MONASTIC GARDENS 61 



Numbers of these cottages and gardens surrounded the 

 cloisters and obviated the necessity of having large pieces 

 of ground under cultivation. 



Among the orders of friars were the Dominicans, The 



fri&rs. 



founded by the Spanish Dominic, and the Franciscans, 

 by St. Francis of Assisi, in the thirteenth century. 

 Both lived according to different lights from the monks, 

 despised all luxury, and took less pride in owning beauti- 

 ful buildings and fine plantations. Wanderers over the 

 country, preaching and begging for food wherever they 

 happened to stop, unlike the members of other orders, 

 the friars required but small establishments, and few 

 cultivated acres for their food supply. 



An interesting abbey of exceptional beauty, once be- Newstead 



Abbev 



longing to the Dominicans, or Black Friars, as they were 

 called from the colour of their habits, is still standing at 

 Newstead on the former estate of Lord Byron. Although 

 altered in many of its details, the lay of the land is un- 

 changed, and the general effect is probably much the 

 same as in the time of the friars. A large, square sheet 

 of water, called the Eagle Pond, remains untouched, and 

 near it is the old "stew," where fish were bred for the 

 friars' consumption ; while the cloisters, restored by their 

 present owners, and containing a good reproduction of a 

 Gothic fountain in a square plot of grass, retain their 

 conventual character. 



Once battlemented walls are supposed to have enclosed 



