The Dedication of the Abbey. 



abbot designate repaid him in his life-time by accusing his 

 enemy, Stephen of Canterbury, before the Pope, for treason, 

 and causing him to be suspended.* 



John died, and Henry III. not only confirmed the privileges, 

 but granted several more in consideration of the great expense 

 of the building, and Innocent III. gave it the right of a sanc- 

 tuary. So the work proceeded. The stone was quarried prin- 

 cipally from the opposite limestone-beds in the Isle of Wight ; 

 and was brought over, says tradition, curiously illustrating 

 the vague notions of ancient geography, which we have seen in 

 Diodorus Siculus,f in carts. Not, however, till 1249, some 

 forty-five years after its foundation, was the monastery finished. 

 Henry himself, and his Queen, and Richard, Earl of Cornwall, 

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

 on the feast of St. John ; Hugh, the first abbot, spending no 

 less than five hundred marks on the entertainment.^ 



So, at last, the good work was accomplished, and men came 

 here and lived, taking for their pattern the holy St. Benedict, 

 and finding the problem of life solved by daily prayer to heaven 

 and labour on earth. 



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



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



j Curiously enough, as Warner remarks (vol. i. 267), Matthew 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, however, 

 1250, as Warner says, and who, followed hy 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 Forestse." 



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

 as before, torn. i. p. 916. 



63 



