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131 
Crorden Hbbey. 
By R. Moxon. 
Read before the Society, at an Excursion to Croxden, 
June 23rd, 1894. 
2 gen was one of the later Cistercian Abbeys 
founded in England. The Cistercians or ‘‘ White”’ 
Monks were a fraternity which was an offshoot of the Benedic- 
tines. The famous St. Bernard of Clairvaux, though not the 
founder of the order, was its most influential promoter. The 
rules of the order were more severe than those of the Bene- 
dictines. In many cases, as for instance those of Fountains 
and Kirkstall, the Cistercian abbeys in England were actually 
founded by seceders from Benedictine abbeys; but this was 
not the case with Croxden. Its founder was a pious knight, 
Bertram de Verdun, Lord of the Manor of Alveton, or 
Alton, who on the occasion of a visit to the lately founded 
abbey of Alnet, or Aulnoy, near Bayeux in Normandy, was 
so impressed with the fervid piety and asceticism of the 
*‘ white monks” that he importuned the Abbot to send over 
a foundation to Staffordshire. This was done in the year 1176 
when Bertram gave the land of ‘“‘Chotes” for the purpose. 
*“‘Chotes” has been identified with ‘‘Cawton” or ‘* Cotton,” 
in the more immediate neighbourhood of Alton. All the first 
monks were foreigners with the exception of one, Thomas, 
who was elected Abbot. 
