{20}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II<br /><br /> -<small>THE GROWTH OF THE ABBEY</small></h2> - -<h3>I. THE COLONIES</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> goodness of the brethren made a deep impression upon the community. -Turbulent and cruel as were the times, there was, nevertheless, some -attention paid to the voice of conscience. It is true that this voice -commonly made itself heard after the event, and served rather to -reproach men than to deter them; but it did speak, and men listened. The -deeds which they did were incredibly bad, but after they had done them, -and the fierce heat of passion had died down, they were both sorry and -afraid. Then they remembered that “the effectual fervent prayer of a -righteous man availeth much.” Doubting the value of their own prayers, -they looked about for righteous<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a>{21}</span> men to make intercession for them. God -sat on His throne, like the king, and had His court about Him, part of -angels, part of saints in glory, and part of holy persons still in the -flesh. The sinner’s hope of success in his petition lay in the securing -of the kindly offices of some of these influential courtiers. And these -were to be found most readily on earth in monasteries. Accordingly, -these companies of praying men seemed, even to the sinners of the -neighbourhood, to be engaged in an important and essential business. If -the sinner had money enough, he engaged a group of them to pray for him -in particular. He built a monastery, and established them in it for that -necessary purpose.</p> - -<p>Thus Ralph de Merlay, chancing on his travels to spend a day at the -Abbey, and there beholding the pious conversation of the brethren, made -up his mind, from what he saw, that these were the kind of men to have -influence with God;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a>{22}</span> and being in need of friends at that court, he -asked the abbot to let him have some of them, <i>pro redemptione animae -suae</i>. This was the first colony which went out from Fountains. The year -was 1137. The knight took the monks into his castle at Morpeth, in whose -neighbourhood he presently built them a monastery, which they called -Newminster. The abbot of this new brotherhood was the Robert who had -come from Whitby to take the place of the inconstant Gervase after the -flight from York: a good man, modest in his bearing, gentle in his -conversation, bearing rule with mercy, and at last enrolled in the -honourable list of the saints. The abbey, like the mother house, was -built beside a little river; and its three daughters, Pipewell, Sawley -and Roche, sat likewise, in the true Cistercian manner, on the banks of -narrow streams.</p> - -<p>In the next year another nobleman, Hugh of Tatshall, in Lincolnshire, -re<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a>{23}</span>solved to establish a Cistercian house, and sent to Abbot Richard for -advice and monks from Fountains, and founded Kirkstead Abbey on the -river Witham. At the same time the Bishop of Lincoln asked the abbot for -more men—the two companies of colonists leaving Fountains on the same -day—and settled them, after some wandering, at Louth Park. Their abbot -was the Geoffrey who forsook his companions at the bishop’s, and went -back to St. Mary’s, to return in deep penitence; who was thus assured of -their entire confidence in him.</p> - -<p>In 1145, Hugh de Bolebec, for the redeeming of his sins, begged for the -services of the brethren of Fountains, and an abbey was built at Woburn.</p> - -<p>In 1146, the Bishop of Bergen came to Fountains, and his heart was set -on having a Cistercian house in Norway. Thirteen brethren were found to -brave the sea and the unknown land. Thus was erected the monastery of -Lisa-Kloster<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a>{24}</span>, the abbey of the valley of light. One of the Ralphs of -the original settlement was the abbot. In the library of Corpus Christi -College, Oxford, is a manuscript life of St. Olaf, which was once among -the books of Fountains. It is bound with other manuscripts in the skin -of a seal. Ralph came back after many laborious years to spend his last -days in the mother house. He may have brought with him this memento of -the Norway mission. It is pleasantly told of him in the narrative that -he used to sleep a good deal in his old age, and that the Lord sent a -prompting angel to awake him when he slept too long—<i>si sompno, -forsitan, per noctes diutius indulgeret, eum excitaret</i>.</p> - -<p>The next year, 1147, saw three colonies go out from Fountains. Henry de -Lacy, of Pontefract Castle, having meditated upon his misdeeds during a -long illness, vowed that he would build a Cistercian house to the honour -of the Virgin</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 257px;"> -<a href="images/i_p024a_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_p024a_sml.jpg" width="257" height="389" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -<div class="caption"><p><i>Fountains Abbey</i></p> - -<p><i>The East End.</i></p> - -<p><i>Photo. Watson.</i><span class="spacd"> </span> <i>Art Repro. Co.</i><br /> - -</p></div> -</div> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a>{25}</span></p> - -<p>Mary. Its tenants were Fountains men, under the abbacy of Alexander, -another of the founders. They had many troubles, some on account of the -climate, some on account of their neighbours. Serlo, our narrator, was -one of them, and might have made his story longer had he chose. It is -from another record that we learn that Alexander objected to the -nearness of the parish church, whose services distracted the attention -of his monks, and for the sake of peace and quiet pulled the building -down in spite of the parishioners. The parish appealed to the Archbishop -of York, then to the Pope, but the monks prevailed in both courts. The -neighbourhood, however, was naturally hostile thereafter, and presently -the abbot found a more convenient situation, where they built Kirkstall -Abbey.</p> - -<p>Five days after the departure of these brothers from the gates of -Fountains, another company went, at the petition of the Earl of -Albemarle, to found the ab<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a>{26}</span>bey of Vaudey, the house of the valley of -God. The monk Adam, who had been architect of the buildings at Kirkstall -and Woburn, and was now in charge of the monks at Vaudey, found that the -Earl of Albemarle was disposed to do yet more. He had once vowed, for -his sins, to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and had never gone, and now -was old and fat and could not go. This, as Adam faithfully reminded him, -was a serious matter; but it could be made right. If the earl would -build another abbey, Adam promised that his Order would persuade the -Pope to take that good work as an equivalent. The promise was performed, -through the kindly offices of St. Bernard, and the earl told Adam to -choose a suitable site. The monk, accordingly, looked about this way and -that in Holderness, where the earl’s lands lay. It was the country which -the Conqueror had bestowed upon Odo, his brother-in-law. The son of Odo, -the earl’s father,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a>{27}</span> had complained of its sterility, saying that it gave -him only oaten bread to eat. But presently at Meaux, some four miles -east of Beverley, Adam came upon a fair hill, which by prophetic -coincidence had been named St. Mary’s Mount. Woods were growing all -about, with open lands which promised good harvests, and streams running -through them. There he thrust his staff into the ground, and cried, -“Verily, this place shall be called the house of the heavenly King.” And -there the monastery was built, in spite of the reluctance of the earl, -who had already selected the place for a park. The first abbot was the -enterprising Adam. This was in 1150.</p> - -<p>Thus within a space of less than twenty years, St. Mary of Fountains had -become the mother of eight fair daughters. Meanwhile, the Cistercian -Order had been growing at some such rate as this in many other places: -too fast and too far, they feared at Clairvaux. In 1152, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a>{28}</span> General -Chapter discouraged the founding of new monasteries. After that, no more -colonies went out from Fountains.</p> - -<h3>II. THE BUILDINGS</h3> - -<p>Meanwhile, the thatched hut about the elm had given place to a group of -noble buildings.</p> - -<p>A Cistercian monastery consisted of certain invariable structures -arranged according to a prescribed plan. St. Stephen’s Abbey of Citeaux, -St. Bernard’s Abbey of Clairvaux, determined all other abbeys of the -order. At the heart of the abbey was the cloister, an open square of -green, on whose four sides stood the essential monastic houses. On the -north was the church; on the east was the chapter-house, with a -book-room on one side and a parlour on the other, and the dormitory in -the second storey over all; on the south was the refectory, with the -warming-room on one side, and the kitchen on the other; on the west was -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a>{29}</span> store-house, having over it the dormitory of the lay brethren. -Outside of this cloister group, wherever it was most convenient, stood -an infirmary, and a guest-house, and whatever barns and mills and -workshops were needed for the maintenance of the conventual life.</p> - -<p>During the administration of the first two abbots—Richard (1132-1139), -who had been the prior at York, and Richard (1139-1143), who had been -the sacrist—these buildings were erected, part of wood and part of -stone. The architect was Geoffrey of Clairvaux, whom St. Bernard had -sent to instruct the monks at their entrance into the Order. The stone -came from the steep banks of the valley. The labourers were the monks -themselves, assisted by their neighbours, some of whom were hired, while -others gave their day’s work as an investment in the securities of -heaven. It is interesting to find that the little company of poor monks, -rich in faith, laid out the foun<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a>{30}</span>dations of their church upon the great -lines on which it stands to-day. Other generations built the chapel of -the nine altars and raised the noble tower, but the vast nave with its -transepts was both planned and completed by the men who began the -monastery. These large proportions did not necessarily mean that they -expected a great number of monks to say their prayers within these wide -walls. They were not adjusting the building, after our manner, to the -size of the congregation. They were intent upon the glory of God. The -church was to be an evidence of their conception of the dignity, the -strength, and the splendour of the Christian religion.</p> - -<p>First, they built the chancel, which was pulled down in the next century -and built over again larger and finer. There they probably held their -services while the masons and the carpenters were busy with the other -work. Then they built the transepts, and the south wall of the nave<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a>{31}</span> as -high as the sills of the windows; then the lower courses of the west -wall. After that, they finished the south wall, because that was on the -cloister side; and built its great bays. Then, the north wall, and the -rest; roofing it all in. Mr. St. John Hope is of the opinion that the -church, passing through these various stages, and waiting at intervals -for additions to the building fund, was quite completed before 1147. The -west wall of the cloister belongs to the same period.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, in the midst of all this building, Abbot Richard was called -away to Rome. Bishop Alberic of Ostia, making a visitation of the -country as papal legate, and meeting Richard, was so impressed by the -abbot’s piety and sense that he made up his mind that the Pope had need -of him. So he took him away from Fountains—whether for a temporary or a -permanent absence is uncertain—and brought him down to the Papal Court. -There, however, the good<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a>{32}</span> man fell ill of a fever, and presently died. -This was in 1139.</p> - -<p>Richard, the sacrist, who succeeded him, was a man of great humility. He -had been chosen, the narrative informs us, by the advice of St. Bernard, -by the unanimous voice of the convent, and under the invocation of the -Holy Ghost; but still he held back, diffident and honestly reluctant, -from the honours of the abbacy—<i>Homo simplex et timens Deum, et totius -religionis ardentissimus emulator</i>. Three times he went to Clairvaux -hoping to be released, and finally St. Bernard heard him; but when he -returned with this permission to retire, the whole assembly of the -brethren rose up with such grief and remonstrance that he consented to -continue. He died, however, at Clairvaux, where he was attending a -meeting of the General Chapter, and was there buried by St. Bernard, in -1143.</p> - -<p>Bernard nominated as Richard’s suc<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a>{33}</span>cessor a Yorkshireman who had for -some years been abbot of Vauclair, and he was elected by the brethren. -Henry Murdac was a strict disciplinarian. He proceeded at once to -destroy such tares as he discovered in the field of the Lord. The second -Richard had always insisted that he had no ability or even wish to play -the part of Martha. It is likely that under his gentle rule some of the -brethren demonstrated the fact that a change of names is not necessarily -a change of natures. The Benedictine abbey of St. Mary of York had been -forsaken for the Cistercian abbey of St. Mary of Fountains, but the new -resolutions had not driven out of all minds a secret preference for a -modicum of comfort. So Henry found occasion to amend the monastic ways. -He was a great abbot—<i>magnifice administravit</i>. He added to the -possessions of the house, and carried on the construction of the -buildings.