Now! Then! Monks from Fountains move into the half-finished mud predecessor of Meaux Abbey (ER), built for them by Count William the Fat

1 January 1151: Monks from Fountains move into the half-finished mud predecessor of Meaux Abbey (ER), built for them by Count William the Fat

Thomas of Burton. 1866. Chronica monasterii de Melsa, Vol. 1. Ed. Edward A. Bond. London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer. Get it:

Excerpt

When Adam the monk had chosen a suitable place for building a monastery, but a deed of exchange had not yet been executed on the property, Count William le Gros endeavoured as far as he could to arrange for Adam to found the monastery at whichever other place in his possession he wished. But by no means could he be prevailed upon to divert in any way from his enterprise. Finally the count solemnly donated the place itself, with all its appurtenances, to God and the Blessed Virgin Mary, for the construction of a monastery of the Cistercian order. He caused a large house to be built, albeit of mere mud, where a bakery is now established, in which the coming assembly would live until a more providential arrangement was made for them. He also built a kind of chapel near the aforesaid house, which is simply called the cellarer’s chamber, where all the monks afterwards slept on the lower floor, and on the upper one devoutly performed the divine services. While these were still incomplete, the assembly of monks from the monastery of Fountains was conducted on the fifth day to the predestined place on January 1st, and, having appointed the prefect of the assembly Adam as abbot, he released the same place to the aforesaid abbot and monks and their successors. Then the said abbots and monks began to seek daily sustenance from the works of their hands, eating their bread in the sweat of their brows, and planting the vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth in their blood. The comprovincials flocked to them from all quarters, some to help, and some to convert. For the simple people marvelled at the hooded nation, sometimes insisting on divine services, and at other times occupying themselves with rustic labours.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations

Comment

Who were the simple people who met the monks? Were there any local memories of the Harrying of the North 70 years before, or had the area been left tabula rasa? James Boyce on the supposedly grim conditions in which monasteries further down the coast were created at the time:

The mythology that the Fens were an inhospitable and unpopulated land after the Roman withdrawal from Britain in AD 410 was created by the Church. Accounts of the men and women who founded the region’s great monasteries were focused on inspiring piety and pilgrimage, and this required that the saints moved into a harsh and empty wilderness. Nevertheless, there are sufficient clues within even the most fabulous fables to reveal that the new colonisers were not the pioneers penned by the scribes (Boyce 2021).

Count William the Fat founded the abbey because of his size – I’m not being facetious. Here’s editor Bond’s summary of the great backstory:

The story of the foundation of Meaux abbey is very graphically told by the author of our chronicle. He relates how William le Gros, earl of Albemarle, a powerful nobleman, lord of Holderness and of other broad lands in the county of York, had made a vow to go to Jerusalem, which from age and corpulency he felt indisposed to fulfil. The earl was of a liberal as well as devout turn of mind, and had already exhibited his zeal for religion by founding in France the Cluniac abbey of St. Martin, near Aumale [> Albermarle], and in England the abbey of Thornton on Humber, of the order of Augustinian canons, and the Cistercian abbey of Vaudey, or Vallis Dei, in Lincolnshire. In the erection of the buildings of Vaudey the earl seems to have employed the architectural talents of Adam, a monk of Fountains, who had already proved his ability in the construction of the works at Kirkstead and Woburn. In his interviews with the earl, Adam detected his uneasiness on the subject of his unfulfilled vow, and so far played upon it for his own purposes as to suggest to him the foundation of a monastery of the Cistercian order, to which he belonged, as a means of obtaining the pope’s absolution from his engagement. Under the stipulated condition of this being secured to him, the earl pledged himself to the erection of a Cistercian house. Adam had recourse to the great Bernard, father of the order, for assistance in procuring the required dispensation from pope Eugenius III, with complete success, and was invited to survey the earl’s estates for the purpose of selecting a suitable site for the promised foundation. Coming to a place called Melsa, or Meaux, in Holderness, between three and four miles to the east of Beverley, he found just the situation he desired, in a country, it is stated, well planted with woods and orchards, surrounded with rivers and waters, and favoured with a rich soil. In the midst of it was a rising ground, known as St. Mary’s hill; ascending which, the enthusiastic monk struck a staff he carried in his hand forcibly into the ground, exclaiming “Let this place be called a palace of the eternal King, and a vineyard of heaven, and gate of life! Here be established a family of worshippers of Christ!” And turning to a group of followers, he added, “Have you not heard, my dear brethren, what the prophet promised respecting the building of the Lord’s house? ‘In the last days,’ he said, ‘it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains.’ These words, not knowing why, I have been repeating all this day; and now I see it was by the providence of God, whose will it is that his temple should be erected on this hill.” Unfortunately the good earl of Albemarle had an objection to giving up this particular property for the monk Adam’s purpose. He had taken a strong liking to it, and had obtained it only a few days before from Sir John de Melsa in exchange for his manor of Bewick, near Aldborough, with six carucates of land. The deed of exchange had not so much as been executed; and already the earl had planned to impark the estate, and had actually begun to enclose it on the west side with a raised bank and broad ditch, still bearing the name of Parkdike. He tried hard to induce the monk to be satisfied with some other situation, offering him liberty of selection from all his property. Adam, however, was not to be diverted from his first choice; and eventually the earl solemnly devoted the whole estate to God and the blessed Virgin Mary, for the foundation of a monastery of Cistercian monks.

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Original

Cum autem, ut prædictum est, dictus Adam monachus locum monasterio construendo aptum elegisset, et ipsius loci commutatio nondum fuerat scripti munimento confirmata, elaborabat dictus comes Willielmus le Groos, in quantum potuit, ut dictus Adam monachus locum alium, ubicunque sibi placeret, in dominio suo eligeret ad monasterium fundandum. Sed nequaquam hunc ab incepto proposito aliqualiter flectere prævalebat. Tandem ergo comes locum ipsum cum omnibus pertinentiis suis Deo et Beatæ Virgini Mariæ, ad monasterium monachorum Cisterciensis ordinis ibidem faciendum, solenniter conferebat. Fecit ergo ædificari quandam magnam domum, licet ex vili cemate, ubi nunc stabilitur pistrinum, in qua conventus adventurus, donec providentius pro eis ordinaretur, habitaret. Fecit etiam quandam capellam juxta domum prædictam, quæ modo dicitur camera cellerarii, ubi monachi omnes in inferiori solario postea decubabant, et in superiori divina officia devotius persolvebant. Quibus nondum perfectis, conventum monachorum de monasterio de Fontibus quinto kalendas eductum in locum prædestinatum kalendis Januarii introduxit, atque, ipsi conventui præscripto Adam monacho præfecto in abbatem, locum ipsum præfatis abbati et monachis suisque successoribus relaxabat. Deinde cœperunt dicti abbates et monachi ex operibus manuum suarum victum quærere quotidianum, in sudore vultus sui pane suo vescentes, et in sanguine suo vineam Domini Sabaoth complantantes. Confluebant ergo ad eos undique conprovinciales, ad coadjuvandum quidam, quidam vero ad conversionem. Stolidus enim populus gentem admirabatur cucullatam quibusdam temporibus divinis obsequiis insistentem, et aliis temporibus operibus rusticanis occupatam.

235 words.