A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



which was in the parish of Downholme, not 

 very far from Richmond.' 



Having founded the abbey of Warden, 

 Walter Espec entered the abbey of Rievaulx 

 as a monk, and died and was buried there/ 



Quite early in the history of the house a 

 strange agreement was entered into between 

 the monks of Rievaulx and the canons of 

 Kirkham,* whereby the latter were to cede to 

 Rievaulx the whole of Kirkham, with its church 

 and the canons' buildings, gardens, and mills, 

 as well as Whitwcll and Westow, and 4 

 carucates of land in Thixendale, and of their 

 stock a wagon and 100 sheep, on condition that 

 the patron would give them the whole of Linton 

 and ' Hwersletorp.' Their prior and his 

 assistants {sui auxilarti) were to build them a 

 church and other monastic offices. It seems 

 that there must have been a proposal that 

 Kirkham should become Cistercian (a proposal 

 which caused a division in that house), and that 

 it was intended that Rievaulx should take over 

 Kirkham as a Cistercian monastery, the dis- 

 sentient canons having a new house built for 

 them elsewhere. It is clear that Walter Espec 

 was living ' when the agreement was drawn up, 

 and his preference for the Cistercian order as 

 evidenced by his entry as a monk at Rievaulx, 

 may have made him wish that his three founda- 

 tions Kirkham, Rievaulx, and Warden should 

 be of the Cistercian order ; the agreement, 

 however, fell through. 



Another incident in the early history of the 

 house is also difficult to understand. It is 

 re\ ealed in a rescript from Pope Alexander III 

 ( 1 1 5 9-8 1 )'" to the Bishop of Exeter, the Abbot of 

 St. Alary, York, and the Dean of York directing 

 them to see that amends were made for the 

 spoliation of the property of the abbey of 

 Rievaulx by certain persons named, and the 

 strange thing is that the offenders were some 

 of the chief benefactors of the abbey. Robert 

 and William de Stuteville had been guilty of 

 various acts of depredation, and the pope ordered 

 that within thirty days they were to make 

 restitution, under pain of excommunication. 

 Seven other offenders are named, including 

 Roger de Mowbray and his son Nickel. 



In 1 143 Roger de Mowbray granted Old 

 Byland to the convent of monks who had left 

 Calder, intending that they should build their 

 monastery on the south side of the River Rye, 

 but the site was too near Rievaulx, and each 

 house heard the bells of the other. In conse- 

 quence of this the monks of Byland moved 

 further off, but the lands of the two houses were 

 coterminous, and to avoid possible disputes an 

 agreement was entered into between Aelred 



« Charlul. 0/ Rievaulx (Surt. Soc ), Introd. p Iviii 

 'Ibid. 264. Mbid. 108. 



Abbot of Rievaulx, and Roger, Abbot of Byland, 

 about 1 1 54." This agreement began by a 

 mutual engagement of masses and prayers for 

 deceased brothers of the two houses and a com- 

 bined action against oppression or misfortune by 

 fire or otherwise, and then defined the relations 

 of the two houses as to their adjoining lands,, 

 both the homeland of the two houses and their 

 properties at a distance, where they adjoined 

 each other. As to the homelands, the Byland 

 monks conceded to their brethren of Rievaulx 

 that they should have their bridge so constructed 

 that it should hold back the wood they conveyed 

 by the River Rye, and also a road from the 

 bridge through the wood and field of Byland to 

 a place called Hestelsceit, 1 8 ft. in width, which 

 the monks of Byland were to keep in repair. 

 They were to have mutual rights on each others* 

 banks of the river. The monks of Byland 

 should peaceably retain the house they had built 

 at Deepdale (near Cayton), and all that they 

 possessed or might obtain in Gristhorpe, Fals- 

 graVe, Seamer, Irton and West Ayton, except 

 the meadowland of the last-named, none of 

 which they were to hold except with the consent 

 of the monks of Rievaulx. In Hutton and 

 Brompton neither house was to accept anything 

 for the purpose of building without the consent 

 of the other. The beasts of the grange of Griff 

 (belonging to Rievaulx) were to have pasturage 

 within the wood of Scawton only from Burnsdale 

 to Sproxton, the rest of Scawton was to remain 

 the property of the Byland monks. Then 

 followed in the agreement a description of the 

 boundaries between other of their properties 

 both at hand and in the West Riding. This 

 conventio karitath was in 1 1 70 again confirmed 

 with certain additions, Sylvanus being then 

 Abbot of Rievaulx and Roger still holding office 

 at Byland. 



A very severe rebuke was addressed by Alex- 

 ander III to Archbishop Roger Pont I'Eveque '^ 

 for placing Rievaulx under an Interdict and 

 threatening the monks with excommunication 

 until they should pay his clerk the tithes from 

 which they had been exempted by papal authority. 

 Another letter ^^ from the same pope rebuked 

 Bishop Hugh and the Prior of Durham for ex- 

 tortion in the matter of the annual payment to 

 be made by the abbey in consideration of the 

 tithes of Cottam. In 1243" Innocent IV 

 extended a papal grant to the Abbot and convent 

 of Rievaulx, exempting them from payment of 

 tithes of property acquired after the said indult 

 in regard to which they were being molested by 

 prelates and clerks of the diocese of York. 



Rievaulx being a Cistercian abbey and so 

 exempt from episcopal visitation, very little is 



" Ibid. Introd. p. xxiv. 



Ibid. 194, no. cclxii. 



" Ibid. 176, no. ccxliii. 



"Ibid. 191. "Ibid. 



'* Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 199. 



192. 



150 



