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The initial'Q' from the Moralia in Job shows two monks splitting a log © Bibliotheque Municipale, Dijon
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Gerald of Wales and Walter Map, two bitter and satirical commentators on the Cistercians, complained of their excessive greed for land, and recounted several stories to expose the dirty tricks which the White Monks were wont to employ to extend their possessions. Neither Gerald nor Walter were great admirers of the Cistercians and they undoubtedly embroidered the facts; their accounts are not simply inventions but rather caricatures.

Walter recounts tales of Cistercians who were so intent to increase their holdings that they moved their boundary marks during the night and resorted to foul play to secure land that they could not possess through negotiating a sale or offering spiritual benefits in return. He claims that the monks of one Cistercian abbey were determined to obtain a field that belonged to their knightly neighbour, and thus devised a crafty scheme to achieve their goal. One night they sent a number of men and carts to till the field, so that it looked as if they had farmed it for years. The next day when the surprised knight asked why their carts were in his field, the monks scoffed and claimed he was mad, for as anyone could see the land had clearly been theirs for a long time. Indeed, they managed to convince the judges that they were the rightful owners, but had their comeuppance shortly thereafter when the knight’s heir took vengeance upon them and set fire to their buildings.(1)

The nave of the abbey church at Byland from the east.
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Both Gerald and Walter recount an anecdote to show how the monks of Byland would stop at nothing to secure the estate of their knightly neighbour, who refused their offers to buy him out or receive their prayers in return for his land. The monks, therefore, implemented a violent plan. They sent a layman to the knight’s house, who presented himself as a stranger seeking hospitality in the name of Christ. Once inside, however, the man, and several of the monks who were with him, initiated a massacre, killing the knight, his children and household. The knight’s wife managed to escape to her uncle’s home, and returned with him three days later with his kinsmen and neighbours, to find, to their astonishment, that all signs of former occupation had disappeared; the land was now level with well-ploughed fields with no evidence of any buildings, enclosures or old fields. The uncle suspected that the White Monks were behind this mystery, and his suspicions were confirmed when he wandered through a gate and discovered several trees that were upended and sawn into blocks; clearly, they had been removed from the site. The case was brought to court where the knight’s wife was able to identify the perpetrators of this terrible crime. The layman, apparently, confessed after he had failed ordeal by water, and revealed that the monks had engaged his help, promising absolution from his sins past present and future, and boasting that no ordeal by fire, water or weapon could harm him. Needless to say the man was hanged ... (2)