Conclusion 359 



edly Archbishop Thurstan ^ of York ; but his authority did not 

 reach so far, he was fully occupied elsewhere, and he died in 1140. 

 The nearest great abbeys were those that had been founded under 

 the influence of King David of Scotland, and none of these had 

 in that century a prepotent abbot known to history. The religious 

 nobles of the surrounding territory were vassals or friends of the 

 same David. Of English kings there were Henry I (1100—1135) 

 and Stephen (1135—1154). Henry was no religious devotee, and 

 Stephen's character excludes him from consideration ; besides, 

 neither would have been recognized as lord and master on the Border. 

 David, on the contrary, was prince and king over this region for forty- 

 six years (1107—1153) ; he was the founder of several monasteries, 

 and a patron of others, like Hexham and Holmcultram ; and his 

 heart was bound up in extending Christianity and civilization in 

 his dominions by every possible means.^ Moreover, by his influence 



1 See p. 120. 



2 That this task requued all his powers, that his successors were in general 

 unequal or indisposed to it, and that the temper of the Borderers, at least, 

 was refractory and untamable enough, is clear from history. It has been 

 .shown (pp. 125 ff.) that David was under the necessity of importing monks and 

 artificers from France ; of his immediate successors, Malcolm IV (1154-1165) 

 died young, and WiUiam the Lion (1165-1214) has almost no endowment 

 «ave the foundation of the abbey of Arbroath to his credit. As to the im- 

 pression produced by David's rehgious establishments on his subjects, we 

 have various modern testimonies. Thus Veitch {Hist, and Poetry of the 

 Scottish Border, p. 171) : ' The Lowland Scot was not, during the middle 

 ages, a very devoted churchman, nor were the rehgious houses popular, 

 or of high repute in the district.' Elsewhere we are told {New Stat. Ace. 

 3. 308-9) : ' It does not appear from the records of the times that the mon- 

 astery of Kelso ever proved of such advantage to border civihzation as its 

 founder anticipated. . . . Yet for this, perhaps, the monks are not to be 

 Ijlamed, so much as the untowardness of the times in which their lot was 

 cast. There never seems to have existed on the border that respect for 

 rehgious houses, which in other places rendered them safer repositories for 

 literary treasures than the fortresses of kings. Nor do the monks ever seem 

 to have gained that ascendency over the popular mind, which alone could 

 cause the monastery to act as a centre and source of civihzation to the sur- 

 rounding country.' And the remark of Brown is significant {Hist. Scot. 

 1. 96) : ' From the first the people resented the burdens imposed on them 

 for the support of an alien clergy ; and when another rehgious revolution 

 came their conduct betrayed what httle affection they had inherited towards 

 the church estabhshed by David.' 



On the lawlessness and wickedness of the region about Bewcastle, see 

 Nanson, Trans. Cumb. and Westm. Antiq. and Arch. Sac. 3. 228; Victoria Hist. 



(147) 



