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Growth and expansion: an economic high (3/15)
The mid-twelfth century marked a turning point in the economic history of Rievaulx. During the rule of its third abbot, Aelred (1147-67), the community enjoyed a surge in acquisitions, attracting a wider circle of benefactors and increasing the geographical spread of its holdings. Prominent individuals, such as Henry II (1154-1189) and the bishop of Durham, were amongst those who became patrons at this time. It was also during Aelred’s abbacy that Rievaulx began the process of creating granges, which were agricultural centres from which the abbey could farm the land directly. The grange-system of farming was very much a defining feature of the Cistercian Order. It enabled the communities to exploit their lands directly and so live off their own labours, rather than that of others, thereby remaining true to the Cistercian ideal. In the twelfth century Rievaulx had around twelve granges but by the early fourteenth century had established about twenty.(3) It is often difficult to be sure where exactly a certain grange was located and when this was established, but it seems that Rievaulx’s first grange may have been at Hunmanby (see map) and the second at Crosby, on land given to the community by William, bishop of Durham, c. 1152 (see map). This was of average size, comprising some 300-400 acres of arable land.(4)
Rievaulx acquired Pickering at this time, the site of a former glacial lake. This was, in part, a grant from Henry II (1154-1189), and was to be one of the abbey’s most important sites. The Rievaulx community drained the marsh at Pickering to create two granges (Kekmarish and Loftmarish), and in doing so made some 1000 acres of improved land for pasture.(5) Despite the rather stereotypical image of the Cistercians transforming wasteland, it seems that to make a grange completely from waste, as at Pickering, was actually quite unusual.(6)
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