AMONG THE YORKSHIRE ABBEYS. 87 
and Sub-sacrist, invoked the aid of Thurstan, the celebrated 
Archbishop of York, to remedy the state of matters. Owing to 
the power of the Abbot, the appeal to the Archbishop proved 
ineffective, and the discontented brethren decided to leave the 
Abbey altogether. The Archbishop, willing to aid these zealous 
Monks, gave them a site in the Vale of Fountains, on the banks 
of the little river Skell, a spot which, for its beauty of situation, 
was such an one as the Monks would themselves have selected 
for their pious meditations. At that period, however, the district 
was still suffering from the effects of William the Conqueror’s 
policy of defence against the Northmen. About Christmas time 
the Monks took possession of their new property, and, as build- 
ing operations were impossible at such a season, the pious men, 
refusing the offer of a temporary home made to them by the 
Archbishop, camped under the trees, and there they experienced 
the hardships of a very severe winter. A number of large yew 
trees are still shown as being the identical trees under which 
they camped, and under the largest of which they erected a hut 
to serve as an oratory. Filled with a worthy ambition to build 
a church, they set to work. Their first Abbot was the Prior of 
St. Mary’s, and they adopted the Cistercian rule because of ‘its 
greater austerity than the Benedictine. Having asked St. 
Bernard, at Clairvaux, for advice, he sent them one of his own 
Monks, named Geoffrey, to instruct them in the subtleties of 
chanting and in the arrangements for their church. In due time 
this church was completed, and the brethren having attained a 
great reputation soon began to receive accessions to their numbers 
and gifts of land from the nobles. The wall of the close en- 
circled twelve acres of ground and more than two acres were 
covered by the various buildings, while the church was found to 
measure nearly four hundred feet. The buildings, however, that 
one now sees and admires must not. be imagined are those actu- 
ally erected by the first Monks, because each succeeding Abbot 
tore down and rebuilt as necessity required or as his fancy sug- 
gested, till it finally became the gorgeous pile which excited the 
greed of Henry VIII. and his courtiers. | Between the years 
1203-7 the Monks became so numerous that there was not room 
in the chancel for them, the altars being too few to allow them 
all to celebrate at the same time. This caused a considerable 
extension to the eastward, a transept being added at the east end 
