RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



place they sought. Having planted the bough 

 the boy vanished. Abbot John slept no more 

 that night, but rose early in the morning, and 

 he and his monks went on by moonlight. At 

 daybreak they reached a village, and as some of 

 the inhabitants looked out of their windows, 

 they saw a number of persons in white pass by, 

 and one of them said, ' What a number of white 

 men are passing ! ' Abbot John hearing this hid 

 in the shade by a wall, to learn what else might 

 be said, and another man asked his companion, 

 ' Do you know who these are ? ' and the other 

 said, 'No.' Then he replied, ' It was told me 

 yesterday at the hall that an abbot and twelve 

 monks were migrating from Byland to Jorevall.' 

 A third man who heard this, came out of his 

 house, and took observations of the moon and 

 stars and signs of the heavens, and said, ' These 

 men are moving at a propitious time, and in a 

 short period of thirty or forty years they will be 

 in such a condition as to suffer from no defi- 

 ciencies.' ' Abbot John hearing these words, it is 

 said, hastened to his companions well comforted. 

 The latter part of the story of the monks passing 

 through the village has a matter-of-fact look 

 of truth about it, while the vision or dream is 

 one of those pretty mediaeval tales which tend 

 to relieve the monotony of monastic history. 



Hervey, son and heir of Akarius,* by charter 

 consented to the removal from Fors to the new 

 and better site, on condition that he did not 

 lose his patronage of the house or cease to be a 

 partaker in the prayers and good works done in 

 it. In 1 156,' therefore, the construction of the 

 new abbey at Witton began, and the new 

 house soon received fresh gifts from different 

 donors.' 



In 1268' John, Duke of Britanny and Earl of 

 Richmond, confirmed to the monks their abbey 

 of Jervaulx, built in honour of the Blessed 

 Mary, and he also confirmed all the gifts which 

 the monks had of his ancestors, or any other 

 persons in a number of places which are named, 

 and by a later charter, dated 1281,^" he enlarged 

 the rights of the monks very considerably in his 

 forest of Wensleydale. 



Little, however, is known for a long period ot 

 the history of Jervaulx. As a Cistercian house 

 it was exempt from archiepiscopal visitation, 

 and like the other houses of the order there are 

 very few entries in the Registers as to it, and 

 none which throw light on its internal life. 



In 1279 the Cistercian Annals^' record the 

 murder of Philip, Abbot of Jervaulx, by one of 



' Dugdale, Man. Angl. v, 573, no. xii. ' Ibid. 567. 



'A charter of Hen. Ill, 12 Feb. 1228, confirms 

 a number of grants of lands, &c., mostly in the 

 immediate district which different persons had made 

 to the Abbot and monks of Jervaulx. Dugdale, Mm. 

 Angl. V, 576, no. xxi. 



'Ibid. 575, no. xvi. "Ibid. no. xvii. 



" Martene, Thesaurus Anecd. iv, 14.65. 



his monks. His successor. Abbot Thomas, was 

 accused of complicity but was acquitted, the jury 

 finding that the crime had been committed by 

 William de Modither, one of the monks, who 

 had fled and was outlawed. ^^ 



The abbey was so impoverished in 1403'' 

 that Boniface IX granted a dispensation to Abbot 

 Richard [Gower] that, seeing he could not 

 decently keep up his estate and burdens, he might 

 hold for life a benefice in the gift of himself and 

 the convent, or any other benefice with cure, 

 even if of lay patronage. 



On 7 July 1409 " Pope Alexander V granted 

 that Abbot Richard, who had been sent by the 

 clergy of York to the general council then 

 recently held at Pisa, and his successors, might 

 wear the mitre, ring, and other pontifical insignia, 

 and in the monastery and its subject priories and 

 the churches belonging to it give solemn benedic- 

 tion after mass, vespers and matins, provided that 

 no bishop or papal legate were present. 



The gross annual value of the house, including 

 temporalities and spiritualities, in 1535 ^* was 

 j/j455 lOJ. 5«^., but the reprises reduced the 

 clear value to ^^234 i8i. ^d. Among the re- 

 prises were the pensions of three chaplains 

 celebrating at the altar of St. Stephen in the 

 metropolitical church of York, of the founda- 

 tion of the lord of Upsall, £20 ; j^io 13J. 4^. 

 to two chaplains in the chapel of Lazenby, of 

 the foundation of John Lithgranes. Among the 

 alms distributed were bread and white and red 

 herrings, given to poor hermits and boys {;pau- 

 peribus hermitis et pueris) costing £4. 13^. 4^. 

 yearly ; alms on Maundy Thursday to parishion- 

 ers of Aysgarth 6s. Sd., East Witton 6s. 8 /., and 

 Ainderby Steeple 35. ^.d. 



The last abbot, Adam Sedbergh, joined the 

 Pilgrimage of Grace, and suffered death by hang- 

 ing at Tyburn in June 1537,^* when the mon- 

 astic property was forfeited to the king.^' 



The letter of Richard Bellycis, written 

 on 14 November 1538^* to Cromwell, may 



"Assize R. 1064, m. 31 d. 



" Ca/. of Papal Letters, v, l . Three years previously 

 (1400) the same pope had granted Richard Abbot 

 of Jervaulx an indult for him and his successors 

 and for the monks when they went out of the mon- 

 astery for a reasonable cause to eat meat on lawful days. 

 Ibid. 329. 



"Ca/. of Papal Letters, vi, 159. The grave-slab of 

 Abbot Peter de Snape (d. 1436) at Jervaulx has a 

 mitre on it (Cutts, Manual of Sepulchral Slabs and 

 Crosses, plate Ixv, where it is figured); as has also the 

 grave-slab of Abbot Thornton, now in Middleham 

 Church. An illustration of the latter is given in 

 Atthill's Collegiate Ch. of Middleham (Camd. Soc), 



p. XX. 



^^ Fahr Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 241. 

 " Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 567. 

 "Exch. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), file 237, no. 24. 

 "Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 567 ; Burton, Mon. Ebor, 

 372, &c. 



141 