</p> - -<p>Unhappily, Henry became deeply in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a>{34}</span>volved in the ecclesiastical politics -of the time. The good Turstin, the benefactor of the Abbey, had been -succeeded at York by William, who was accused of having obtained his -preferment by bribery. William had cleared himself of this charge before -a competent council, and had been consecrated archbishop by the -direction of the Pope. But he had not received the pall when the Pope -died, and Eugenius, a pupil of St. Bernard, became Pope in his stead. -Bernard believed in the guilt of William. He prevented the new Pope from -investing him with the pall. Bernard’s representative in England was the -Abbot of Fountains, who had already made a journey to Rome to protest -against William’s appointment. When, therefore, this ill news came to -the archbishop’s friends in Yorkshire, and they looked about for -somebody on whom to visit their indignation, Henry Murdac seemed the -person most eligible to that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a>{35}</span> distinction. So they set out, a -considerable company of them, well armed, and made their way with clamor -of voices into the secluded valley, and forced the monastery gates and -sacked the place. Much they broke, some they plundered, and the rest -they set on fire. There it blazed, then, that great work, built, as they -said, in the sweat of their own brows—<i>in suo sudore constructa</i>. The -church, however, escaped great injury. Indeed, the abbot himself, who -was lying prostrate at the foot of the altar, was not discovered, being -protected by the hand of God. It is likely that the buildings which were -thus destroyed were temporary structures, for the most part, made of -wood. Whatever damage was done was speedily repaired. The neighbours -came in—<i>de vicinia viri fideles</i>—and the reconstruction was -undertaken with such zeal that the new was better than the old. Then the -chapter-house was built, and the dormitory over it down to the river, -and the guest-house<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a>{36}</span> by the bridge. To this time belong also the north -walls of the malthouse and the bakehouse. The fire took place in 1146 or -1147.</p> - -<p>This violence was much more disastrous to the archbishop than to the -abbot, for the Pope deposed William and confirmed Henry, who was elected -in his place. Thus the monastery lost its third abbot.</p> - -<p>It is interesting to remember that William was vindicated after all. -When Henry died, in 1153, a friendly Pope restored the deposed -archbishop to his place. One of William’s first acts on entering his -diocese was to visit Fountains, to express his contrition for the harm -which his friends, without his knowledge, had committed, and to promise -proper compensation. When he died, he was enrolled among the saints, and -the Abbot of Fountains was one of the judges who decided that he was -worthy to be canonised.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a>{37}</span></p> - -<p>This was Abbot Richard, who had two predecessors with brief terms, -Maurice and Thorold. Richard had a long and troubled rule. Our ancient -enemy, the devil, disquieted by the peace of the holy house, tempted the -brethren, who behaved so proudly towards the abbot that he had to expel -some of them. After that, the Lord blessed him abundantly. So he died, -in 1170, and was buried in the new chapter-house, the first of nineteen -abbots who were to lie there under the monks’ feet.</p> - -<p>Robert of Pipewell was the next abbot. He was a strenuous -person—<i>strenue administravit</i>, says the narrative; and again, <i>multa -strenue gessit in administratione sua</i>. He is praised for many virtues, -and among others for his zeal for building, but the particular additions -which he made are not named. He beautified the church, and erected -sumptuous buildings, probably the southern range of the cloister—the -refectory side—and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a>{38}</span> western guest-house. The northern part of the -west wall of the cellarium appears to have been made about this time.</p> - -<p>William of Newminster (1179-1190) and Ralph Haget of Kirkstall -(1190-1203) carried on the Abbey into the thirteenth century; but -without any notable, or, at least, discernible, erection of buildings.</p> - -<p>With William’s administration, old Serlo’s narrative stops. He praises -William, but says that he may perhaps (<i>forsitan</i>) have been just a -shade too strict. The acts of Ralph are described by Hugh of Kirkstall, -who has written up to this point at Serlo’s dictation. Here, says Hugh, -the old man made an end of speaking. You yourself, says Serlo, know well -what to say about the holy Abbot Ralph.</p> - -<p>Hugh had become a monk while Ralph was Abbot of Kirkstall, and had lived -under his rule for seven years. Happy would he have been, he says,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a>{39}</span> -could he have continued in that blessed state. Yet those were troubled -years at Kirkstall—<i>adversa foras pugnas, intus timores, domesticorum -insidias, rei familiaris inopiam, bonorum distractionem</i>. Everything -went wrong; without were fightings, within were fears. There was famine, -and spoiling of goods, and misconduct of bad brethren. And Abbot Ralph -made but an ineffectual effort to cope with these distresses. He was no -strenuous administrator. He was busy dreaming dreams, and seeing -visions. Once, he told Hugh, he even had a revelation of the Blessed -Trinity, in which he distinctly saw three Persons—<i>intribus personis -apparentem</i>! But these celestial sights seem not to have made his -terrestrial way plain. Nevertheless, on the death of William he was made -Abbot of Fountains; and, curiously enough, he seems to have done fairly -well in this larger place. He enforced the rule, both in the mother -house and in the depen<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a>{40}</span>dent monasteries. He was particularly kind to the -poor, who, on the occasion of a famine and a fever, flocked to the Abbey -gates and were lodged there by the abbot in huts made of branches of the -neighbouring trees, where physicians and priests ministered unto them.</p> - -<p>Three Johns ruled Fountains during the first half of the thirteenth -century, and substantially completed the fabric of the Abbey. John of -York (1203-1211), like his predecessor Ralph, had been a novice at -Fountains, and had passed thence to the abbacy of a daughter house. He -was recalled to the Abbey from Louth Park. John was a good man, of whom -but one complaint has found its way into the chronicle: some envious -persons said that he desired to be a bishop. This aspersion, however, -seems to have been due chiefly to his unusual grace of manner, and to -his large and liberal administration. Bred, though he was, in the -monastery, and getting absolutely</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 391px;"> -<a href="images/i_p040a_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_p040a_sml.jpg" width="391" height="261" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -<div class="caption"><p><i>Fountains Abbey.</i></p> - -<p><i>The Interior looking West.</i></p> - -<p> -<i>Photo. Frith.</i><span class="spacd"> </span><i>Art Repro. Co.</i><br /> -</p> -</div> -</div> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a>{41}</span></p> - -<p class="nind">nothing—as the chronicler assures us—from his native place but his -name, he appears nevertheless to have been acquainted with the world. He -was a hospitable person—<i>Dapsilis in mensa, communis in victu</i>—and -excelled in magnificence all who had preceded him. The King of England, -at that moment, was of the same name as the abbot; whom, however, he -resembled in no other particular. King John perceived the great wealth -of the religious houses, especially of the Cistercians, and began to lay -hold of it with a rapacious hand. But Abbot John, partly by courtly -manners, partly by his prudent use of the Abbey’s money, won the King’s -favour, and was thereby enabled to aid other houses in distress.</p> - -<p>It may have been this general danger, and the comparative immunity of -Fountains in the midst of it, which at this time greatly increased the -monastic household. There were now so many brethren that the choir was -too small for them,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a>{42}</span> and there were not altars enough. Abbot John, -accordingly, conceived the idea of rebuilding and vastly enlarging the -east end of the church. To him is commonly ascribed the plan of the new -chancel, and of the chapel of the nine altars. He had already laid the -foundations of these splendid structures, to the amazement of his -contemporaries, and had raised certain columns, when in the midst of his -work he died—<i>feliciter migravit ad Dominum</i>.</p> - -<p>The second John (1211-1220) took up the great task and carried it -forward. The chronicle has now come to an end, and we know nothing from -its pleasant pages about this John or his successors. There is, however, -a letter in existence which was written to him nine days after Magna -Charta, by King John himself, in which the king directs that certain -treasures hidden by him for safe keeping at the Abbey—<i>vasa, pocalia, -aurea et argenta</i>—be now immediately and private<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a>{43}</span>ly sent back. King -John, in anticipation of trouble, had trusted the monks of Fountains. -Now, expecting peace, he takes his valuables into his own house. Abbot -John soon came into relation with the other great actor in the Magna -Charta matter, for in 1220 he was made bishop by Stephen Langton. Thus -he removed from Fountains to Ely, where he died five years after, and -was buried in the choir of his cathedral, wearing his episcopal ring, -clad in his robes, and having beside him his stout pastoral staff.</p> - -<p>John of Kent (1220-1247) succeeded John of Ely. He splendidly completed -(<i>gloriose consummavit</i>) the great beginnings of his predecessors. The -chapel of the nine altars and the great infirmary were finished in his -time. So were the new choir, and a reconstruction of the cloister, and a -guest-house—or the improvement of the existing guest-houses—and a new -paving of the church floor<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a>{44}</span> in tiles of a geometrical design. This abbot -built also the bakehouse, and the bridge. Leland, in 1541, speaks of -many shafts of black marble in the chapel of the nine altars, in the -chapter-house and in the refectory; and Mr Walbran traces the stone to -the Abbey lands at the upper end of Nidderdale, and to the hand of a -prosperous stone-worker of that neighbourhood, Thomas <i>Marmorius de -Sallay</i>.</p> - -<p>Thus the completed Abbey stood in splendour, the work of a whole -century: part of it done while Henry and Stephen and Henry Plantagenet -were ruling England, while Becket was Archbishop of Canterbury; part of -it done in the reigns of John and the third Henry, in the time of -Stephen Langton.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a>{45}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III<br /><br /> -<small>THE DAILY LIFE OF THE MONKS</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> completed monastery had a stout stone wall about it, for security -and peace. It enclosed an area of about four hundred yards in width, and -more than twice that space in length. The longer reaches of the wall ran -through high fields and woods on either side of the valley. At each end -it crossed the river: at the west end was the main gate.</p> - -<p>Beside this gate stood the gate-house. Abbot Huby, in the sixteenth -century, built a house here and established in it Robert Dawson and -Ellen his wife; Robert to be porter and Ellen to be laundress. Robert -was to keep the gate; and Ellen was to wash or cause to be washed -(<i>lavabit vel lavari faciet</i>) the linen sheets (<i>linthiamina</i>) of the -abbot<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a>{46}</span> and abbey guests, and to do it without unnecessary -tearing—<i>congrue et honeste sine lesione voluntaria vel ruptura -eorumdem</i>. The fact, however, that at Citeaux there was an outer as well -as an inner gate-house, suggests that Abbot Huby was but erecting a new -lodge in the place of an old one. Here, at the outer gate, long before -Robert Dawson’s day, the almoner dispensed his daily alms. Here the -porter, at the sound of a knock, rose up crying, <i>Deo gratias</i>, an -expression of joy at an opportunity to be hospitable; met the guest, -blessing him with a <i>Benedicite</i>, and hastened to inform the abbot of -his arrival.</p> - -<p>The abbot led the visitor along the road, having the river on his right -and the high bank on his left, until they came to the little chapel, -built in the twelfth century, a part of whose west wall remains, with a -round-headed window. There they said a prayer, after which the -hospitaller took the guest in charge. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a>{47}</span> stables and barns were -probably hereabouts. The mill is still standing, across the river, being -now used as a dairy-house; but most of the present structure belongs to -the thirteenth century. The bakehouse and the malthouse, a hundred yards -to the east, supplied the brethren with bread and beer; their ovens and -vats may be traced amidst the ruins.</p> - -<p>Through the great gate, the visitor passed into the presence of the -Abbey itself. There, across a wide expanse of green, stood the buildings -of the cloister group: on the left, the church; then the long range of -the cellarium; and on the right, the guest-houses.</p> - -<h3>I. THE GUEST-HOUSES</h3> - -<p>The guest-houses had the river on two sides, being set in a sharp angle -of the stream. On the north a wall led from the river to the western -guest-house, and was continued to the eastern, making<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a>{48}</span> two secluded -courts. Close to the corner of the eastern house a door opened in the -wall, through which the hospitaller led his guest into the inner court. -There at his feet rose a great staircase which gave access to the second -storey of that house. From the upper landing of these stairs a bridge -led to the second storey of the other house.