Whilst the Cistercians sought to live ‘far
from the haunts of men’, and worked the land from their granges,
they required urban holdings for trade and also to provide accommodation
for the abbot and abbey officials. Fountains therefore had a number
of urban holdings in Boston (Lincolnshire), Doncaster, Grimsby,
Ripon, Scarborough, Yarm and York.(147) Significantly, all but
two -Ripon and Doncaster - were in ports, a reflection of the importance
of
the wool trade and also fishing.
The most important of Fountains’ urban
holdings were at Boston and York. Boston was an important port
for the export of wool to
Flanders and Italy.(148) The community’s
main property here was in Wormgate, which is today known as ‘Fountains
Lane’.(149) This
was acquired, or at least access to the property was acquired,
in the late twelfth century from Jordan de Boston. In return for
a payment of five shillings per year, Jordan granted the monks
a chamber in town, next to his house, with an enclosed court and
other buildings that they might use at the time of the fair of
St. Botulph; Jordan alone would have access at all other times
and he would maintain the property.(150) Fountains
later expanded their holdings in Boston, acquiring two mills and
property at Boston
in Emery Lane, on the west bank of the R. Witham.(151)
Fountains' ship
Fountains owned its own ship in 1224, which was licensed to carry wool.
[Coppack, Fountains Abbey, p. 114.]
Most of Fountains’ urban
property was in York, near to the river. The community gained a
foothold here in the late twelfth
century and continued to expand its holdings until the fourteenth
century. York was an important centre for the wool trade and also
for fishing, but the properties here were also used as hospices
by the abbot of Fountains and monastic officials, and the mid-fifteenth
century ‘Bursar’s Account Book’ records the payment
of four pennies for a candelabra for the York hospice in 1456-7,
and annual payments for mowing.(152) Thomas
Swinton’s ‘Memorandum
Book’, that records his payments and activities as a leading
monastic official at Fountains in the mid-fifteenth century, reveals
that he and his companion stayed at the York hospice for five days
during Lent with details of the expenses incurred at this time,
including 3s 2 d on bread (for themselves and their horses), 2
s 2d on wine, 6d on horseshoes.(153) Fountains
still maintained property in York in the sixteenth century, in
North Street.(154)