T)te Dedication of the Ahhey. 63 



abbot designate repaid liim in bis life-time by accusing bis 

 enemy, Stepben of Canterbury, before tbe Pope, for treason, 

 and causing bim to be suspended.* 



Jobn died, and Henry III. not only confirmed tbe privileges, 

 but granted several more in consideration of tbe great expense 

 of tbe building, and Innocent III. gave it tbe rigbt of a sanc- 

 tuary. So tbe work proceeded. Tbe stone was quarried prin- 

 cipally from tbe opposite limestone-beds in tbe Isle of Wigbt ; 

 and was brougbt over, says tradition, curiously illustrating 

 tbe vague notions of ancient geograpby, wbicb we bave seen in 

 Diodorus Siculus,t in carts. Not, bowever, till 1249, some 

 forty-five years after its foundation, was tbe monastery finisbed. 

 Henry bimself, and bis Queen, and Ricbard, Earl of Cornwall, 

 and a long train of nobles and prelates, came to its dedication 

 on tbe feast of St. Jobn ; Hugb, tbe first abbot, spending no 

 less tban five bundred marks on tbe entertainment. | 



So, at last, tbe good work was accomplisbed, and men came 

 bere and lived, taking for tbeir pattern tbe boly St. Benedict, 

 and finding tbe problem of life solved by daily prayer to beaven 

 and labour on eartb.§ 



* Roger of Wendover. English Historical Society, Ed. Coxe, vol. iii. p. 344. 



t See the previous chapter, pp. 57, 58, foot-note. 



I Curiously enough, as Warner remarks (vol. i. 267), INIatthew Paris 

 gives two dates for the dedication, the first 1246 (Hist. Angl., torn. i. p. 710, 

 Ed. Wats., London, 1640) ; and the second (p 770) 1249 ; not, howevei', 

 1250, as Warner says, and who, followed by all later writers, totally mis- 

 understands the passage, which means that, although the abbot spent so 

 large a sum, yet the King would not remit him the fine he had incurred by 

 trespass in the Forest, — "Nee tamen idcirco aliquatenus pepercit rex, 

 quin maximum censum solveret illi pro transgressione quam dicebatur 

 regi fecisse in occupatione Forestaj." 



§ See Matthew Paris, in praise of the Cistercian Order. Same edition 

 as before, torn. i. p. 91(). 



63 