</p> - -<p>The two houses may have been for the use of different classes of -visitors, in a day when social distinctions were scrupulously drawn. In -that case, the better people were probably lodged in the eastern house. -There, entering the upper storey, they found their sleeping-rooms, with -deep-set windows looking to the north and east; and with two good -fire-places, one in the middle of the east wall, the other in the gable -end to the north. In these rooms was never a bed, a table, a stool or a -candlestick which had been made by a machine. All had come from the -hands of craftsmen who brought<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a>{49}</span> to their labour a determining quality of -personal interest. Descending into the courtyard, a door near the north -end brought the guest into the great hall—“a goodly brave place much -like unto a church”—where a central row of fair pillars upheld a -vaulted roof. This was for the ceremonies of the table. The arrangement -of the western guest-house was according to the same plan, with two -differences: it was <span class="sans">L</span>-shaped, the letter being turned about so that the -base lay by the river, while the shaft extended to the north; and the -hall, which was in the base of the <span class="sans">L</span>, was divided into two rooms. The -northern wing may have been the kitchen for both houses. A small -building by the river, where the two guest-houses met, may have been the -office of the hospitaller.</p> - -<p>These houses were a hostelry, wherein decent wandering persons, “both -noble, and gentle, and what degree soever that came thither as -strangers,” were<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a>{50}</span> made welcome and given free entertainment. This was -the Abbey inn, known to all instructed wayfarers. In a day when towns -were far apart, and the roads bad and beset with peril, the sight of a -monastery tower in the late afternoon was pleasant to a traveller’s -eyes. In the guest-house hall he ate; in the guest-house chamber he -slept; and on the following morning, after mass, refreshed and blessed, -he went upon his way, thanking God for monks and monasteries.</p> - -<h3>II. THE CELLARIUM</h3> - -<p>The long range of building, extending from the church to the river, was -called the cellarium, because it was under the general charge of the -cellarer or steward of the monastery. It is likely that he had his -office in the room which stands out from this building at the middle of -its length. In this chamber, having a good window to the west, and a -fireplace between two narrow windows to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a>{51}</span> the south, he kept his office -hours. St. Benedict himself, in his rule, had counselled all cellarers -to be punctual in this matter, that nobody be kept waiting.</p> - -<p>The great vaulted hall, now open from end to end, was then divided into -five rooms by screens and partitions. The first room included the first -two bays of the north end. Instead of pillars, it had in the midst two -piers of masonry supporting a staircase, which ascended out of the -church into the room above. These piers made this a double room, whereof -the western half served as a vestibule to the church, while the eastern -half, once opening from the cloister, may sometime have been the -treasury, as at Durham.</p> - -<p>The second room began at the southern pier and extended to the fourth -pillar, thus including four bays. This was probably the storehouse for -the domestic supplies of food and drink. A door in the west wall opened -conveniently upon the outer court.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a>{52}</span></p> - -<p>The third room was between the fourth pillar and the sixth. It had a -door in its south wall, and appears to have been the buttery.</p> - -<p>The wall which crossed at the sixth pillar ran between two doors, an -outer door into the court and an inner door into the cloister. Thus this -fourth room served as an entrance way. Its southern wall had the eighth -pillar in the middle of it, and this bay beside the entrance may have -been the outer parlour, the <i>auditorium juxta coquinam</i>, or room beside -the kitchen, which was provided for in the Cistercian arrangements. Here -in a niche of the east wall, now blocked, the porter sat beside the -cloister door. In this room the brethren of the Abbey met their friends -who lived in the world; here merchants came to show their wares.</p> - -<p>All the rest of the hall, from the eighth pillar to the end over the -river, was open then as it is now, and served as the refectory of the -lay brothers. They came</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> -<a href="images/i_p052a_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_p052a_sml.jpg" width="400" height="257" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -<div class="caption"><p><i>The Cloisters.</i></p> - -<p> -<i>Photo. Frith.</i> <span class="spacd"> </span> <i>Art Repro. Co.</i><br /> -</p></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a>{53}</span></p> - -<p class="nind">in by the door in the west wall between the eighth and ninth pillars; -their tables were set along the side walls under the windows; their cups -and plates may have been kept in cupboards against the blank wall of the -last two bays in the south-west corner; their food came in from the -abbey kitchen by a hatch which opened opposite the outer door.</p> - -<p>An outside stairway—the day stairs—rose beside the cellarer’s office -at this door, and led to the dormitory of the lay brothers. At the north -end of the dormitory another stairway—the night stairs—went down into -the church. At the south, a room at right-angles, over the river, where -they made their toilet, gave access to the infirmary where they went -when they were sick, and in which they lived in peace and Christian -comfort when they were old.</p> - -<p>The lay brothers were monks, like the others, in that they were subject -to the usual monastic vows, amenable to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a>{54}</span> the regulations of monastic -life, and clad in a habit; but they were quite distinct from their -brethren of the choir and cloister. At the beginning of monasticism, -most of the monks were laymen. They had separated themselves not only -from the world but from the church. They believed that the deserts were -better places for prayer than any sanctuary builded by the hand of man. -They felt that they could best draw near to God, each in the silence of -his own soul. In an age whose faith was in salvation by services, they -turned their back on all the services. In an institutional time, when it -was commonly accounted essential to be in the communion of the church, -the monks were individualists. The fact is written in the letters of -their name. A monk—<i>monos</i>—is a man who lives alone. The time came -when a monk was never, under any circumstances, alone; but at the -beginning he was a solitary person, living his own life by himself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a>{55}</span></p> - -<p>It is true that the wise church quietly and patiently followed these -mystics in their wanderings, followed these enthusiasts who had forsaken -the priests and the sacraments, and carried to them the altars which -they had left behind, and by-and-by most of the monks were priests. But -that was a long process, and during a great part of the time the -convents of monks were lay fraternities, having only such priests as -were needed for the rites of the church. Thus the monastic services were -composed and arranged for the use of laymen. Indeed, the monasteries -were never thoroughly adjusted to the conventional church system. They -were never under the control of the diocesan bishop. Sometimes, they -defied him openly; sometimes, they gave him the nominal office of -visitor, and defied him privately. In general, he had little more -authority over Benedictines or Cistercians than he has at present over -Presbyterians or Methodists.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a>{56}</span></p> - -<p>Accordingly, the lay brothers of Fountains were so named not to -distinguish them from their brethren in priests’ orders, but to mark a -difference between them and the cloister brothers. The <i>conversi</i>, as -they were called, were divided from the <i>monachi</i> not by a barrier of -ordination, but by a barrier of education. They were monks who could not -read. When the Cistercian Order began, there were many such persons, -some of good birth, many of good ability, but ignorant of letters. It -was characteristic of the Cistercians that they made a place for the -piety of these men. Unable to read, they could not take part in the -regular offices of monastic devotion. But they could work. They could -plough and spade, they could brew and bake, they knew how to work on a -farm or in a mill; at the humblest, they could fetch and carry. And -these acts, the Cistercians taught, may be as religious as the -recitation of a litany. So there were the lay<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a>{57}</span> brothers, like St. -Christopher at the ford of the river, consecrating their hands and their -feet, their strength and their obedience, to God. They were sanctifying -the homeliest tasks by doing them as the servants of Heaven.</p> - -<p>The lay brothers were in the department of the cellarer, to whom they -were responsible, as the cloister brothers were to the prior. They -attended to the secular side of the common life. Having to work hard, -they did not rise so early as the others; in summer, not till dawn. But -they said prayers at night, coming down into the nave, where their -stalls were ranged along on either side against the great pillars. In -the day, they might recite their appointed offices, stopping in the -midst of their work in the mill or in the field. When it was possible, -however, they had their service in the church, chanting softly in the -nave while the other monks were singing in the choir, and having<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a>{58}</span> forms -of their own which they had learned by heart.</p> - -<h3>III. THE CHURCH</h3> - -<p>The essential purpose for which Fountains Abbey was founded was the -pursuit of religion. The prevailing interpretation which was put upon -religion made it to consist, in great measure, of the saying of -services. Out of the confused noises of the common street, the monks had -retired into the quiet of the monastery in the hope of meeting God. And -they sought God in the church.</p> - -<p>The church had a western porch, a dozen feet in width, extending along -the whole front. Part of the porch floor was made of gravestones, -beneath which lay the dust of devout laymen, who had begged the -privilege of being buried at the door of the house of prayer. The porch -roof touched the base of the great window, which was filled with the -glorious colours of the inimitable glass of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a>{59}</span> middle ages. Over the -window, in a niche, was a figure of the Mother and Child. Abbot John -Darnton had this made, and inscribed his name upon the supporting -corbel: an eagle, the symbol of the fourth evangelist, to mean <i>John</i>, -perched on a cask or <i>tun</i>, with a scroll beneath marked <i>dern 1494</i>.</p> - -<p>Entering beneath the Norman arch of the west door, the visitor found -over his head a gallery which carried the great organ. A screen -supported the gallery, making a vestibule for the church, keeping out -the wind. A fragment of the base of this screen remains on the south -side, near a bit of the pavement which was put in by John of Kent. -Standing in the screen door and looking to the east, the high roof -reached over the nave, the choir, the presbytery, and the chapel of the -nine altars, to the splendour of the east window. The Norman nave and -transepts, with their great pillars and round-headed clerestory windows, -repre<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a>{60}</span>sent the primitive Puritan simplicity of the Cistercians. The -choir and presbytery and the nine-altars chapel are in the style called -Early English. The great windows, east and west, replacing plainer -windows, are, like the tower, in the style called Perpendicular. To-day, -by the destruction of the choir and presbytery, the whole church in its -great length lies open to the view, but in the middle ages it was -crossed by three stone screens.</p> - -<p>The first partition, called the rood screen, crossed the middle alley -between the seventh pair of pillars, counting from the west door. It had -two openings, between which stood an altar. Over the altar, on a beam -which topped the screen from pillar to pillar, was a great cross or -rood. This screen formed the east end of that part of the church which -was assigned to the lay brothers. On the right hand and on the left, -this sanctuary was shut off from the aisles by walls, which ran along -the inner side of the pillars,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a>{61}</span> making a long narrow chapel, with the -stalls of the lay brothers set against them. Thus the pillars were -hidden in the aisles, an observer at the west door seeing only the -capitals and upper portions of them above the walls.</p> - -<p>The second partition, called the choir screen, crossed the tenth pair of -pillars, and a door in the middle of it gave access to the choir. The -space between these two screens, called the retro-choir, was intended -especially for aged and convalescent brethren from the infirmary. There -was probably a great bench for them against the back of the rood screen.