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The Foundation of Fountains Abbey and the State of St. Mary's York in 1132

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Denis Bethell*
Affiliation:
Lecturer in History, University of Reading

Extract

The recent publication of Mr. Nicholl's ‘Life’ of Thurstan, archbishop of York (1114–1140), has made this subject once more topical: and, indeed, for twelfth-century historians at least it will always be interesting. One of the constant themes of the century, and of the 1120s and 1130s in particular, was the question of the state, position and purpose of monks. The ‘monastic centuries’ were ending and the age of the secular masters had begun. The social purposes that the monasteries had served in the tenth and eleventh centuries were becoming less obvious and outdated. It was necessary that the position of the whole monastic order in society should be reconsidered and this roused strong feelings and bitter controversy. This controversy took place not only outside the monasteries but inside them as well and the great abbey of St. Mary's York is one of the houses where such controversy can be seen and studied.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1966

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Footnotes

1

The following abbreviations have been used in this article:

M.O.—Dom David Knowles, The Monastic Order in England, Cambridge, second edition 1963.

MonasticonMonasticon Anglicanum, by W. Dugdale; new enlarged edition by J. Caley, H. Ellis and B. Bandinel, 6 vols. in 8, London 1817–30.

P.L.—Migne, Patrologia Latina, quoted by volume and column.

Nicholl—Donald Nicholl, Thurstan, Archbishop of York (1114–1140), York 1964.

Walbran—Memorials of the Abbey of St. Mary of Fountains, ed. J. S. Walbran, Surtees Society, vol. 42, 1863.

References

page 11 note 2 See especially Nicholl, Chapter vi ‘The Exodus from St. Mary's to Fountains’, 151–192. Since some of my conclusions differ from Mr. Nicholl's I would like here to express my admiration for his work and my debt to it. I have also had the benefit of reading Mr. L. G. D. Baker's unpublished thesis ‘Studies in the Narratio de Fundatione Fontanis Monasterii’ (Bodleian Library MS. B. Litt. d. 883).

page 11 note 3 P.L., clxxxii. 128, ep. 24.

page 11 note 4 Ibid., 169, ep. 64.

page 12 note 1 P.L., clxxxii., 224, ep. 92.

page 12 note 2 Talbot, P. Hugh, ‘An Unpublished Letter of St. Stephen’, Collectanea Ordinis Cisterciensium Reformatorum, iii (1936), 6670.Google Scholar

page 12 note 3 M.O., 230.

page 12 note 4 See Powicke, F. M., ‘Maurice of Rievaulx’, English Historical Review xxxvi (1921), 1725.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 12 note 5 ‘Anachoretam vitam non improbo eorum videlicet qui in coenobiis regularibus instructi disciplines ordinabiliter secedunt’: Ivo of Chartres; P.L., clxii. 199, ep. 192.

page 12 note 6 Lelandi Joannis De Rebus Britamicis Collectanea, ed. Hearne, T., Oxford 1713, iv. 105.Google Scholar

page 12 note 7 This phrase is commonly used of Cistercian foundations. The reference is Deut., xxxii. id. The symbolism of the journey through the wilderness and the devout or Christian or monastic life is old, and common in the Fathers.

page 13 note 1 Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, ed. R. Hewlett (Rolls Series no. 82), i. 226: ‘nunquam gravius deliquisse’.

page 13 note 2 See Nicholl, cited above; M.O., 231–9; Coulton, G. G., Five Centuries of Religion, i. Cambridge 1923, 413–17Google Scholar; Newman, J. H., Lives of The English Saints: St. Waltheof and St. Robert, London 1845, 4551.Google Scholar

page 13 note 3 Ed. Walbran.

page 13 note 4 For the MSS. of this letter see the Appendix.

page 13 note 5 The founders of Fountains were naturally conscious of the parallel. The two accounts occur together in MS. Corpus Christi College Oxford 209, where Thurstan's letter is bound up with the Exordium parvum: ‘Egressio monachi Cistercienses de Molismo et Epistola Turstini episcopi de egressione Ffontanensibus de coenobio Sancte Marie Eboracensis’.

page 13 note 6 Walbran, 5.

page 14 note 1 Walbran, 5.

page 14 note 2 Hugh the Chantor: the History of the Church of York, 1066–1127, ed. Johnson, C. (Nelson's Medieval Classics 1961), 109, 112, 131Google Scholar: ‘sicut bonum et religiosum clericum et canonicum amasset’. We do not have to believe that he did so with Hugh's reservations.

