In Norman Times: The Monasteries
The hundred years after the Norman Conquest was a great period
of building. It was a time for establishing or _founding_ new
religious houses. Something like three hundred and ninety-eight
such houses were opened during this period, so that they played a
very important part in the history of the times. The Normans were
not very much interested in the English religious houses which
they found already established here. In fact, a good many of them,
since the times of the Danish invasion, two hundred years before,
had got into very bad order, and were in need of reform. Little
by little, as Norman bishops and abbots were appointed over these
Saxon religious houses, reforms did take place, but not always very
easily or quietly.
At the time of the Conquest the religious houses in Normandy were
in a far better state than those in England. Their members lived
better lives, did better work, and set a much better example
of godly living and working. There were several new orders or
societies of monks, which had their head-quarters on the continent
of Europe. These interested King William's companions more than the
old English monasteries, because they and their fathers had helped
to establish them.
So we find, as the Normans received lands here in England, and
founded religious houses, most of them were connected with the
monasteries across the sea, and were ruled by abbots who lived
across the sea. Such branch houses were generally called priories,
and the kings and barons who founded them gave them manors and
parts of manors, sometimes taking them from the older Saxon
monasteries and cathedrals.[9]
[9] The Cistercian houses here in England, however, were always
known as _abbeys_, though Citeaux, their head-quarters, was in
France.
[Illustration: _Ruins of Furness Abbey_
_Built about sixty years after the Norman Conquest. Much of it
was destroyed in the time of Henry VIII._]
Then, too, there were the old Saxon houses, St. Alban's Abbey,
Westminster Abbey, and Glastonbury Abbey: they were reformed and
improved, and to them, too, lands were given in various parts
of the country, often far away from the mother house. Thus St.
Alban's Monastery had important lands in the neighbourhood of the
River Tyne, and a daughter house was opened there called Tynemouth
Priory. So, you see, there were two kinds of priories in England:
one class attached to English religious houses, and the other to
Norman or foreign religious houses. In time the foreign priories
received the name of alien priories.
In time a good deal of ill-feeling arose towards these alien
priories, as the people in England did not like so much money going
out of the country, especially in war times. King John was the
first king to seize these priories when he fell out with France.
Later, King Edward I, in 1295, seized the property of about one
hundred of the alien priories in various parts of England to help
to pay his war expenses. There were several of these alien houses
in the Isle of Wight, and, thinking that the monks might be aiding
his enemies across the English Channel, the king sent the monks to
other houses on the mainland, a long way away from the coast, to
keep them out of mischief. When the war was over, the property was
restored to these priories, and the monks returned to them. This
kind of thing happened over and over again.
All these religious houses had some interest in the land, and all
of them, to a greater or lesser degree, were landlords. In some
cases the lands given to them were manors which had been managed
and tilled in the same way for hundreds of years. The only change
was that the lord of the manor might be a society or religious
house instead of a baron. Each of the manors had its steward, its
villeins, and so forth, like any other in the land. But a good deal
of the land given to these new religious houses had never been
occupied before.
Though some of the monasteries, like St. Alban's and St. Edmund's
Bury, were in towns, there were others, especially those founded
in these Norman times, far away from towns, in pathless woods or
deep dales, like Rievaulx, in Yorkshire. Others, like Ramsey and
Thorney, were in lonely fens and marshes. Here the monks themselves
set to work, as in the earlier days, and tilled the ground,
keeping up their regular services in their little churches most
carefully--praying and working. Gradually their lands improved;
other lands came to them; more labour was needed; and so, little by
little, tenants took holdings on their lands, and farmed them for
the "house", on much the same conditions as in the older manors.
[Illustration: _Foundation of a Minster_
_From a thirteenth-century drawing in the British Museum._]
We find that in many of the monasteries attention was given to
other occupations besides agriculture. Some, especially those in
towns, like St. Alban's, became in this period great seats of
learning. All of them copied the books they used, and some of them
were particularly famed for their writing and illuminating. In
fact, they were the book-producers of the age, and very little of
the work of learned ancient scholars could have come down to us had
it not been for the careful, painstaking work of simple monks quite
unknown to history.
Some of the abbeys in the west of England, like Bath Abbey, had a
good deal to do with opening up the wool trade, which in the Middle
Ages became the staple trade of the south and west of England.
Flaxley Abbey, in Gloucestershire, developed iron-smelting. The
iron mines in Furness were developed there by the monks, and
also in the neighbouring Walney Isle, off the Lancashire coast.
At Rievaulx, in Yorkshire, there were ironworks near the abbey,
and at Malvern Priory there was ornamental tile-making carried
on, specimens of the work done there remaining in a good many
Worcestershire churches still. Monks gave great attention to their
gardens, and were very clever in fish culture; and in many simple,
homely ways they showed men how to develop the natural resources of
the land.
In the monasteries men could quietly think and work, and use the
talents they had, without being called away to fight or do the
unskilled work of the world. In these early times there were no
other places where men could lead quiet, thoughtful lives, and
"think things out", and then put them into practice. The men in
the monasteries were not all equally good or religious or clever,
but the work done in and through these old institutions was most
important and most valuable to the country.
[Illustration: _Bath Abbey. Founded 676; rebuilt in the
Perpendicular style, 1499_]