</p> - -<p>In the midst of the retro-choir, between the eighth and ninth pairs of -pillars, stood two altars, one on the north dedicated to St. Mary, and -the other on the south dedicated to St. Bernard. The reredoses of these -altars made a screen between the ninth pillars, having a doorway between -them. In this passage, be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a>{62}</span>tween the altars of the saints, three abbots -were buried, in the fifteenth century. From the top of the two reredoses -to the top of the choir screen, a loft was built, called the pulpitum, -extending from the ninth and tenth pillars on the north to the ninth and -tenth pillars on the south, and on the north side carried out over the -aisle. Here, over the aisle, stood the choir organ.</p> - -<p>Passing under this gallery, through the door of the choir screen, the -visitor stood in the central sanctuary, the church of the monks of the -cloister. On either side were twenty stalls, and against the screen, -facing the east, were three stalls on the right of the entrance, and -three on the left. The number of the stalls is determined by the -discovery of nine earthen pots buried in the masonry which underlay -them. These pots were, no doubt, as in several other churches, an -acoustic experiment. The distances between them indicate how many there<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a>{63}</span> -were in the whole range. In front of the stalls of the monks were lower -seats for the novices. In addition to the entrance through the choir -screen, there were two other ways of access, at the east end of the -stalls, on either side. Here is still on either side a stone step, -significantly worn. On the north side, stairs led to a high seat over -the door. In the middle alley, where the lecturn may have stood at which -the lessons were read at matins, an abbot was buried.</p> - -<p>The presbytery, or chancel, began at these choir doors, and was raised a -step or two. Across the long space of its shining floor stood the third -partition, called the altar screen. Against it was the high altar.</p> - -<p>Thus the church was divided into three churches; one for the brothers of -the cellarium, ending at the rood screen; one for the infirmary -brethren, ending at the choir screen; one for the brethren of the -cloister, ending at the altar<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a>{64}</span> screen. On the two sides of this -three-fold sanctuary ran long aisles, from the west wall to the chapel -of the nine altars. In the middle of this distance, the aisles opened -into transepts, north and south. The nave aisles, at first unobstructed -for passage around the church, were presently cut up by cross partitions -into chapels; but the choir aisles continued to be used as ambulatories. -The transepts served as antechambers for the chapels which opened out -from them to the east.</p> - -<p>Each transept had originally three of these chapels, but the building of -the new chancel had taken away the inner one on each side. Of the two -which thus remained, the outer chapel of the north transept had been -changed into a store-house when the tower was built, so that only the -chapel which was in the middle remained. Over the door, under a bracket, -is still to be read an inscription which informs us that it was -dedicated to the Archangel Michael.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a>{65}</span></p> - -<p>The north transept ended in the noble tower of four storeys, the third -of which was probably for the bells, whilst the second may have served -as the sleeping-room of the men who rung them. The inscriptions which -ran round the outside of the tower are still in great part legible.</p> - -<p>“Blessed be the name of Jesus Christ,” said the stones above.</p> - -<p>“Blessing and wisdom and honour and power be to our God for ever”; “To -the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, be honour and glory for ever,” -said the middle lines.</p> - -<p>“To God alone, to Jesus Christ, be honour and glory for ever,” was -thrice repeated, east and north and west, below.</p> - -<p>The words were part in praise, part in apology. The beautiful tower was -forbidden by the ancient regulations of the Order. The Cistercian chapel -was to have but a modest tower, rising no more than a single storey over -the roof. These high parapets were a symbol of the pride<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a>{66}</span> of life: they -indicated that the ambitions of the outer world had successfully invaded -the monastery. Not so! cried the abbot who built them, repeating again -and again in great letters on the tower the assertion that it was raised -solely for God’s glory.</p> - -<p>In the south transept, out of which, in the south-west corner, stairs -led up to the dormitory of the monks, the chapel which was originally -the middle one of three, was turned into a sacristy; and a narrow door -in the south wall gave access to a large room built against the chancel, -which may have been the office of the sacrist. In the sacristy, and in -other safe places, were kept the Abbey treasures. Here were the copes -which the monks wore when they went in procession, on great days. At the -time of the suppression, when an inventory was taken, there were eighty -of them. Six were made of cloth of gold, twenty-six of white damask, -four of white velvet,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a>{67}</span> two of white fustian. Five old copes were of -embroidered work, and six of flowered work. One was “very well wrought -with images”; one, wrought with images, was of green damask; six were of -red silk, worked with flowers and stars; one was of black velvet. Some -of these splendid cloaks may have been given by noble benefactors out of -their own wardrobes. For Richard of the Lion Heart presented to the -prior of Durham his Parliament robe “of blue velvet, wrought with great -lions of pure gold”; whilst Queen Philippa, making a visit to Ely, gave -the prior her “jewelled robes of State, powdered with golden squirrels.”</p> - -<p>Here, also, hung surplices, and eucharistic vestments of cloth of gold -and silk and velvet and serge. Here the abbot may have kept his two -mitres, one for common days, the other for high feasts; but both of them -shining with plates of silver, and garnished with pearls. Each had its -cushion; a word which the writer<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a>{68}</span> of the inventory laboriously spelled -“qweshan.” Here were processional crosses; chalices and patens reserved -for great festivals; shrines to be borne about the church on the -festival of Corpus Christi, one containing a rib of St. Lawrence, -another a bit of St. Anne’s scalp set in a plate of silver; and an image -of St. James, and another of our Lady, both of silver-gilt; a table, or -reredos, for the high altar at great services, bearing three images of -silver-gilt, embellished with gold and precious stones; and, most -precious of all, a cross of solid gold, set with gems, and having in it -a piece of the true cross of Calvary.</p> - -<p>The “chapel of nine altars” had seven of these holy tables against its -east wall, the three which would naturally have stood under the great -window being combined into one. Each altar had its aumbry or closet for -the sacred vessels, and was parted from its neighbour by a low barrier -of wood, while a similar wall<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a>{69}</span> ran along the front of the whole row, -with doors admitting to the altars. There was a gallery over the altar -screen which parted the chapel from the presbytery; and a little gallery -over the door in the south-west corner, which was connected by a long -overhead passage with the abbot’s lodgings. It is likely that at -Fountains, as at Durham, there was a closet against the south wall, -where at the time of saying mass the sacristan provided the monks with -bread and wine for their various altars.</p> - -<p>Having thus examined the church, we may imagine ourselves at service in -it upon some high occasion. The lay brothers in their brown gowns are in -their stalls. The monks are in their places in the choir. They are -dressed in white woollen cassocks, tied with a black girdle, and have -over breast and back a scapulary—a straight breadth of black cloth -before and behind, the two pieces fastened at the shoulders. Over<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a>{70}</span> this -plain garb, each monk now wears one of the gorgeous copes of the -sacristy. There are two candles on the high altar, and behind them is -the tablet with the three images, probably our Lord on the Cross, with -St. Mary on one side and St. John on the other, with “beads and plate of -silver-gilt, and some part gold and set with stones.” Back of the altar, -suspended high against the screen and falling to the floor, is a -tapestry hanging, of Arras work. The holy table is spread with white -damask embroidered with flowers. On a shelf in a carved recess of the -south wall are a basin and ewer for washing the priest’s hands; a -boat-shaped vessel for incense, with a spoon; two cruets, a pair of -silver censers, and a chalice and a paten for the bread and wine. Over -the head of the celebrant as he prays hangs a silver basin in which -burns a candle. All these things were in the Abbey when the final -inventory was made.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a>{71}</span></p> - -<p>Thus the service begins; the commemoration of the supreme -self-sacrifice. The smoke of incense drifts across the light of the east -window; and there is a sound of chanting, imploring, adoring voices. -Hands are outstretched to receive the mystic bread and wine. And -presently they go out to undertake again their homely tasks in the name -of Him to whom belong the church and themselves.</p> - -<p>To these repeated acts of worship, the monks came with a faith which -asked no questions. The services, it is true, were very frequent, and -human nature was with them what we know it to be with us; the thoughts -of the brethren would sometimes wander, and the devout words would be -words only. They were of our own kin and kind. Thomas Kydde and Lawrence -Benne, and Henry Jackson and John Walworth, and their fellows who were -here at the time of the suppression had their bad and their good, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a>{72}</span> we -have, and in about the same proportion. They were trying, the best way -they knew, to magnify the good, to make the ideal real, and to gain the -approbation of God. In the church they found assistance. There it was, -with doors open, day after day; its aisles fragrant with holy -associations, as with the incense of the prayers of the saints; its -shining altars, its appealing music, its mute assurance of divine -nearness. To it they brought their trials, their perplexities, their -hopes, their aspirations, their resolutions. It was the house of prayer -and the sanctuary of blessing. It was the heart of their life.</p> - -<h3>IV. THE CLOISTER</h3> - -<p>Out of the nave, near the south transept, a door opens into the -cloister. At the corner, where nave and transept met, is the pedestal -which held a bowl for holy water. Here the brothers stopped to dip their -fingers and sign their foreheads with</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 340px;"> -<a href="images/i_p072a_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_p072a_sml.jpg" width="340" height="497" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -<div class="caption"><p>Principal Patterns of the Roman Floors at Fountains Abbey</p> - -<p>From a print by Wm. Fowler of Winterton</p> - -<p> -<i>To face p. 72</i><br /> -</p> -</div> -</div> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a>{73}</span></p> - -<p class="nind">the sign of the cross. The green cloister court, without, had a porch -about it on its four sides, and these covered places, whose width is now -indicated by the grading of the turf, were called walks.</p> - -<p>In the west walk, against the cellarium wall, sat the novices, busy with -their books, studying church music and grammar and theology. Apt -students, when they became monks, were sometimes sent to complete their -education at Oxford, where they lived in the Cistercian Abbey of Bewley -(founded in 1280), or in the Cistercian College of St. Bernard, now St. -John’s (founded in 1432). There they learned to preach, and teach some -simple theology to the novices who succeeded them. There they learned -also to interpret and apply the canon law: they became the lawyers of -the monastery.</p> - -<p>It is likely that Fountains, like other great houses, maintained a -grammar school for the sons of the neighbours. The master of such a -school would not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a>{74}</span> be a monk but a secular person, employed by the Abbey -but not a member of the family. The school-house has not been -identified. The building which once stood across the river at the south -end of the cellarium would have been conveniently placed for this -purpose. A glimpse of the discipline of such a school is had in the fact -that, in the sixteenth century, a schoolmaster, receiving his degree of -bachelor of arts, was presented with a birch as a symbol of his office, -and was required forthwith, in the presence of his examiners, to flog a -boy hired for that exercise.</p> - -<p>Over the roof of the east walk, a line of windows opened out of the -dormitory. This was a long room, with two rows of beds from end to end, -like a ward in a hospital. The beds were provided with sheets of -linsey-woolsey, and the monks lay on straw which was emptied out of its -blue ticking and renewed once every year. At Durham, the custom was to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a>{75}</span> -carry his blue bed to the brother’s funeral, and hold it as a canopy -over the grave during the service; so that every night when he lay down -to rest he was profitably reminded of his last sleep. The monks laid -aside their scapulars, but slept in their woollen cassocks, so that they -woke ready dressed. The day stairs to the dormitory are in the -south-east corner of the cloister. There was a room at the head of the -stairs, extending south to the end of the dormitory, which may have -corresponded to the master’s chamber in a like position in a school. -Here the prior may have slept with an attentive ear for any breach of -order. It is uncertain whether there were partitions between the beds, -or whether the brethren were denied even such scanty privacy as that. It -is plain that they had no “cells.” The building which opened at right -angles with the dormitory beside the river was the toilet room, the -<i>necessarium</i>. Through its hall communica<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a>{76}</span>tion was had with the abbot’s -lodgings. The abbot, according to rule, must sleep in the common -dormitory. He probably gave this regulation a liberal interpretation, as -the house grew great, and considered that this hall made his room -“constructively” a part of the chamber of the monks.