page 14 note 3 William became papal legate in 1126. The legation lapsed with Honorius IPs death in 1130 and had not been renewed on 26 May 1131, but had been by 7 March 1132.

page 14 note 4 P.L., clxxxii. 513, ep. 313.

page 14 note 5 Ibid., 225, ep. 93.

page 14 note 6 St. Anselm gave Norman and Bernard, the founders of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, a letter of introduction to the abbot of Mont St. Eloi; cf. Dickinson, J. C., The Origins of the Austin Canons, London 1950, 99100Google Scholar. Mr. Dickinson assumes that they did not go there, because they studied at Beauvais and Chartres, but it does not necessarily follow.

page 15 note 1 Monasticon, v. 586, no. 1.

page 15 note 2 Auvry, Doai Claude, Histoire de la Congrégation de Savigny, Société de l'Histoire de Normandie 1896, 114.Google Scholar

page 15 note 3 On Thurstan and Savigny, see Nicholl, 143–4.

page 15 note 4 The comparison was made in Thurstan's letter (Walbran, 20): ‘et si videatur Evangelium emortuum et impossibilem in nobis intueamur monachos Saviniacenses et Clara vallenses’.

page 15 note 5 Walbran, 11 and 29.

page 15 note 6 Monasticon, v. 294–6.

page 15 note 7 In Walbran's apparatus these passages contain 28 citations from Holy Scripture, including 7 from the Psalms and 9 from St. Matthew. Mt., v. 20: ‘nisi abundaverit justicia vestra’ occurs twice within a couple of lines. In the shorter version there are 14 citations, but these are verbal reminiscences rather than direct quotations.

page 15 note 8 E.g., ‘Quid dicam de exquisitis sagitationibus, de diversis saporibus piperibus, et variis excoctionibus quid loquar?’ Cf. (as Walbran, 16 n. 10) P.L., clxxxii. 77 (Ep. ad Robertum) or P.L., clxxxii. 910 (Apologia ad Guillelmum).

page 15 note 9 Both cite Juvenal, Sat. vi. 164, with the same intention. Cf. Walbran, 18.

page 16 note 1 At Pontefract: Nicholl, 237. For his vow to become a Cluniac, made before 1109 see ibid., 9.

page 16 note 2 Mr. Nicholl considers at some length the arguments for the genuineness of the letter (Nicholl, Appendix II: ‘Thurstan's Letter to William of Corbeil, Archbishop of Canterbury and Papal Legate,’ 251–8) but he does not deal with the question of the two existing versions of it. On the question of the genuineness of the shorter text I would certainly accept his arguments, which tend, in any case, to be directed against a theory of forgery of the entire text in the period 1170–1180. I would hold to a theory of interpolation of a genuine text rather earlier: see the arguments above and those in the Appendix to this article.

page 16 note 3 A comparison naturally occurs with the theories of M. Lefevre concerning the earliest documents of Citeaux itself. Here, too, we have shorter and longer versions of the same texts: Exordium Cisterciensium, Exordium Parvum, Exordium Magnum: Carta Caritatis, Summa Carta Caritatis, Carta Caritatis Prior. The relationship of these documents is still not wholly clear, but, briefly, it may be said that the consensus of opinion at the moment seems to be that the Carta certainly underwent development and that the revolutionary Cistercian constitution only developed slowly, but that M. Lefevre pushes his theories too far on the Exordium, and that there is nothing particularly tendentious in its amplifications or wrong with the traditional account of Cistercian origins. If it were desired to prove that Cistercians were sometimes self-righteous and intolerant in their writings and their dealings with other orders we have, after all, St. Bernard's own word for it in the Apologia ad Guillelmum, caps. 5 & 6 (P.L., clxxxii. 895–7, recently re-edited in Leclercq, H., Talbot, C. H., Rochais, H., Sancti Bemardi Opera, Rome 1963, iii. 90–2)Google Scholar. A bibliography of recent work and a summary will be found in M.O., Additional Note C, 752–3. See also Knowles, M. D., Great Historical Enterprises, London 1963 199244Google Scholar and the latest attempt to sum up the current state of research, Cist, P. Zakar S. O.., ‘Die Anfange des Zisterzienserordens. Kurze Bemerkungen zu den Studien der letzten zehn Jahre’, Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis, Annus 20 (1964), 103–39.Google Scholar

page 17 note 1 Walbran, 19–20.

