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Fountains Abbey: History
Fountains Abbey: Buildings
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Events at St Mary's, York, in October 1132 (3/5) The whole chapter-house rang with such a noise
that it seemed
When Archbishop Thurstan arrived at St Mary’s in October 1132, he was confronted by the sight of Abbot Geoffrey at the chapter-house door, with a crowd of his monks. Regardless of his age and disability, Geoffrey was determined to put up a feisty performance and announced that Thurstan might only enter the chapter-house with a few of his eight clerics. This was an unthinkable prospect for the archbishop; Thurstan was used to having his band of advisors at all times and fully intended that they should accompany him on this occasion. When the archbishop raised his objections, a spectacular rumpus broke out. In their efforts to keep Thurstan and his advisors out of the chapter-house, the monks physically threatened the archbishop; Thurstan responded by wielding his episcopal weapon and imposed an interdict. This meant that the monks were suspended from administering the sacraments. The archbishop’s threats were of little consequence and if anything, incited the rebels to further violence; they now pounced on the group of reformers, who clutched to Thurstan for protection and, amidst jeers, made their way to the church where they locked themselves inside. Meanwhile, the abbey servants barred the gates and doors of the precinct, and prepared for ambush. All in all this is presented as a harrowing and traumatic experience, which left the reforming group with little option but to flee their abbey.
Abbot Geoffrey was outraged at the turn of events
and accused the runaways of disobedience and desertion. To vent
his anger and
set
out his version of events, Geoffrey wrote letters to Henry I (1100-1135),
the archbishop of Canterbury, and a number of bishops, abbots and
monks in the locality. In response, Thurstan wrote a lengthy letter
to Archbishop William of Canterbury, ‘lest an erroneous account
should be spread by the report of enemies’; he also sought
to engage William’s support for the reformers and for reform
in general, and hoped the archbishop might help heal the rift between
Abbot Geoffrey and the group that had fled St Mary’s. Hugh
of Kirkstall includes the whole of Thurstan’s letter in his
foundation history of Fountains, ‘to strengthen the evidence
of its truth’.(25) Thurstan
stressed that the monks did not desert their abbey, since their
departure was a necessity, and that this
was not an act of disobedience, as they sought to fulfil and commit
themselves more fully to the Benedictine way of life, not to shirk
it. He explicitly compares their departure and situation with that
of the monks who left Molesme in 1098 to establish the first Cistercian
community, and in so doing presents the Yorkshire monks as the
Cîteaux of the North, an analogy that is echoed throughout
the Narratio. |