</p> - -<p>At two o’clock in the morning a great bell rang in the tower, and a -little bell in the dormitory answered it. Then every brother bestirred -himself. He threw a cloak about him, thrust his feet into his shoes, and -descended the night stairs at the end of the room into the dark church.</p> - -<p>The night service, called matins, consisted of a reading of many lessons -and a chanting of many psalms, and was performed to the accompaniment of -the organ. A light burned before the high altar, and there was a light -in the loft at the organ, and another for the reader at the lecturn, -perhaps still another at the chant-book of the precentor. But other<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a>{77}</span>wise -the great church was in darkness. The psalms were sung from memory. Now -and then some one went about among the singing brothers to make sure -that no man slept. This lasted for an hour or more.</p> - -<p>After this service, the monks came out into the north walk of the -cloister, where cressets flamed uncertainly against the walls, and there -continued until dawn, reading or meditating, but having their hoods well -pulled back from their faces to make it evident that they were wide -awake. This study-hour was, of course, short in summer, but long in -winter. When the weather was very bad, they sought refuge in the -chapter-house. In some cloisters there was glass in the open stone-work -of the porch; but, at best, this was a cold place of an early morning. -The dormitory was cold, the church was cold, and the cloister was as -cold as the sky; but they were used to it, like all their neighbours.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a>{78}</span></p> - -<p>This north walk was the living-room and study of the monastery. The -books in most frequent use were kept in a case which stood in a shallow -recess still to be seen in the transept wall. Others were stored in two -capacious closets on either side of the chapter-house door. Every year, -at the beginning of Lent, all the books of the monastery were spread out -on a carpet on the floor of the chapter-house, and a general accounting -was had. A roll was called of brothers and of books. Each monk rose at -the sound of his name, produced the book which had been assigned to him -the year before, and returned it, humbly confessing if he had not read -it through. Then the books were newly distributed and charged. At Ripley -Castle, bound in an octavo volume, are several of the Fountains books: a -Latin grammar, some sermons and some music, and a paraphrase of Ovid, in -which that irresponsible writer is made to serve as a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a>{79}</span> mediæval -moralist. There is also a fragment of a book on medecine, to which they -might profitably have added, as at Meaux Abbey, a book on eating,—<i>De -Edendo</i>. No catalogue remains, but we can guess at the titles from the -lists of other mediæval libraries. There were writings of the fathers, -ancient and modern, with a pretty full set of the works of St. Bernard; -and several commentaries on the Bible; and a good deal of biography, -mostly ecclesiastical; and books on law and ritual.</p> - -<p>So the brethren sat in the cold cloister reading their good books. The -Benedictines, who were scholars and literary persons, provided by rule -that these precious manuscript volumes should be handled with becoming -care. “When the religious are engaged in reading in cloister or church, -they shall if possible hold the books in their left hands, wrapped in -the sleeve of their tunics, and resting on their knees.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a>{80}</span></p> - -<p>Who were these men? Whence had they come? and why?</p> - -<p>As for their origin, they belonged, so far as we can now discover, to -the same class from which the ministry is still mainly recruited: to the -great company of those who are neither rich nor poor, who neither earn -their living by their hands nor inherit the means of living from their -fathers, represented in mediæval England by the gentry, as distinguished -on the one side from the peasantry, and on the other side from the -aristocracy.</p> - -<p>As for their motive, each had his own. “What are you here for, -Bernard?”—the great saint of the Cistercians had the question written -on his wall. <i>Ad quid venisti, Bernarde?</i> To this inquiry the abbey -might have returned as many as fifty different answers. Some of the -white-gowned men came in pure love of God, deeming a life of continual -prayer the most blessed of all lives, delighting in it</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 389px;"> -<a href="images/i_p080a_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_p080a_sml.jpg" width="389" height="262" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -<div class="caption"><p><i>Fountains Abbey.</i></p> - -<p><i>From the South East.</i></p> - -<p> -<i>Photo. Watson.</i><span class="spacd"> </span> <i>Art Repro. Co.</i><br /> -</p></div> -</div> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a>{81}</span></p> - -<p class="nind">all, finding in the cloister the four-square city of God which is -pictured in the Book of the Revelation. Some came from love of leisure, -or of simple peace and quiet: the worse ones, disposed to be respectably -idle; the better, finding the outer world too boisterous for their -gentle souls. Some came because they were disappointed; some because -they had failed; some because they had suddenly seen the emptiness of -common life, the baseness of much of it, the flagrant evil of some of -it, and had come out of it that they might live to a good purpose.</p> - -<p>Thus Ralph, the seventh abbot, had begun life as a soldier. He was a -contemporary of Robin Hood, who in the ballad met a friar of Fountains -and by him was soundly ducked in the middle of the little river. Richard -of the Lion Heart was at that time ruling England after his fashion. Men -were marching across Europe to the Holy Land. The profession of arms -must have appealed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a>{82}</span> strongly in those days to the heroic, and even to -the religious nature of many men. But Ralph did not like it. It -displeased him much. And one day, coming to Fountains, where his father -had already become a monk, he consulted a lay-brother, whose name was -Sunnulph, <i>homo simplex et illiteratus</i> but wise in the counsels of God. -And presently, the soldier and the brother each had a dream in the same -day. The knight dreamed that he was in a church, and that the figure on -the crucifix cried saying, “Why do you not come? Why do you wait?” To -which he replied with tears, “Behold, Lord, I come!” The monk, sleeping -in the long dormitory over the storehouse, saw the soldier dressed in a -monastic habit. So Ralph became a monk, and presently an abbot.</p> - -<p>The possibility of that promotion brought some men into the monastery. -In a world hopelessly divided into classes, the monastery was the -residence<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a>{83}</span> of democracy. Here the humblest man, if he could but read and -write, might rise as he deserved, to be the kitchener, the hospitaller, -the sacrist, the cellarer; some day—who could tell?—the abbot, wearing -a mitre, consorting on terms of equality with the noblest in the realm, -ruling his fellow men.</p> - -<p>But here are the brethren sitting in the chill cloister, reading their -good books, and awaiting the day. At the first light the bell rang and -they went again into the church for the psalms of lauds. After that, -they returned to the dormitory and washed their hands and faces in the -room over the river. By this time the sun was fairly up, and the hour -was come for the psalms of prime. The first psalm, according to the -gracious arrangement of St. Benedict, they said very slowly, in order to -give late-comers time to get in. Prime was followed by mass or by -chapter meeting, the order differing with the season of the year. The -monastic<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a>{84}</span> year was in two parts: winter began on September 14, being -Holy Cross day, a date still used in the Prayer-Book for determining the -autumnal ember days; summer began at Easter.</p> - -<p>Out of the church, from prime or mass, the brethren proceeded to the -chapter-house. This great hall opened through three noble arches from -the east walk of the cloister. Two of these arches were blocked, as it -appears, by book closets; but not at the beginning. The books were -probably stored at first, as in other Cistercian abbeys, in the room -between the transept and the chapter-house. Afterwards this room was put -to other uses.</p> - -<p>At the further end and on the sides the brothers sat on triple tiers of -stone benches. The meeting began with a reading from the monastic book -of martyrs, how this brother and that in the old time had lain down his -life for his Master. Then there were prayers; and sometimes<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a>{85}</span> a sermon, -to the hearing of which the lay brothers might be summoned. Then was -read a chapter from the Rule of St. Benedict, a custom which gave its -name both to the meeting and to the house in which it was held. Thus -their high ideal was kept continually before them. Once a week a list -was read of the household duties and of the brethren to whom they were -assigned. For these homely tasks came to the monks in turn. One after -another, they cooked the dinner, or waited on the table, or swept the -dormitory. Finally, cases of discipline were considered.</p> - -<p>In a life which at best was somewhat monotonous and narrow, the minor -annoyances of human fellowship would easily be exaggerated. The rule of -silence could not restrain the brothers from thinking; and some of the -thoughts would naturally take the direction which is indicated in -Browning’s “Soliloquy in a Spanish Cloister.” The chapter<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a>{86}</span> meeting was, -accordingly, a place for the summary adjustment of all the petty -grievances. Brother Robert made his complaint against Brother William, -and Brother William confessed or explained, and whoever was adjudged to -be at fault was properly punished: sometimes by loss of precedence, -sometimes by lack of dinner; in serious cases, by flogging. Down got the -brother on the cold floor, paved with tombstones of past abbots, and -there was soundly whipped, for the good of his soul and for the -edification of the brethren. When whipping was not sufficient, he was -put in prison. Under the abbot’s lodgings, beneath the ground, were -three convenient dungeons, in whose walls and floor are to be seen to -this day the staples for the chains.</p> - -<p>It is not likely that these dungeons were in frequent use. Many hard -things were, indeed, said about the monks at the time of the -suppression, but it must be remembered that they were said by<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a>{87}</span> -interested persons in the heat of controversy. Even then, it was agreed -that in the “great and solemn monasteries,” such as Fountains, religion -was “right well kept.” The monks were slandered that they might the more -conveniently be robbed. Henry VIII. desired for various reasons, good -and bad, to destroy the monasteries and take possession of their lands -and treasures. He desired also, like all the Tudors, to keep the good -will of the people. The royal commissioners, sent to visit the religious -houses and report upon them, understood the situation and met it. They -showed that the monasteries were so bad that a good nation ought to be -happy to have its king suppress them. It is true that the enthusiasm for -the monastic life was waning; the best men were turning their energies -and finding their ideals in other directions. The strength and devotion -of the people were being put into politics, into preaching, into the -practical life of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a>{88}</span> the parish. Moreover, there had gradually grown up a -social as well as a religious separation between the monks and their -neighbours. Fountains Abbey, for example, was built, as we have seen, by -the benefactions of rich and noble persons. It was on that side an -aristocratic institution. It differed in this respect from the parish -churches which were erected and maintained by the plain people, and -especially by prosperous citizens of the mercantile order. Mr. -Micklethwaite has put the situation clearly in his paper on “The -Cistercian Order.” “To a citizen or a franklin,” he says, “a monk was a -dignitary, but the parish priest was his neighbour and friend, and the -parish church was his own.” This fact, that the great substantial middle -class were no longer deeply interested in the abbeys, not only accounts -in some measure for the indifference with which they witnessed their -destruction, but for the difficulty which the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a>{89}</span> monasteries found at last -in getting recruits among men of this good kind. The personal quality -deteriorated. There were bad monks, no doubt, as there are still bad -ministers; and the few bad ones attracted more attention than all the -cloistered saints. And, anyhow, the life which they were endeavouring to -live was an abnormal life, apart from the wholesome influences of -natural human society, and from the helpful engagements of the common -routine. The monasteries inevitably degenerated. But “an enemy,” as -Burke said, “is a bad witness; a robber is a worse.” The quiet judgment -of the modern historian is in favour of the monks, and finds most of -them to have been men of respectable and pious lives. The sober persons -in white cassocks, who confessed faults in the chapter meeting and -cheerfully suffered chastisement for them to which the man in the street -gave not a moment’s thought, had a passionate longing to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a>{90}</span> good. They -were intent upon the living of a righteous life.