page 16 note 2 For Elmer see the article ‘Elmer’ in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, iv. 602 and references there cited. For the Canterbury community see Southern, R. W., ‘The Canterbury Forgeries,’ English Historical Review, lxxiii (1958), 193226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 17 note 3 M.O., 159–71.

page 17 note 4 Ibid., 167.

page 18 note 1 Symeon of Durham, Opera, ed. Arnold, T. (Rolls Series no. 75, 1882), i. 110.Google Scholar

page 18 note 2 Liber Vitae Dunelmensis, ed. Stevenson, J. (Surtees Society, xiii, 1841), 144Google Scholar: ‘XVII Kal. Jun. Reinfridus Conversus’.

page 18 note 3 Ibid., 44, among the list of Durham monks, though he does not appear in the similar list given by Symeon (ed. cit., i. 4).

page 18 note 4 Ibid., 73: ‘pro serlone sicut pro monacho ecclesie nostre’. This is written in a hand coeval with the agreements to pray for Walkelin, bishop of Winchester (1070–98) and Malcolm III (1058–93).

page 18 note 5 Ibid., 72: ‘unusquisque sacerdos X missas et alii cantent psalterium tres, in convento autem sicut pro monacho nostro’.

page 19 note 1 For these opinions see the Appendix.

page 19 note 2 B.M. Additional MS. 38816, not noted by Atkinson or Duffus Hardy. A collation with the text printed in the Monasticon shows no significant variations.

page 19 note 3 Monasticon, v. 545: ‘desiderii sui non immemor … solitariam vitam ducendi Wyttebeiam venit’. Cf. ibid., of the monks at Whitby under Reinfrid: ‘Heremeticam vitam ducentes’.

page 19 note 4 For its foundations at Wetheral (c. 1100), St. Bees (c. 1120), St. Mary Magdalen Lincoln (? c. 1135), Romburgh (1135–6), Richmond (by 1146), see Monasticon, iii. 581, 574, 601, 610. The foundation dates of Lincoln and Romburgh are fixed by the foundation charter of the latter in MS. Bodley Top. Suffolk d. 15 (S.C. no. 29006) fol. 32. This stipulates a foundation of thirteen monks (as at Lincoln). It is impressive testimony to St. Mary's that so soon after the exodus to Fountains it could spare so many. For St. Mary's foundation at Colchester (of which William of Corbeil must have heard much when he was prior of St. Osyth's), see Annales Colecestrenses, ed. Liebermann, F. in ‘Ungedruckte Anglo-Normanische Geschichtsquellen’, Strassburg 1879, 159.Google Scholar

page 19 note 5 In 1344 archbishop Zouch was so astonished by the great number of churches in which St. Mary's had an interest that he ordered a special inquisition to be made on them.

page 19 note 6 Early Yorkshire Charters, ed. W. Farrer, York 1914-, ii. 133, no. 791.

page 20 note 1 Lelandi Joannis Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis, ed. Hall, A., Oxford 1709, i. 198, 186, 194, 188.Google Scholar

page 20 note 2 ‘The Testament of Gervase of Louth Park’, ed. Talbot, C. H., Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis, Annus 7 (1951) 3246Google Scholar; Henriquez, P. (Phoenix Reviviscens, Brussels 1626, 56)Google Scholar credits him with a volume of letters written to St. Aelred of Rievaulx and others.

page 20 note 3 Walbran, 6: ‘familiaris et notus pontifici’. He died in Rome on a mission very dear to Thurstan's heart, the attempt to obtain the archbishopric of York for Thurstan's brother Audouen, bishop of Evreux.

page 20 note 4 Lelandi Joannis Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis, i. 194 and Collectanea (ed. cit., above 12, n.io), iv. 44: ‘Omeliae Ricardi Fastolphi Secundi abbatis’. Perhaps these were the sermons in MS. Cotton Galba A III—a Fountains book burnt in 1731. Henriquez (above n. 2) credits him with sermons and also a book on Music or Harmony and four books of commentaries on Scripture.

