A wide range of visitors would have enjoyed hospitality
at Fountains, and the community earned a reputation for its reception
of guests and care for the poor. Abbot John was commended for his
participation with guests, and his predecessor, Robert
of Pipewell, for his reception
of
strangers and pilgrims and for showing appropriate honour to guests.
The archbishop of Norway was certainly impressed after his visit
to Fountains in 1146, and arranged for a colony of the monks to
return with him to found
an abbey at Lysa, near Bergen. Henry
III (1216-1272) was evidently satisfied with the hospitality he
had received from the monks in 1244 and
to show
his gratitude, he granted the community three casks of wine, one
for the celebration of the Mass,
one for the monks’ infirmary and
one as a refectory pittance.(114) In
addition to dignitaries, Fountains would have welcomed
friends and families of the monks and lay-brothers,
visiting Cistercians and, of course, passers-by. Indeed, Fountains’ proximity
to Ripon and York, and to a network of roads, would have ensured
a steady flow of visitors. Inevitably, the administration of hospitality
could be
a drain
on the monastery’s resources, a fact acknowledged by the king in the
late thirteenth century, when Fountains was suffering financial
difficulties. The king warned his officials not to deplete the
community by staying either
at the abbey or on any of its granges.(115)
Gerald of Wales, who was
a harsh critic of the Cistercians, noted their generosity as hosts. However,
he questioned
their means of supporting this largesse.
[Read more]
The Beaulieu Account Book,
compiled c. 1270, includes a comprehensive list of the various
kinds of guests who might visit the community, and states
how they ought to be provided for during their stay. It encompasses
a wide range of visitors, for example, royalty and barons, church
dignitaries, monastic officials and clerics, messengers, mariners
and grooms.(116) Relatives
of the monks and lay-brothers would
also have visited the abbey and were permitted to stay for two
days twice a year.(117)
Hospitality on the granges
The abbot might also entertain on the abbey granges. In 1457 the duke of
York was feasted at Swanley grange, which lay to the north of the abbey
precinct.
[Memorials of Fountains III, p. 15.]
By the later Middle Ages the abbot of Fountains was a
man of prominence within the locality, and would have entertained
noteworthy guests lavishly in his magnificent residence. The account
books from John
Greenwell’s abbacy indicate that he, and those whom he entertained,
lived and dined in style, feasting on figs, walnuts, pears, fish
and oysters, as well partridges, quails and venison.(118)
When
Greenwell entertained the earl
of Northumberland (1457-8), he served a sumptuous spread of swans
and other birds costing twenty-seven shillings.(119) Lord
William Scrope had previously
dined on fresh fish which was purchased at Bury for nine-pence.(120) Abbot
Greenwell’s
successors evidently dined just as finely, for excavations in the
nineteenth century uncovered a hoard of bones and shells – beef, mutton,
pork and venison bones, oyster, mussel and cockle shells.(121) The
account books also
record payments to minstrels, story-tellers and other entertainers,
including players from Thirsk and Ripon, a fool from Byland, and ‘a
strange fabulist’.(122) Whilst
not explicit, it is likely that this entertainment was enjoyed
by Fountains’ guests.
[Read more about the reception of guests at Cistercian
houses]