</p> - -<p>The day’s work would begin about seven o’clock. In the winter it -continued until three in the afternoon, making an eight-hour day. In the -summer there was a long intermission while the sun was high and hot, but -two hours of it were occupied in study. During the day the church bell -rang for the offices of terce and sext and nones; but these were brief -services, and men who were hard at work at a distance stopped where they -stood, and said them under the sky. There was a bite of breakfast called -<i>mixtum</i>—a piece of bread and somewhat wherewith to wash it down—which -was served before the work of the day began to those who were so old or -so young as to be unfit for their tasks without it. In the summer the -meal of the day was eaten at noon, and after it the brethren lay on -their beds in the dormitory and slept for an hour; or, if they chose, -read a book<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a>{91}</span> during that time, lying down, being careful not to stretch -out their feet into the passage between the beds, and turning the leaves -quietly so as not to disturb their sleeping neighbours. Late in the -summer afternoon there was a slight repast of bread and fruit. In the -winter, until Lent, the one meal was served when the brethren came in -from work; that is after three o’clock; in Lent, not until about five.</p> - -<p>The monastic ideal of seclusion from the world demanded economic -independence. Everything that was needed in the monastery was to be -produced upon the premises. That, at the least, implied a garden for -vegetables, and an orchard for fruit, and a field for corn with a mill -in which to grind it, and ponds for fish, and woods for fuel. It meant -architects, builders, masons, carpenters and plumbers. In the infirmary, -which was the abbey hospital, there must be physicians and attendants. -In the guest-house,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a>{92}</span> which was the abbey inn, there must be porters, -hostlers, cooks. The common details of a domestic establishment of a -hundred men were enough to keep many persons busy. It is true that much -of the heavy work was done by the lay brothers; but every choir brother -had his share also, and went out daily with axe or spade, with -fishing-rod or pruning-hook, with basket or barrow, to his appointed -task. The crops must be planted or garnered, the apples must be picked, -the hay must be got in, the wood must be cut, the buildings must be kept -in repair, horses must be shod, sheep must be shorn, and at all seasons, -in all weather, and under all circumstances, dinner must be cooked.</p> - -<p>Accordingly, after the daily mass and chapter, this substantial activity -engaged the mind and muscle of the monastery. The abbot betook himself -to his executive affairs, the prior and the sub-prior to their daily -inspection of the establishment,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a>{93}</span> the cellarer to his house-keeping, the -sacrist to his care of the church, the bursar to his accounts, the -infirmarius to his hospital, the terrararius to his inn, the almoner to -his dependents at the gate, the master of the novices to his school, the -scriptor to his copying, the kitchener to his cooking, others to the -fields and forests. For such as were unemployed about these matters, -there was the cloister with its books, and the church with its frequent -services. It is likely that there were idle monks; for the monk was of -like passions with us, and was beset by the same temptations which -assail us. As the Abbey increased in wealth, and the early ardour of the -monastic life began to cool, there was, no doubt, a disposition to hire -men to do some of the homely tasks which at first the monks had done -themselves. But the ideal of the monastic life was an active day, -wherein from dawn till dark there should not be an idle moment. -Indolence, as St. Benedict<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a>{94}</span> declared, is an enemy of the soul; and all -his arrangements of time and task were made with that in mind. Eastern -monasticism had two dominant notes, of pain and prayer. St. Benedict -took pain out and put work in the place of it. No man was to afflict his -soul or body needlessly, but every man was to devote himself, for his -physical and spiritual good, to vigorous exercise. The idle monk was -like the idle minister: he existed, but not often.</p> - -<p>All the work was done, as far as was possible, in silence. Out of the -east walk of the cloister, beside the chapter-house, opened the parlour. -There, as the name indicates, the monks could talk. The original rule -specified only the dormitory and the refectory as places wherein speech -was forbidden; but silence came to be the common habit of the monastic -life, its enforcement depending much upon the disposition of the abbot. -The monastery was the abode of blessed stillness. Within its walls men -lived in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a>{95}</span> peace and quiet. They did their tasks without conversation. -They read their books, and ate their meals, thinking their own -uninterrupted thoughts. They sat in the cloister, where the wind and the -sun played in the grass, and were altogether undisturbed. It was not so -much a penitential as a protective silence, good for the soul, and -restful.</p> - -<p>There was even a bit of quiet pleasure in the midst of these silent -labours. In the south walk of the cloister, between the dormitory stairs -and the refectory, was the warming house, the abbey fireside. Here, in -the cold weather, the monks came to warm their hands. The abbot had a -fire-place of his own; the cellarer had one in his office; and the -infirmary and the guest houses were cheerfully warmed; but the common -brotherhood had but this one hearth. Here was concentrated all the heat -of the place, in the huge fire-places. One of these great openings is -now blocked, having been<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a>{96}</span> disused before the suppression, when the -number of monks was growing smaller, but the other is still ready for a -load of logs, whose smoke would pour out of the tall chimney. Two large -openings in the west wall gave some heat to the refectory. Here, in the -warming house, in Advent, the brothers kept a “solemn banquet” of “figs -and raisins, cakes and ale,” of whose celebration at Durham it is said -that there was “no superfluity or excess, but a scholastical and -moderate congratulation amongst themselves.” A door in the south-west -corner opened upon a little court; the woodhouse stood in the eastern -part of it, and a wooden bridge, from the refectory corner, led across -the river. Over this bridge came the stout brothers in their gowns of -brown or white, their arms full of wood. At Durham, near the warming -house, there was a garden and a bowling alley.</p> - -<p>The muniment room at Studley Royal contains among its treasures a</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 397px;"> -<a href="images/i_p096a_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_p096a_sml.jpg" width="397" height="252" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -<div class="caption"><p><i>Fountains Abbey.</i></p> - -<p><i>From the South West.</i></p> - -<p> -<i>Photo. Frith.</i> <span class="spacd"> </span> <i>Art Repro. Co.</i><br /> -</p></div> -</div> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a>{97}</span></p> - -<p class="nind">book of accounts of the bursar, kept in the time of Abbot Grenewell -(1442-1471). There it appears that they had “a pair of clavichords” at -the Abbey—the pianoforte of the Middle Ages. This would seem to imply -domestic music. Somebody must have played, while the brethren stood -about and sang. There are also various records of fees paid to persons -who went about the country from abbey to castle, from manor-house to -market-square, for the entertainment of their neighbours. Minstrels came -from Beverley, with those of Lord Arundell, of Lord Beaumont, of Lord -Fitzhugh, even of the King; who not only sang but acted as conjurers, -gymnasts, contortionists, and variety showmen. Sometimes the audience of -the Abbey was given to a story-teller—<i>fabulator</i>—“the story-teller of -the Earl of Salisbury”; with selections from the Hundred Merry Tales or -the <i>Gesta Romanorum</i>. Players came from Thirsk and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a>{98}</span> Ripon. Sometimes -the entertainer was a jester, or, as they said, a fool. One of the -bursar’s items shows a payment of fourpence “to a fool called Solomon -(who came again).” These diversions would perhaps be given on the -cellarer’s terrace; that is, in the space to the west of the cellarium, -which was once enclosed within a wall, from the church porch to the -cellarer’s office.</p> - -<p>One of Abbot Grenewell’s purchases was a great clock, made by John -Ripley, and probably set in the south transept of the church. In the -middle of the hot day in summer, after the service of sext, and late in -the afternoon in winter, after nones, when the clock pointed to the -proper hour, a bell in the cloister rang for dinner; either a bell or a -board struck with a mallet. Outside the refectory door, on either hand, -were stone troughs with running water from the river. In the middle of -the cloister is a great stone bason. When that welcome sound was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a>{99}</span> heard, -the brothers washed their hands in the troughs or in the bason, wiping -them on a roller towel which hung beside the door. Then they entered -their noble dining-hall, lofty as a church, with ceiling of wood and -floor of stone, wainscoted above the height of a man’s head, and having -down the midst a row of marble pillars. At the end opposite the door, -and along the wall on both sides, were stone benches, and in front of -them were tables of oak, covered with linen cloth. The prior commonly -presided, the abbot dining in his own lodgings. All stood in silence -till the prior was in his place, and remained standing while he rang a -little bell during a time sufficient for the saying of the fifty-first -psalm. When the bell stopped, the priest of the week said grace, and -they all sat down.</p> - -<p>In the fair gallery of stone in the west wall, deeply recessed and -lighted by great windows, reached by a short flight of stone steps, the -reader stood to ac<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a>{100}</span>company the silent meal with words of Holy Scripture -and of ancient authors. The kitchen adjoined the refectory on the west, -having its great ovens in the middle of the room, and entered from the -refectory by a service door which had a round revolving shelf across the -middle of it. Between the door to the gallery and the door to the -kitchen there was perhaps a sideboard; and in the corners toward the -cloister were cupboards for cups and plates and spoons, each provided -with a sink. There were forty-five silver spoons here when the inventory -was made, but only three small cups or mazers, and one big one, of -silver. This would appear to indicate that the cups and plates were of -some cheap material and not worth counting.</p> - -<p>The bill of fare showed bread and vegetables and fruit and fish. -Sometimes there was meat, but this was cooked in the kitchen of the -infirmary, and served in the misericord, or House of Merciful<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a>{101}</span> Meals. No -flesh which had ever walked about upon four feet was dressed in the -cloister kitchen or served in the cloister refectory. But fowls were -eaten, and eggs were a staple of monastic diet. The monks had wine and -beer for drink, according to the custom of the country. In the book of -signs—<i>De Signis</i>—which shows how the monks of Ely indicated their -wishes at the silent table, four gestures are set down to mean beer: -signifying good beer, <i>bona servisia</i>, small beer, <i>mediocris servisia</i>, -smaller beer, <i>debilis servisia</i>, and a very common beer called -<i>skagmen</i>. In the “Mirroure of Our Ladye,” the sister of Sion House who -desired an apple was directed to “put thy thumb in thy fist, and close -thy hand, and move afore thee to and fro”; for milk, “draw thy left -little finger in the manner of milking”; for mustard, “hold thy nose in -the upper part of thy right fist, and rub it”; for salt, “philip with -thy right thumb and his forefinger over the left thumb”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a>{102}</span>; for wine, -“move thy forefinger up and down upon the end of thy thumb before thine -eye.” A dinner to the accompaniment of these cheerful communications, -while one read aloud from a good book, may well have been a pleasant -meal.</p> - -<p>At Ely, during the week beginning August 5, 1336, the brethren of the -monastery had on Sunday eggs, chickens, pigeons and dripping; on Monday, -pottage and cod; on Tuesday, fresh meat and mutton; on Wednesday, fresh -fish, white herring and cod; on Thursday, fresh meat, white herring and -cod; on Friday, white herring and cod; and on Saturday, dripping, milk, -white herring and cod.</p> - -<p>When Abbot Grenewell went to attend the assizes at York, as he did in -1455, at the March session of the court, he dined the first day on fish -alone; on the second day, having guests at his table, he added salt and -mustard to the fish; on the third day, fish was served with figs, -raisins and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a>{103}</span> gingerbread; the fare of the fourth day was like that of -the second, and the fifth day followed the third. With this were bread -and beer and wine.