Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire, England

There is a document that exists called Narratio de fundatione Fontanis Monasterii, which translates to Account of the Foundation of the Monastery of Fountains. A monk named Hugh, who was at a Kirkstall Abbey, a daughter house of Fountains, wrote it.  In this document, Hugh tells the story of the foundation of Fountains Abbey.  It was written in the early 13th Century and it is his writings from which I have based the story of Fountains Abbey, as I cannot think of a better source which could be used.

Hugh the monk of Kirkstall Abbey took as his source for his writings on Fountains, the word of another monk named Serlo.  Serlo was an aged monk in his nineties, who had once lived at Fountains Abbey.  Serlo starts by telling us that: 

‘It is now the sixty-ninth year of my conversion, but when I first went to Fountains to associate myself to that Holy Brotherhood, I was, as I remember, about beginning my thirtieth year.  The Abbey at that time was five years old. So I know what happened because I was with the monks when they left York and I had known their names and faces from my boyhood: I was born in their country, and to several of them was related by ties of blood. And although I am, as thou may see, far advanced in years, I am very grateful to my old age that my memory remains unimpaired, and particularly retentive of those things committed to it in early years. Such things, therefore, relating to the origin of the Monastery of Fountains, which I personally witnessed, or have gathered from the credible report of my elders, I will now relate.’

‘The Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary of York, was a rich and vast establishment.  It had received gifts from William the Norman and from William his son.  It was so fine that Richard the prior and a little company of sympathetic brethren, touched by the example of the simple manners of Rievaux, came to the conclusion that it was too good a place to be an appropriate residence for a Christian.  They determined to leave it. Richard the Prior, Gervase the Subprior, Richard the Sacrist, Walter the Almoner and Robert the Precentor were of one mind in the matter, and presently a sufficient number of devout conspirators were added to make thirteen. That was the required number for the beginning of a monastic colony.’ 

‘Together the discontented monks came to the old Abbot and asked leave to go.  But the Abbot met them with a stout refusal.  The malcontents were made to understand that they had asked a grievous thing; they had despised their Order, and brought confusion into the holy house; they had attempted to break their solemn vows.  To this, the Prior made appropriate answers, but satisfaction was impossible.  Back and forth, the matter was discussed all summer, most of the monks taking the Abbot’s part.  At last, in October, the Archbishop came.  There was a noisy meeting in the cloister; Abbot and Archbishop, monks and seculars; with the townsfolk crowding at the abbey gate. “York church is interdicted!” cried the Archbishop, raising his voice above the din. “Interdict it, for aught we care, for a hundred years!” shouted the brethren.  Then they made a rush for the Prior and his friends, who got with great haste into the church, the Archbishop being with them, and barred the door for fear of their lives.  Finally, they escaped in safety.  The affair made a great commotion, in a day when Abbots and Bishops were seldom on good terms.  The Abbot sent messengers to the King, the first Henry; the Bishop wrote to the Legate of the Pope.  But the thing was done and stayed done.’

‘Two Richards, two Ralphs, Gervase, Walter, Robert, Alexander, Geoffrey, Gregory, Thomas, Hamo and Gamel, thus abandoned St. Mary’s and for the moment were lodgers in the Archbishop’s house.  Even this little company were not all of one mind, for presently two of them were homesick and went back; of whom Ralph “made terms with his flesh and his belly clave to the ground, that is, he remained in the old way, but Gervase again repented and cast his lot with the reformers.  Ralphs place was taken by a second Robert, a monk of Whitby.‘

Archbishop Turstin had a country seat at Ripon, to which he went to keep the Christmas of 1132, bringing the thirteen brethren with him.  And on the morrow of the festival, taking them out three miles into the country, he established them upon a piece of his own land, in the narrow valley of the Skell.’

‘The place was full of thorns and rocks, and seemed a better dwelling for wild beasts than for men.  But they accepted it with gratitude.  In the midst of the valley they made a thatched hut, with the trunk of the great elm for roof-pole, and having chosen the Prior Richard to be their Abbot, they began with contented minds to live the life of devotion and straitness for which they had longed amidst the pernicious comforts of the Abbey of St. Mary.  The named their monastery De Fontibus, from the springs which abounded in the valley.’

