Fountains Abbey

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d 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{21} 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

. 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 fligh

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,

is sins, begged for the services of the brethren

ttlement 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

, of Pontefract Castle, having meditated upon his misdeeds during a long ill

r 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 parishioner

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,{27} had complained of its sterility, saying that it gave him only oaten br

Cistercian Order had been growing at some such rate as this in many other places: too fast and too far, they feared at Clairvaux.

HE BU

bout the elm had given place

ides 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 t

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{30}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

he south wall of the nave{31} 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; roof

ng 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 tempor

ent 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 perm

ed 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. Ma

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{35} 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 gr

the abbot, for the Pope deposed William and confirmed Henry, who

'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 promis

quieted 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

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, probabl

90-1203) carried on the Abbey into the thirteenth century; but wit

ust 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

, 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 Will

e 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 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 p

them,{42} 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

ng directs that certain treasures hidden by him for safe keeping at the Abbey-vasa, pocalia, aurea et argenta-be now immediately and private{43}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 r

of the cloister, and a guest-house-or the improvement of the existing guest-houses-and a new paving of the church floor{44} in tiles of a geometrical design. This abbot built also the bakehouse, and the bridge. Leland, in 1541, speaks of many shafts of black m

and Stephen and Henry Plantagenet were ruling England, while Becket was Archbishop of Canterbury; part