</p> - -<p>Monastic meals, though monotonous, were wholesome; and there was a good -deal of variety in the preparation of the fish. St. Bernard, in his day, -complained of the ingenuity with which eggs were cooked in religious -houses. “Who can describe,” he cries, “in how many ways the very eggs -are tossed and tormented, with what eager care they are turned over and -under, made soft and hard, beaten up, fried, roasted, stuffed, now -served minced with other things, and now by themselves! The very -external appearance of the thing is cared for, so that the eye may be -charmed as well as the palate.” As the monasteries increased in wealth, -there would be a constant temptation to dine more abundantly. Eating is -not only one of the earliest but one of the most universal of arts, and -no cook<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a>{104}</span> nor convert could completely resist its allurements. For the -most part, however, the abbey fare was fit food for soldiers, for men in -training for a war with Satan.</p> - -<p>Thus the silent meal progressed, the level voice of the reader at his -desk in the gallery, accompanying the cheerful sounds of honest eating -and drinking. No brother was permitted to leave until the meal was -ended, nor walk about while his companions were eating. Neither was he -allowed to wash his cup with his fingers, though he might wipe it with -his hand. He was forbidden to wipe either his hands or his knife on the -table-cloth,—until he had first cleansed them on his bread. When he -helped himself to salt it must be with his knife; when he drank, he must -hold the cup with both hands. “Eyes on your plates, hands on the table, -ears to the reader, heart to God”: thus ran the rule. Then the prior -rang a sharp note on his bell. If the great mazer of silver with a gilt -band, which is mentioned<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a>{105}</span> in the inventory, was a grace cup, then it was -at this moment that it went its round, each brother lifting it to his -lips, holding its two handles. Then, two by two, they marched into the -church and said the miserere psalm.</p> - -<p>Out of the cloister, in the south-east corner, between the parlour and -the day-stairs to the dormitory, a passage led to the buildings which -lay beyond. The beginning of this passage crossed a long room which -extended to the south, whose central line of pillars upheld the -dormitory floor. The ceiling was low and the windows were at the south -end, so that its use is not apparent. It may have been the chamber of -the novices; it may have been the tool-house. It may have been an office -or checker, wherein the master of the warming house kept his hogshead of -wine, and his spices, figs and walnuts, with which to mitigate the -austerities of Lent. Or the chamberlain may have used it, whose charge -was to furnish the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a>{106}</span> brethren with linsey-woolsey for their shirts and -sheets; in which case, the tailor may have sat in the light of the south -windows, mending frayed scapularies and darning holes in cowls and -gowns.</p> - -<p>The passage led into a gallery, with open arcading of stone on either -side, and a second storey over. Out of the gallery, to the right, opened -the abbot’s lodgings, where a long hall gave entrance into several -rooms. Beside the door a stairway rose to the upper chambers, which -appear to have been large and light, with comfortable fireplaces, and -oriel windows looking out to east and south over the river. In one of -these rooms, or in the misericord which was connected with this building -by a hall, the abbot dined with visitors of state. Here, at the time of -the inventory, were two gilded basins of silver, three silver ewers, -eight “standing pieces” with covers, nine “flat pieces,” all of silver, -with a goblet and some spoons: so that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a>{107}</span> abbot’s table must have -presented a shining and sumptuous appearance. The open space bounded by -the dormitory basement on the west, the arcaded passage on the north, -the rere-dorter or necessarium on the south, and the abbot’s lodgings on -the east, may have been the abbot’s garden, his <i>hortus inclusus</i>. -Somewhere, at a convenient distance, must have been the abbot’s stable -for his six horses—<i>sex equi ad stabulum domini abbatis</i>,—in charge of -his boy, whose russet suit cost fifteen pence. The chalice, paten and -cruets which were in the abbot’s house would seem to mean that one of -the rooms was an oratory, with an altar. Under the abbot’s lodgings were -the cells for offenders.</p> - -<p>From the north-west corner of the second story, over the entrance, a -passage opened into the upper course of the long gallery. Here was a -hall with many windows, warmed here and there with fire-places, -extending east to the infirmary,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a>{108}</span> north to the chapel of nine altars, -and west to the dormitory. Here the abbot could walk; here, in the oriel -which projected into the chapel, he could say his prayers and hear mass -quite by himself. He was the only member of the monastic family who had -the privilege of privacy.</p> - -<p>The gallery is almost entirely ruined, but a comparison with the -arrangements of other monastic houses suggests that the upper storey of -the western part, next to the dormitory, was the library or the -writing-room. Here, where there was plenty of light, the records and -accounts may have been kept. Here the books may have been copied which -were used in the choir, and in the cloister and in the school. The -completed records, especially such as related to the abbey lands, may -have been stored in the room over the warming house, now used as a -museum for fragments of pottery and broken carvings found in the ruins.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a>{109}</span> -This room, reached by the day stairs to the dormitory, had a bar at the -door by which the occupant could lock himself in. This bar is a -perplexing fact, and nobody has as yet explained why any official of the -abbey should need to defend himself against intrusion in this peremptory -fashion. If this was the muniment room, it held the great books of the -Chartulary of Fountains, of which the volume A to C is in the British -Museum. D to J is at Ripley Castle, and K to M is in the library of the -late Sir Thomas Phillips. The remaining volumes are not yet traced. Here -were kept the bundles of title-deeds, now at Studley Hall; with pendant -seals, which show that there were neighbouring farmers who attested -their signatures with impressions of Roman gems which their forefathers -had turned up with the plough. The President Book would be kept here, -with its dated list of abbots up to 1471; and the Coucher Book, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a>{110}</span> -its register of the dealings of the monks with their manors. These two -probably lay by the abbot’s side as he sat in his place in the chapter -house at business meetings. They are now preserved in the muniment room -at Studley Hall.</p> - -<p>The long corridor, which connected the cloister with the infirmary, -passed, as we have seen, the abbot’s lodging on the right and the -entrance-way to the chapel of the nine altars on the left. Opposite the -chapel entrance there was an opening into the coal-yard. Coal was found -here when the recent excavations were made. In the south-east corner of -this yard lay the abbey rubbish heap, the materials of which were -apparently shovelled out from the window beside it, whose sill shows the -marks of this daily exercise. Here were found various broken dishes, a -sickle blade, a copper can, bushels of oyster shells, and bones -identified as belonging to beef, mutton,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a>{111}</span> pork and venison, together -with a great quantity of ashes.</p> - -<p>The room out of which this refuse was thrown is reached by a passage -which opens out of the long corridor close by the infirmary door. Here, -according to Mr. Walbran, stood the reservoir, fed by a lead pipe from a -spring on the high bank.</p> - -<p>The meat bones in the rubbish heap suggest the near neighbourhood of the -House of Merciful Meals. This is the room which lies to the south of the -reservoir and the coal-yard. A screen extended across the east end of -the misericord, and there was a dais for the high table at the west end. -Along the north wall are still remains of one of the stone benches. -Tables stood here, as in the refectory of the cloister.</p> - -<p>The long corridor ended at the door of the infirmary. This was a noble -group of buildings, now ruined almost to the ground. There was a great -hall, one of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a>{112}</span> the finest in the kingdom, with two rows of stately -pillars. It had a fire-place at each end, and the aisles were divided by -partitions into small rooms, some having fire-places of their own. Back -of it, to the east, reached by broad stone steps, eight of which remain, -stood a two-storied structure, with vaulted basement probably for -domestic stores, and with upper apartments which may have served for the -entertainment of guests of unusual distinction. Up these stairs, then, -attended by officers of the Abbey, went the Nevilles, the Marmions, the -Mauleverers, on their visits to the monastery. In the chamber above -slept the abbot of Clairvaux, when he came on his round of inspection of -the Cistercian houses. Adjoining this lodging, on the south, was the -chapel, into which a flight of narrow stairs descended from this -guest-room. The base of the altar is still <i>in situ</i>. Next the chapel, -with a yard between, was the spacious kitchen, whose<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a>{113}</span> great round ovens -are still in place. Here, was cooked the food for the infirmary, for the -misericord, and for the occupants of the lodging. A staircase beside the -chapel-door seems to have led from the kitchen to the guest-room, over -the arch of the entrance.</p> - -<p>Here, in the infirmary, were gathered the old men, who had been monks -for fifty years. Here the sick were cared for. Here regularly, in -groups, a fourth part of the brethren at a time, came all the monks in -succession for the periodical <i>minutio</i>, or letting of blood, according -to the medical discipline of the time. In this comfortable seclusion -they regained their strength. The doors of the infirmary were shut -against the harsher regulations of the monastic life. Fires blazed on -the hearth and roared up the great chimneys, and there were good things -on the table at dinner time. The place was both a hospital and an old -men’s home. The buildings extended over the river,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a>{114}</span> which flowed in four -tunnels beneath. To the north, beside the chapel of the nine altars, lay -the cemetery. In this quiet place, remote from even the peaceful stir of -the cloister, the monks expected to end their days. Their longest -journey out of this blessed haven was when they crept along the -corridor, and the nine-altars chapel, and the presbytery aisle, to their -place on the stout oak bench against the back of the rood screen, to -hear mass on some high festival. They awaited only one longer journey, -when they should be carried out of the infirmary chapel to the green -cemetery.</p> - -<p>When the time for that last journey drew near, the abbot came to -administer the sacrament, with all the brethren assembled. Then a cross -of ashes was traced upon the floor, with a merciful covering of straw -upon it and a quilt on that; there the sick man was laid. When the -brother’s breath grew faint and difficult, and it was plain that the -moment of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a>{115}</span> his departure was at hand, a board in the cloister was struck -repeated blows with a mallet, and all the monks hastened to their -brother’s side. Thus he closed his eyes, amidst the prayers of his -friends, and passed from the peace of the monastery to the rest of -paradise.</p> - -<p>This quiet end of life was continually symbolised in the quiet ending of -the monastic day. Late in the afternoon, the office of vespers was said -in the church, somewhat elaborately, with much singing and -organ-playing. After vespers, in the twilight, the monks sat in the -cloister, about the refectory door, and somebody read aloud from a good -book, preferably the Collations of Cassian. On Saturday afternoons -during the reading, the brothers by turns sat in a row on the stone -benches which were over the lavatory troughs on either side of the -refectory door, and had their feet washed in the running water by the -cooks of that week and of the week to come. Then the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a>{116}</span> compline prayers -were said, in the summer about seven o’clock, in the winter about eight. -And at the end of the service, every monk pulled his cowl over his head -and went to bed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a>{117}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV<br /><br /> -<small>THE SUPPRESSION</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">For</span> two hundred and fifty years—from the time of Abbot John of Kent, -whose day ended in 1247, to the time of Abbot John, called Darnton, -whose day began in 1479—no notable additions were made to the fabric of -the Abbey. The energies of the brethren were directed to the diligent -living of their daily life.