IN NORMAN TIMES: THE MONASTERIES
1. 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 389 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, 200 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.[6]
4. Then, too, there were the old Saxon houses, like 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=.
5. All these religious houses had some interest in the land, and all of
them, to a greater or less 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.
6. 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 church 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.
7. 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
wrote 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.
8. 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=.
9. 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.
=Summary.=--Many new religious houses were founded[7] in Norman
times. The Norman barons were more interested in establishing
branch houses of Norman monasteries than in those they found[8]
in England. Branch houses of the various monasteries were called
_priories_, and those which belonged to foreign monasteries were
called _alien priories_.
All the monasteries were landholders. Some of them took over old
manors, others had uncultivated land given to them which in time
became manors.
Some monasteries, like St. Alban's, Westminster, and Glastonbury,
became great centres of learning. Others, in out-of-the-way
places, encouraged various trades--Bath did much for the wool
trade of the west of England; Flaxley developed iron-smelting.