From Rievaulx
and Fountains the Cistercians
spread their seeds throughout the country, and overseas, even as
far afield as Norway, where a colony from Fountains founded the
abbey of Lyse in 1146. Expansion
in the North mirrored developments in England: the Order blossomed
throughout the first half of the twelfth century, but by c. 1150
the main period of growth was completed. 1147, the Golden
Year of the Order, was also a significant year for the Yorkshire
houses: three of the eight abbeys were founded (Kirkstall,
Roche and Sawley),
and the absorption of the Savigniac Congregation brought Byland,
and later Jervaulx, within
the Northern Cistercian family. It was also the year that one of
their members, Henry Murdac,
was appointed to the see of York.
During this period of growth the monks had a
considerable impact on the Yorkshire people, whom they attracted
as donors and recruits; indeed, the number of local recruits was
sustained until the Dissolution in the sixteenth century. The Cistercians
incorporation of lay-brothers,
professed members of the community engaged as a labour force, opened
the monastic life to those hitherto excluded, accommodating a wider
spectrum of locals.
To
the revered father and lord Ernald, abbot of Rievaulx, from
his devoted William, the least of Christ’s servants, who prays
that when the Prince of pastors appears he may obtain the crown
of glory which will not wither. .....
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The Yorkshire monks also had a close
relationship with men from neighbouring religious orders, notably,
the Augustinian canon, William
of Newburgh. It was at the request
of Abbot Roger of Byland, that
William wrote his commentary on the Song of Songs, and at Abbot
Ernald of Rievaulxs behest that he wrote his History of
English Affairs.
The Cistercians impact on
their neighbours was not always favourable. The Kirkstall monks,
who first settled at Barnoldswick, pulled down the parish church
where the locals gathered every Sunday; when the monks of Meaux
moved to their site the inhabitants were dispersed and their village
became the abbeys home grange. Whilst the natives were sometimes
spared eviction by their reception as lay-brothers, instances such
as these played into the hands of the Cistercians critics
who accused them of destruction and depopulation, of razing villages
and turning out parishioners as one rather acerbic contemporary
noted, "they make a solitude that they may be solitaries".(2)
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