FOUNDERS

In the course of this book we have encountered hundreds of men and women, by reference if not all by name, who founded religious houses. Why did they? The specific motives which we have been able to isolate, the desire of kings for support, both spiritual and cultural, penance for particular misdeeds, sickness, commutation of a vow, safeguarding of lands, indication of status and so on, are just that, specific. But motives for monastic foundations go deeper than that, and before we look at the relationship between religious houses and their patrons we need to remind ourselves of that most fundamental of questions: why did men and women found monasteries? Medieval society was at basis pessimistic; progress was a downward spiral which could not be reversed, only arrested. The two factors which could retard it were stability and restoration; and these were the two monastic virtues par excellence. Men and women therefore viewed the inhabitants of monastic houses as able to contribute to the salvation of the world by arresting its decline and by preserving the eternal values of the past. Such a view also helps to account for fashions in endowment. When the Cistercians claimed to be restoring primitive monasticism, their appeal to the past struck a powerful chord. On a more personal level, founders expected prayers for their soul: they purchased salvation by the endowment of a religious house in the same way that men and women in the later Middle Ages bought indulgences.