The Cistercians gained a reputation for assarting, in
other words for clearing woodland to cultivate the land. Fountains
cleared the forest at Warsill in the twelfth century to make a
grange here.(98) The
community also assarted the land around its granges at Brimham
and Bradley, and around Kettlewell, Littondale and Malham. Pollen
analysis from Fountains
Earth in Upper Nidderdale, has indicated that this dense woodland
was cleared by the monks in the late twelfth century, when alder
and oak were replaced
by cereal grasses and pasture.(99)
It has recently been suggested that
the Cistercians strove to conserve woodland, as well as to utilise,
it, and that the monks had an eye on the
future. The agreement between Fountains and Sawley abbeys in 1279,
that neither community would assart Rys wood in Cliftondale, has
been cited as
evidence of this desire.(100) Leases forbidding
abbey tenants from felling wood and restricting their removal of
timber the community’s woods
have also been seen as a reflection of their concern to conserve.(101) For
example, the lease of a tenement in Galphay (‘Galgha’) by
Abbot Marmaduke Huby to William Steill in 1525 stipulated,
William is not
to fell, sell or take away any ‘principal wood’
growing on the tenement, and the abbot and convent are to
have the right to fell, sell and carry away at their pleasure
wood growing in the tenement, this lease notwithstanding. (102)
However, clauses of this kind are perhaps more a reflection
of the monks’ self-interest and a concern to safeguard their own resources,
rather than of sign of genuine interest in woodland conservation.