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Posted -  14/06/2004  :  22:59
YORKSHIRE CISTERCIANS
by Pamela Maryfield


Extracted from Earby Chronicles Edition 31 Winter 2003


The October talk was given by Society member Pamela Maryfield. Pamela studied Medieval Ecclesiastical History at University and is therefore well versed in the history of the Cistercians particularly in the Yorkshire area.

The Cistercian order was founded at Citeaux, in Burgundy, as a reaction to the perceived view that the old Benedictine order had become corrupted and a number of monks broke away to follow a more austere life more detached from centres of population. The order received a boost with the arrival of Bernard, later St Bernard, who arrived in Citeaux with a large group of his family asking to be allowed to join. St Bernard was a major driving force for the order.
The expansion of the Cistercian Order was perpetuated by the mother abbey sending out 13 monks (representing Christ and the twelve apostles) to found daughter abbeys.

Yorkshire in the 11th and 12th centuries was a desolate place having been laid waste by William the Conqueror and was ideally suited to the Cistercians.

Riveaux Abbey was the first to be founded in the desolation that was Yorkshire when in 1131 a plot of land was given by a local land owner to Abbott William and with a short space of time Riveaux was one of the leading Cistercian abbeys and was founding its own daughter abbeys in Yorkshire and far flung parts of Europe.

The custom was for the abbot of the mother abbey to visit all the daughter abbeys annually and also for the abbot to visit Citeaux once a year, the only exception being if the journey would take more than a month one way. This meant that a Yorkshire Abbott would have about two months of his year taken up journeying to Burgundy and back.

There were three main principals for the Cistercian monks to follow; simplicity, personal poverty and austerity and these were a reaction to the wealth and comfortable Benedictine Monasteries.

This was exemplified by the simplicity of the architecture of the monastery buildings, the plain food they ate and their general way of life.

Six hours a day were devoted to prayer and services, two hours to reading and study and four hours to manual labour in the monastery.

The monasteries, particularly Rievaux, were particularly adept at sheep rearing and were soon establishing Sheep Granges on the open moor lands and producing exceptionally good quality wool. As the monasteries expanded they had to take in so called lay brothers who did most of the work but also took part in some areas of monastic life without being full monks.

Pamela concluded her talk with the story of the founding of the short lived Mount St. Mary’s Monastery in Barnoldswick on land gifted by the de Lacy family of Pontefract Castle. Following a succession of bad harvests, raids by Scottish marauders and a feud with the local church the monks removed to Kirkstall near Leeds and re founded the abbey there.

Thanks to Pamela for this insight into monastic life in the 12th century.


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