Byland Abbey: History
• Sources
• Foundation
• Consolidation
• Later Middle Ages
• Dissolution

Byland Abbey: Buildings
• Precinct
• Church
• Cloister
• Sacristy
• Library
• Chapter House
• Parlour
• Dormitory
• Warming House
• Day Room
• Refectory
• Kitchen
• Lay Brothers' Range

Internal life at Byland: crimes, misdemeanours and episcopal visits

Temptation
© British Library
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Whilst we do not now have a comprehensive account of monastic life at Byland in the later Middle Ages, piecemeal references from diverse sources can be revealing and shed some light on the personalities who belonged to the community at this time. Episcopal registers provide evidence of more unusual happenings including misdemeanours committed by monks and lay-brothers of Byland, and visits by archbishops of York. For example, they reveal that in April 1316, John Husthwaite, a monk of Byland, was excommunicated for ‘deviating from the path of truth’.(60) A rather interesting case relates to a lay-brother of Byland, who was imprisoned and excommunicated by the archbishop’s official in 1314 for committing ‘carnal offences’ with no fewer than three women. The abbot of Byland regarded it his duty, rather than the archbishop’s, to punish such offences and wrote to the prelate reminding him of the Cistercians’ exemption from episcopal authority. The matter was passed to the archbishop’s official who rubbished the abbot’s claim. He maintained that according to custom, this exemption only applied to crimes committed within the abbey precinct; in other words, this immunity did not apply to the person, as the abbot of Byland argued, but to the place.(61)

An Oxford regent
Geoffrey of Pickering, abbot of Byland in the late fourteenth century, has been equated with the Geoffrey of Byland who was regent master in Oxford in 1393 and who wrote on the revelations of St Bridget of Sweden.
[A Handlist of Latin Writers, ed. R. Sharpe (Turnhout, 1997), p. 127.]

In addition to maintaining order within the community, the abbot of Byland was responsible for the community’s daughter-house of Jervaulx, in Wensleydale. His duties here included the annual visitation of the abbey and his attendance on important occasions, such as the election of a new abbot. Thus, in 1312 the abbots of Byland and Fountains presided over the ‘harmonious’ election of Thomas to the abbacy of Jervaulx.(62)

Whilst Cistercian abbeys were exempt from episcopal visitation they might, nonetheless, be expected to accommodate the archbishop and his retinue for a night, if the prelate was in the vicinity. This was no mean feat and would have necessitated considerable organisation and expense. Byland had two such visits in the early fourteenth century. Archbishop Corbridge (1300-1394) stayed for a night at Byland in April 1301 and Archbishop Greenfield (1306-1315) was accommodated there on Friday 19 July 1308, during his visitation of Cleveland; the following night Greenfield was entertained at Rievaulx. Greenfield had notified Byland of his intended visit on 1 July 1308.(63)