Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire.

aforesaid ; quit and free of all land service due to us and our successors , under these witnesses : —Witness , William the Dean , and William the Treasurer , Hugh the Precentor , Osbert the Archdeacon , Walter the Archdeacon , Fulk the Canon , Serlo the Canon , William de Percy , Anfrid the Canon , Garfrid the Canon , Achard the Canon , Letold the Canon , ancl all the canons of St . Peter . Witness alsoWilliam Marton ancl Robert de Pinkneyand Simonand

, , , Gilbert , and Gislebert , Canons of St . Wilfred . Witness also , William the Steward , and Robert the Constable , and William Huahait , and Richard the the Thief-taker , and Hugh , son of Hnlric , ancl Robert of Herleshow , and Walleif of Studley , ancl Richard his brother , and Hulchil the Bailiff . " Again were the settlers enriched by members of the Church of York . Serlo ancl Tosti , Canons , retired here with great wealth to add to the stores of the

fraternity . Shortly after , too , Robert de Sartis and Reginalda his wife , who owned the vill of Herleshow , contiguous to the Abbey , conveyed it to the brethren with some other lands and the forest of Warshall . Then also Serlo de Pembroke bestowed upon them at his death the adjacent vill of Cayton . King Stephen , when at York , in 1135 , confirmed them in their possessions with exemption from the usual services to superior lords , taxes , & c . Such is briefly the position of the homeless monks of three years before , they having

now laid the foundation of the magnificence of which such ample testimony still remains around you . Between this date and 1150 no less than ei ght bands of monks went forth from Fountains , and settled , one at Newminster , near Morpeth ; another at Kirkstead , in Lincolnshire ; a third at Hawksholme , near Sleaford , eventually removing to Louth ; a fourth to Woburn , in Leicestershire ; a fifth and bolder undertaking was a missionary venture of thirteen brethrenwho carried the

Cister-, cian rule to Norway on the request of Sigward , Bishop of Bergen , establishing there the monastery of Lysa , near Bergen ; a sixth , on the 19 th May , 1147 , by a body of twelve brethren , including Serlo the Chronicler , went forth to Baruoldswick , in Craven , to take possession of the estates there assigned for founding a monastery by Henry de Lacy , of Pontefract Castle ; but the climate proving unsuitable , they abandoned the site four years later for the fertile spot

on the Aire , near Leeds , and there arose the Abbey of Kirkstall . Five days later a seventh party went out to establish at B ytham , in Lincolnshire , a house sometime later removed to Vaudey Abbey . Meaux , founded in 1150 , was the last of the daughters of Fountains ; but from these were in many instances offshoots sent out ; as , from Newminster was founded Pipewell Abbey , in Northamptonshire , Sawley Abbey , in Craven , and Roche Abbey , in South Yorkshire .

The splendid work , The Memorials of Fountains Abbey , " published by the Surtees Society , from the pen of the late J . R . Walbran , F . S . A . a native of the City of Ripon , minutely relates the history of this abbey , and of which I can this afternoon attempt but a cursory sketch . It would , I think , be well here to direct your attention to a most remarkable feature of the abbeys erected under the Cistercian rule , which consists in the uniformit y of the plan

upon which they were all built . Doubtless there were variations from local causes in the different structures ; but find them where you will in England , France , or Germany , one uniform plan was adopted , the variations , where they do occur , being such that they go to prove , rather than disprove , this assertion . For the elucidation of this fact the name of Edmund Sharpe , M . A ., F . R . I . B . A ., must be ever held in high esteem . To demonstrate this point we will take

the model plan of the buildings of a Cistercian settlement of Mr . Sharpe , as given in the manual prepared for the meeting of the Royal Archfeloo-ical Institute of Great Britain and Ireland , at Ripon , in 1874 . You will here find a central cloister quadrangle , surrounded upon its four sides by the different conventual buildings . On the north side you will , with only one or two exceptions , find the monastic church , placed here I should imagine for one main