‘The following spring, the brethren sent messengers to St. Bernard at the Cistercian Abbey of Clairvaux, asking to be admitted to the Cistercian order.  Bernard was at that time the greatest man in Europe.  He had just decided between two rival claimants, which was the true Pope.  He received the men of Fountains with great kindness, finding in them a spirit kindred with his own.  He sent them back with a gracious letter, and he sent with them Geoffrey, a monk of his own monastery, a person of ability and experience, to teach them the new ways.  Thus the new life began; and presently their number was increased. Seventeen new brethren came, seven of them being in Orders.‘

‘Their number was increased, but their resources were in no way enlarged.  The Archbishop, indeed, continued to be good to them, and the neighbours occasionally sent things in, -housewives at their weekly baking remembering the brethren and putting in an extra batch for them. 

A little money they earned by making mats.  But that year there was a famine in the land, till the Abbot had to go out through the surrounding country to find food, and even then found none; so that for a time they lived on leaves which they boiled with salt, in the water of the stream.’

‘Finally the situation became intolerable.  The brethren had, indeed, made a choice of poverty, and had come out into the wilderness in devout search of her; but this was a different matter.  This was destitution rather than poverty, so that, the next year, when there appeared no likelihood of any betterment, the Abbot made a journey to Clairvaux, and begged St. Bernard to give them lands in France, or in any place where they might live and not die.  And Bernard agreed to give them a habitation near his own Abbey.  Happily, they did not need the gift.  Abbot Richard on his return, found a change in the fortunes of the house.  The colony had been joined by Hugh, the Dean of York.  He had been in the company of the Archbishop on the day of his stormy visitation, and had seen the men of Fountains as they faced the reproaches of their brethren; and being now an old man and tired of the world, he had resolved to say his prayers for the rest of his life with them.  Thus he had resigned his high position, and turned his back on his splendid Minster, and had cast his lot with the starving colony.  And he was fortunately a rich man, and brought books with him and money.  Part of the money they gave to the poor, part they put into the general fund, part they used to pay the carpenters and masons who were building the church and cloister. ‘

‘After this prosperity continued, in 1135, King Stephen made the monastery exempt from payment of taxes, danegelds, assizes pleas and scutages.  Then, in 1141, Pope Innocent exempted the monastery from payment of tithes.  From that day on, the Lord blessed our valleys with the blessings of heaven above and of the deep that lieth under, multiplying the brethren, increasing their possessions, pouring down showers of benediction, being a wall unto them on the right hand and on the left.  What perfection of life, was there at Fountains.’ 

The monks of Fountains Abbey belonged to the Cistercian Order. In the 12th Century, the purpose of the Cistercians was to return to primitive monastic simplicity. 

While the abbey prospered for the next hundred years, its troubles were not over.  One of the main sources of income for the Cistercians was wool and running such a large monastery took some expert accounting to do well. Wool merchants were so competitive, that they would offer to buy wool a number of years in advance, against a substantial down payment.  In this way the Abbey could anticipate its revenue, if it all went according to plan, but if they fell short of the estimate on which the contract was based, the monks would have to buy in wool to make up the shortfall, often at a substantial loss. By 1274, Fountains was £900 in debt to the York Jewry, because of speculation and the King appointed Peter Willoughby as an independent commissioner to administer the Abbey’s finances.  He succeeded in paying off the debt but the lesson was not learned.

In 1276, just two years after Fountains debt problems were solved, the Abbot signed a contract with Florentine merchants, pledging the Abbey itself as security for completion.  In 1280, an outbreak of sheep-scab meant lean years for wool growers, and in 1291 the Abbey’s debts had risen to £6,373, a colossal amount for the 13th Century. This forced the King to impose his Justice, John of Berwick, to attempt to achieve some financial stability. 

The Cistercians as an Order were determined that their lives should not become corrupted and they refused to rely on gifts and patronage for their survival.  Other Monasteries received gifts of money and lands in return for prayers but Cistercians wanted to support themselves.  

Even after the dissolution of the monasteries, Fountains remains one of the most complete monasteries in the UK.  Partly because of its remote location, and partly because the King may have initially had other plans for it which were not fulfilled, but it has left us with a more complete set of monastic buildings then we normally see in Britain.