A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



firmation of the property which the abbey then 

 possessed.' 



Abbot Alexander was succeeded in 1 182 * by 

 Ralph Haget, who had also been Prior of 

 Fountains. His rule was not successful, and 

 although renowned for sanctity he seems to 

 have lacked business capacity. Perhaps it may 

 have been more his misfortune than mismanage- 

 ment, for he was afterwards elected Abbot of 

 Fountains, but Kirkstall became impoverished in 

 his time. The important grange of Mickle- 

 thwaite was alienated, and the monks seem to 

 have blamed him for that loss, for which he was 

 not responsible, as well as others, such as that of a 

 golden chalice and a text of the Gospels, which he 

 had given to Henry II to gain his good will. 

 For the nine years of his abbacy he remained at 

 Kirkstall with his monks struggling with poverty 

 until he was chosen Abbot of Fountains in 1 191, 

 and was succeeded by Lambert, one of the twelve 

 monks who forty- two years before had left 

 Fountains to found the Abbey of Barnolds- 

 wick. 



Abbot Lambert ' is described as a man of 

 extraordinary innocency and simplicity, and one 

 who took little part in the temporal affairs of 

 the house, relying rather on his brethren's ad- 

 vice. 



In his time the grange of Cliviger was claimed 

 from the monks by Richard of Eland, and the 

 abbot, regarding the claim as a just one, resigned 

 Cliviger to Robert Lacy, the son of the founder, 

 and then patron of the abbey, who gave instead 

 of it a place called ' Akarinton.' Removing the 

 inhabitants from Akarinton, he formed it into a 

 farm or grange, but some of the ejected inhabit- 

 ants burnt the grange with all its belongings, 

 besides killing the three conversi who had been 

 put in charge of it. Robert Lacy dealt very 

 severely with the evildoers, whom he banished, 

 making them first rebuild the grange and abjure 

 all right to it and pay money beyond the cost 

 of repairing the damage done to the monks. 

 The record concludes by saying that Abbot 

 Lambert died in a good old age after having held 

 office for thirty years, but his real term of office 

 appears to have been about five years.' 



The next abbot was Turgis, a man who 

 practised extreme asceticism even for those days 

 of hard living. It is said that he wept so copi- 

 ously at his devotions and while saying mass, 

 that others could hardly wear the same sacerdotal 

 vestments. 



Helias, a monk of Roche, who succeeded 

 Turgis in the abbacy, endeavoured to obtain 

 from King John the grange of Micklethwaite, 

 which Henry I had seized during the abbacy of 

 Ralph Haget, but the king would only consent 



• Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 535, no. xiii. 



* Ibid. S3 1. 'Ibid. 



See list of abbots below. 



to grant the grange if the abbot would take the 

 manors of Bardsey and Collingham to farm, 

 paying yearly the sum of £<)0. 



At the time of the appointment of Hugh 

 Grimston in 1284' the abbey was enormously 

 in debt, owing no less a sum than ^^5,248 15;. yd. 

 besides 59 sacks of wool. The new abbot mu^t 

 have set vigorously to work to reduce this debt, 

 for by July 1 301 the house owed ;^i6o only, 

 while its farm stock comprised 216 draught 

 oxen, 160 cows, 152 yearlings and bullocks, 

 90 calves, and 4,000 sheep and lambs. 



In 1380-1 ' besides the abbot there were 

 sixteen monks and six conversi. 



In 1394-5'" the alien oell of Burstall in 

 Holderness, belonging to the abbey of St. Martin 

 near Albemarle in France, was sold to the Abbot 

 and convent of Kirkstall, who thus became 

 possessed of several churches and considerable 

 property in the east of Yorkshire, which they 

 retained till the Dissolution. 



The entrance of women within the precincts 

 of Cistercian monasteries of men was very 

 strictly forbidden, but Pope Boniface IX having 

 granted indulgences to those persons of either 

 sex who visited the conventual church of Kirk- 

 stall on certain days, Robert Burley, Abbot of 

 Fountains, pater abbas of Kirkstall, agreed in 

 1401 to tolerate pro tempore the admission of 

 women to the church only on condition that 

 they visited no other of the monastic buildings 

 and were not received there by the abbot or 

 monks.'' 



In 1432" John Colyngham resigned the 

 office of abbot, and his successor, also named 

 John, with the convent made provision for him. 

 He was to receive a yearly pension of 20 marks 

 for life, and to have a chamber assigned for his 

 free use, called ' the Wh.'te Chawmber.' Besides 

 this, his portion of bread, ale and victuals was 

 to be that of two monks, and he was to have 

 lights, with wood for fuel. He was to take 

 rank everywhere immediately after the existing 

 abbot, and, if he so wished, might take his meals 

 in the abbot's chamber. A servant was to be 

 assigned to him as to the abbot, and if ill a 

 monk was to be deputed by the abbot or prior 

 to look after him. 



Possibly because a visitation of all the Cister- 

 cian houses of men in England was in progress 

 at the time, this agreement was confirmed by 

 the three abbot visitors, William, Abbot of 



' Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 534, where King John's 

 charter, dated 4 May 1205, is printed (no. vii), from 

 the original formerly in St. Mary's Tower, York. 



" Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 528, n. 



' Subs. R. 63, no. 12. 



'" Burton, Mon. Ebor. 298, where an alphabetical 

 list of the churches, lands, &c. which passed to 

 Kirkstall will be found. 



" Cott. Chart, iv, 39. 



" York Archiepis. Reg. Kemp, fol. 368^. 



144 



