Fountains Abbey

UPPRE

ime of Abbot John, called Darnton, whose day began in 1479-no notable additions were made to the fabri

re land in Wildmore Fen, and property in Boston, Lincoln and London. They had tithes of the{118} 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 tha

unsel. 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,{119} where he hear

f 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 th

they lived in-a small world,{120} 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

g 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

he 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 Warwic

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{123}pressed nearly four hundred of the lesser monasteries, partly on the ground that they were places of

her 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

s the wisest monk in England; and he showed that he was even as wise, as the Bible says, as a serpen

lter 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

f doors to face the approaching winter. Despoiled of their own garments they were given suits of citizen's{127} clothes, and we

s 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

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 betwe

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 service, which were like to seats in minsters, and burned them and melted the lead therewith, although there was wood plenty within a fl

de 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,{130} in the middle of the eighteenth

Ballantyne,

& Edi

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