page 20 note 5 He was probably the author of the Passio et Miracula Bead Olavi, ed. Metcalfe, T. (Anecdota Oxoniensia, Oxford 1881)Google Scholar. I am not able to agree with Metcalfe that it is wholly the work of St. Eystein (archbishop of Nidaros 1161–88). This is because (a) The Tractatus Sancti Augustini Episcopi only begins halfway through the book, (b) whoever wrote the first half was not Norwegian. The reasons for suggesting Ranulf are (a) that he was a writer and abbot of Lysa, (b) that he retired to Fountains in old age, (c) that the MS. concerned (the only one) is a Fountains MS. of 1200–25 bound in a Norwegian seal skin (MS. Corpus Christi College Oxford 209), (d) that St. Eystein had contacts with the monks of Lysa, whom he mentions (Metcalfe, op. cit., 114).

page 20 note 6 On whom see cardinal Newman's work (cited above, 13, n. 2) and Grosjean, P.Vita Roberti’, Analecta Bollandiana, lvi (1938), 334–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 21 note 1 Stone, L., Sculpture in Britain: the Middle Ages (Pelican History of Art 1955), 101 plates 71–3.Google Scholar

page 21 note 2 Selby Coucher Book, ed. Fowler, J. T. (Yorks Archaeological Society Record Series, x (1891)), i. 24.Google Scholar

page 21 note 3 Rouleaux des Moris du IXe au XVe siécle, ed. Delisle, L., Société pour l'Histoire de France, Paris 1886, 196–9Google Scholar. Abbot Stephen can have died only recently. His obit is given as 9 August (The Ordinal and Custumal of St. Mary's Abbey York, ed. by the Abbess, of Stanbrook, and Tolhurst, J. B. L., Henry Bradshaw Society 1936, ii. 371)Google Scholar. In 1114 the king gave the abbey to Richard, a monk of Caen (Two Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. Earle, J. and Plummer, C., Oxford 1892, i. 244Google Scholar). The policy of appointing Norman abbots was, of course, universal, but particularly in view of the strongly English nature of the Northern revival and of the York community one may wonder if the appointment was popular. Until the fifteenth century the St. Mary's Use was of a much more Old English complexion than that of any other abbey save Muchelney (Custumal, ed. cit., iii. Appendix I. i–iv).

page 22 note 1 Acta Sanctorum Octobris, iii. 757. There are two sets of verses, one rhymed, the other in hexameters.

page 22 note 2 Delisle, L., Rouleau Mortuaire du B. Vital Abb' de Savigny, Paris 1909.Google Scholar

page 22 note 3 See Foreville, R. and Leclercq, J., ‘Un debat sur le sacerdoce des moines au XIIe siècle”, Analecta Monastica 4th series, Studia Ansdmiana fasc. 41, Rome 1957, 8117Google Scholar; see also the summary of the much wider controversy by Constable, Giles, Monastic Tithes from their Origins to the Twelfth Century, Cambridge 1964, especially 136–98.Google Scholar

page 23 note 1 ‘Sed potius sicut primitivi monachi, de labore manuum et de communi vivere debent’.

page 23 note 2 ‘Non civitates vel castella frequentare, sed loca ab omni strepitu seculari remota potius inhabitare’.

page 23 note 3 ‘Vix in heremo quam in urbe regula teneri putaretur'. An inconsistency corrected by abandoning the longer version of the Thurstan letter may here be noted: the longer version supplemented the description by adding ‘Scripsit ubi quoque domus edificare’. There was no question at this point of moving from St. Mary's York.

page 23 note 4 Walbran, 8: ‘missis itaque nunciis per angliam monasteriis viros convocat litteratos’. Whether the ‘Rescriptum pro monachis’ (Foreville and Leclercq, ed. cit., 54–111) was written at St. Mary's cannot be said certainly. The grounds for dating it before 1133 are both negative and tentative (ibid., 32–3). It is a reply to Theobald's letter, but by some one apparently not well acquainted with the situation—though his ignorance may well have been diplomatic: ‘Absit ut aliquis sanum sapiens aliquatenus crediderit, quod tantus pontifex … Tantillum clericellum … presertim post susceptum episcoparus officium de statu Ecclesie potius ex ignorantia quam ex industria consuluerit’ (ibid., 32).

page 24 note 1 Knowles, M. D., Cistercians and Cluniacs (for the Friends of Dr. Williams's Library, Oxford 1955), 1Google Scholar, reprinted in The Historian and Character and Other Essays, Cambridge 1963, 5076.Google Scholar

page 24 note 2 Farrer, W., Early Yorkshire Charters, York 1914–, ii. 224, no. 877.Google Scholar