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Byland Abbey: History
Byland Abbey: Buildings
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Arable and pastoral lands
To sustain a self-sufficient community every Cistercian abbey needed to acquire or have access to vast tracts of arable and pastoral land. Byland, like other Cistercian houses, administered and exploited its lands through the establishment of granges. These agricultural centres were managed by the lay-brothers, who cultivated and harvested the land, and reared the abbey’s livestock. The establishment of Byland’s granges was begun within ten years of the abbey’s foundation, when the community was still part of the Savigniac order.(39) The first grange was created at Wildon, c. 1142, and the second at Old Byland c. 1147. A chain of granges and lodges was established in Nidderdale. A typical grange had three or four hundred acres of arable land, such as Byland’s granges at Murton and Osgodby.(40) Whereas some granges served primarily as sheepstations, others were dedicated to cattle-rearing, arable farming or industrial work. The grange at Ramsgill had a chapel, and a surviving wall from this stands near the nineteenth-century church here.(41) According to early Cistercian legislation, each grange was to be located within one day’s journey of the abbey, so that the lay-brothers could easily return to the monastery on Sundays and feast days. Whilst a number of Byland’s granges were established near to the abbey, others lay further afield. For example, both Bentley and Denby were near Wakefield; Ramsgill, Byland’s chief grange in Nidderdale, was about thirty miles away and the three granges in Westmorland (Bleatern, Shap and Asby) were over 60 miles from the monastery.(42) |