</p> - -<p>In Craven, the Abbey owned a hundred square miles within a ring fence; -in the neighbourhood of Ripon, their lands ran in one direction for -thirty uninterrupted miles. The monks of the daughter house of Kirkstead -had farms in Lincolnshire, forty thousand acres of pasture land in -Wildmore Fen, and property in Boston, Lincoln and London. They had -tithes of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a>{118}</span> deer in Kirkstead Chase and the swans on Witham river. -They sold wool in Flanders. They maintained several large mills and an -iron works. And Fountains was much richer than Kirkstead. These -possessions brought heavy responsibilities, and made a great demand on -the monks’ time. There were tenants and title-deeds to be looked after, -collections to be made, markets to be considered, with buying and -selling, and the care of sheep and cattle.</p> - -<p>In addition to these cares, the abbot was the official visitor of eleven -other abbeys—the eight daughter houses, with three which had grown out -of the first—and went about among them on journeys of inspection and -encouragement and counsel. Also, as late as the fourteenth century, he -had a seat in Parliament, where he wore his mitre and discussed the -affairs of the wide world. Early in the fifteenth century he attended -the Council of Constance,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a>{119}</span> where he heard Wyclif condemned and saw Hus -burned. Late in the same century, when Henry VII., the last of the -mediæval kings, kept St. George’s Day in state at York, it was the Abbot -of Fountains who read the epistle at high mass in the Minster.</p> - -<p>This abbot was John Darnton, who resumed again the old enthusiasm for -making the Abbey beautiful. He put new windows in the place of the plain -old ones, in the west end of the nave, and in the chapel of the nine -altars, east and north and south. After him, on the very eve of the -Suppression, looking forward to centuries more of prosperity and peace. -Abbot Marmaduke Huby built the noble tower.</p> - -<p>About this time the Abbey bought a map—“a paper map of the world”—for -which the bursar paid eight pence. There it hung upon the parlour wall, -that all the monks might see what sort of place they lived in—a small -world,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a>{120}</span> whose centre was at the altar of St. Peter’s Church in Rome. But -while the new glass was being put in the big new windows the tidings -came that a new world had been found across the sea; and to this -expansion it soon became necessary to readjust the horizons both of maps -and of ideas. In the process of this readjustment the Abbey came to an -end.</p> - -<p>When the Reformation began, the abbeys were all against it. To the men -of the cloister, living by rule and wonted to silence, the bold ideas of -the robust prophets of the new time had a harsh and forbidding sound. -Rumours of the current sayings and doings found their way into the -Abbey—the farmer made report to the cellarer when he brought in his -beets and onions—and the brethren shuddered to hear them, as men shake -and shiver upon whom the cold wind blows around the corner after a day -spent by the warm fire. In the quick<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a>{121}</span>ening contention between the old -learning and the new the monks held with the past.</p> - -<p>Thus it was also in the increasingly embittered politics of the time. At -Jervaulx Abbey, on a July Sunday in 1536, a monk sharply interrupted the -preacher who was maintaining that the king was the head of the Church. -The monk said that he neither would nor could take the king’s highness -for to be the only and supreme head of the Church of England. He -affirmed that the Pope was the head of the Church, and not the king. And -his brethren agreed with him. That was what they held at Fountains. On -one side were the king and the bishops, on the other side were the Pope -and the monks. The contrast between abbey and cathedral—between the -monks’ church and the bishops’ church,—is of like significance with the -contrast between the castles of Kenilworth and Warwick. The two castles -took differ<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a>{122}</span>ent sides in a great national division; and Kenilworth, -which chose the side of Charles, and lost, is a battered ruin, while -Warwick, which chose the side of Cromwell, and won, is a stately -inhabited mansion. The abbey and the cathedral made their choice in an -earlier division. It needs but a glance to tell which chose the side -that was defeated.</p> - -<p>Fountains, like the other monasteries, was ill prepared for the heavy -storm. The convent had decreased in numbers. One of the fire-places in -the warming-house, one of the ovens in the refectory kitchen, had been -blocked up as being no longer needed. The partitions down the rows of -pillars in the nave had been removed, for there were no lay brothers to -sit in the long lines of stalls. Men were asking menacing questions as -to the practical value of these vast establishments which were -withdrawing from the general life of the nation so much wealth and -strength. Parliament sup<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a>{123}</span>pressed nearly four hundred of the lesser -monasteries, partly on the ground that they were places of evil living, -partly on the ground that their revenues were needed for the better -benefit of the people; and there were few complaints. Though the greater -abbeys were expressly exempted at that time from the accusations of -immoral conduct, even they could not escape the charge of rendering but -a scanty and uncertain service to the community.</p> - -<p>It was the misfortune of Fountains, at this critical time, to have an -incompetent and unworthy abbot; though even a saint could not have saved -the place from the hand of the spoiler. In 1530, the Earl of -Northumberland appealed to Cardinal Wolsey, in behalf of the brethren of -Fountains, to remove the abbot. Abbot Thirsk, he said, doth not -endeavour himself like a discreet father towards the convent and the -profit of the house, but hath, against the same,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a>{124}</span> as well sold and -wasted the great part or all of their store in cattle, as also their -woods in divers countries, neither does he maintain the service of God -like to the ancient custom there. The King’s commissioners, Layton and -Legh, said worse things about him. They declared that he was defamed <i>a -toto populo</i>. They complained that there was no truth in him, one day -denying and the next confessing various sins laid to his charge. They -were especially indignant because one night he took secretly out of the -sacristy or treasure room a gold cross adorned with stones, and in -company with a jeweller, who had come from London, whom he took into his -lodgings, did abstract from the cross an emerald and a ruby, which the -London jeweller bought of him, cheating the abbot badly. It is plain -that the poor man was at his wit’s end, sorely badgered by these -insistent visitors, seeing the ruin of his holy house, and trying, if -possible,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a>{125}</span> to save something out of it. Finally, he resigned his office -into the hands of the commissioners, who assigned him a scanty pension. -He took refuge in the Abbey of Jervaulx, where he became involved in the -revolutionary proceedings of the Pilgrimage of Grace, and atoned for -such misdeeds as he may have committed by being hanged at Tyburn.</p> - -<p>Abbot Thirsk’s successor, Marmaduke Bradley, was selected by the -commissioners. They said that he was the wisest monk in England; and he -showed that he was even as wise, as the Bible says, as a serpent, by -doing what his masters bade him. In 1539, at their demand, he -surrendered the Abbey to the King.</p> - -<p>The commissioners came down from London, late in the November of that -year, and called a meeting, probably in the chapter house. There they -assembled the abbot and the convent and the chief people of the -neighbourhood, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a>{126}</span> whom they duly declared “the godly determination of -the King’s majesty to alter and change that house, with many others, -from an unchristian life to a trade of virtuous and honest living.” The -thirty-two brethren were promised proper pensions. They were accordingly -advised “to submit themselves to his Majesty’s clemency and goodness, -and by way of surrender to yield up into his Grace’s hands their -monastery, with all the lands, possessions, jewels, plate, ornaments, -and other things belonging to the same.” The commissioners then took -possession of the convent seal, with all the keys, and made an -inventory. Thus politely, and even piously, was this royal robbery -effected.</p> - -<p>The abbot betook himself to Ripon, where he held a prebendal stall. The -prior and his thirty brethren were turned briskly out of doors to face -the approaching winter. Despoiled of their own garments they were given -suits of citizen’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a>{127}</span> clothes, and were set outside the gates of their -fair paradise to make their way, as best they could, over the strange -roads of the cold world.</p> - -<p>The gold and silver of the rich altars, with all things of value such as -could be moved, were put in waggons and sent to the king. Distant though -the Abbey was from any town, the rumour of these proceedings would -attract a crowd. And the crowd stole what they could. The servants of -the commissioners, who had a better chance, stole more, according to -their opportunity. They rode about in those days, from the wreck of one -abbey to the ruin of another, with rich copes for travelling cloaks and -chasubles for saddle cloths. The master thief was abroad, and it was a -pity if the little thieves could not have a share.</p> - -<p>Then the windows were taken out, so carefully that but a handful of the -precious glass remained in all the ruins, and were disposed of, nobody -knows how or<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a>{128}</span> where. The bells were taken down and carried off; one to -be hung, tradition says, in the cathedral tower at Ripon. Finally, the -roofs were pulled off, and the lead brought into the dismantled church; -and there between the great pillars, betwixt the broken altars of St. -Mary and St. Bernard, in a fire whose fuel was the carved work of the -choir stalls, it was melted into convenient shape for the market.</p> - -<p>An eye-witness has left a description of the spoiling of the dependent -house of Roche Abbey. “The sudden spoil fell,” he says, “the same day of -their departure from the house.... The church was the first thing that -was put to the spoil, then the abbot’s lodging, dorter and frater -[<i>i.e.</i>, dormitory and refectory] with the cloister and all the -buildings thereabout within the abbey walls.... The persons that cast -the lead into fodders plucked up all the seats in the choir where the -monks sat when they said</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 364px;"> -<a href="images/i_p128a_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_p128a_sml.jpg" width="364" height="254" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -<div class="caption"><p><i>Fountains Hall.</i></p> - -<p> -Photo. Frith. <span class="spacd"> </span> Art Repro. Co.<br /> -</p></div> -</div> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a>{129}</span></p> - -<p class="nind">service, which were like to seats in minsters, and burned them and -melted the lead therewith, although there was wood plenty within a -flight-shot of them, for the abbey stood among the woods.” Everybody was -busy, he says, pilfering what he could and hiding it among the rocks, -“so that it seemeth that every person bent himself to filch and spoil -what he could.” At Fountains, the ashes of such fires remained until the -last century, amidst the general wreck.</p> - -<p>The place was sold within a few months to Richard Gresham, a gentleman -of London, who paid seven thousand pounds for it. In 1597, the heirs of -Gresham sold it to Stephen Procter, a courtier of Elizabeth, who pulled -down some of the buildings outside the cloister that he might get -materials for his fine new Fountains Hall, near the west gate. His -affairs falling into great confusion the place was again sold, and -thereafter passed from hand to hand until,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a>{130}</span> in the middle of the -eighteenth century, it came into the possession of William Aislabie, the -owner of the neighbouring estate of Studley Royal. From whose -granddaughter, Miss Lawrence, it passed by will to the Earl de Grey, the -uncle of the present owner, the Marquess of Ripon.</p> - -<p class="c"> -Printed by <span class="smcap">Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.</span><br /> -London & Edinburgh<br /> -</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a>{131}</span></p> - -<p><a name="end" id="end"></a></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<a href="images/i_colorplana_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i_colorplana_sml.jpg" width="500" height="295" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -<div class="caption"><p>HISTORICAL GROUND PLAN</p> - -<p>FOUNTAINS ABBEY</p> - -<p class="nonvis"> -[<a href="images/i_colorplana_lg.jpg">Larger view</a>] -[<a href="images/i_colorplana_huge.jpg">Largest view</a>]</p></div> -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a>{132}</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a>{133}</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<a href="images/i_bwmap_lg.png"> -<img src="images/i_bwmap_sml.png" width="500" height="493" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -<div class="caption"> -<p class="nonvis"> -[<a href="images/i_bwmap_lg.png">Larger view</a>] -[<a href="images/i_bwmap_huge.png">Largest view</a>]</p></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a>{134}</span></p> - -<hr class="full" /> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fountains Abbey, by George Hodges - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOUNTAINS ABBEY *** - -***** This file should be named 52581-h.htm or 52581-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/5/8/52581/ - -Produced by deaurider, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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