Fountains Abbey – a Comparison to Buckland Abbey
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Fountains Abbey – a Comparison to Buckland Abbey Fountains today - ruins Fountains Abbey beginnings The story of Fountains abbey begins in 1132. A group of 13 monks at a Benedictine Abbey nearby called St Mary’s were shocked at how the other monks in their abbey were behaving. They looked to start a new abbey in North Yorkshire with the support of the Archbishop of York’s help (one of the religious leaders in England). They set up an abbey in the valley of the River Skell, though their first winter was spent sheltering under an elm tree covering themselves with straw!! They nearly gave up but a Cistercian Abbot helped them financially and so they converted to become Cistercian monks like those at Buckland. The Abbey Laybrothers and monks more separated in abbey Initially, the monks constructed their first church of wood. Then it became replaced with a small stone building. But in around 1160 the great Abbey Church was built. Like The lay brothers and choir monks were in Buckland, masons used local stone. But in the north the local stone was sandstone separated more at Fountains Abbey than so it is made of a different material to Buckland Abbey which is constructed of grey Buckland – probably because Fountains stone. The Church was much bigger than that of Buckland, though it had the same abbey had more money to create cross shape and high alter in the eastern side. There were over 200 men living at separate building areas. For example, Fountains and so the nave where the laybrothers sat was very long. Although the first the laybrothers had their own dormitory stone church was quite simple, the great Abbey Church of 1160 was more ornate and and their own night stairs from their so didn’t follow the rule of no ornamentation in the same way the Cistercians of dormitory to their early morning service, Buckland did. In 1400s the abbey was further enhanced with more ornamentations and then onto work. The laybrothers had such as adding in a great window and carvings such as the ‘Green man’ The Abbot more sleep than choir monks due to who commissioned this – Abbot Darnton, even had his own portrait carved above the doing a lot more manual labour. The south window! choir monks had a different set of ‘night stairs’ as they would rise up from their Like Buckland, Fountains Abbey had a crossing tower. This was rebuilt in 1500 to beds at 2am to pray in the wooden stalls become an enormous 167 foot tower which still dominates views of the abbey today. of the abbey. Additional buildings Differences in additional buildings to those of Buckland Abbey. Just like Buckland Abbey, Fountains Abbey had a There are two key differences in the buildings of Buckland and Cloister. Like in Buckland, monks gathered here as part Fountains Abbey. The first is where buildings were placed on the site, of their last duty of the day – the ‘lectio divina’ when the and secondly, the size of the buildings due to wealth differences. monks read and prayed for spiritual growth. Along the north wall of the cloister, just like the monks at Buckland, 1) Where buildings were placed. Buckland’s cloisters were placed there was a roofed area for monks to sit under and study on the North side of the building. This means that all the their books. Also like the monks at Buckland abbey the buildings around the cloisters like the refectory and dormitory are monks at Fountains had a chapter house and a burial in different places. Fountains Abbey keeps to the rule that ground. The burial ground at Fountains Abbey is much cloisters ought to be on the south side of the abbey and so the layout looks different. more understood – as there are gravestones which mark 2) Fountains Abbey was much wealthier than Buckland, highlighted the burials of 19 Abbots, the first being Richard in 1170. by how much they cost to buy following the dissolution. Buckland Again like Buckland, the monks at Fountains had an was sold for £234 when it was sold in 1541, whereas Fountains infirmary, and an Abbot’s House though again both are sold for £11000! This means Fountains has grander buildings on a grander scale than those same buildings at and simply more of them. For example Fountains has a library Buckland. There was also a refectory, a Guesthouse and which Buckland doesn’t appear to. Fountains also has separate toilets for the monks at the site. It also had an industrial dormitories for laybrothers and choir monks, Buckland doesn’t area like Buckland with a bakehouse, a glazier, appear to. There isn’t a great barn to store produce at Fountains, blacksmiths, etc. perhaps because one barn wouldn’t have been big enough? Its daily life wold have been similar in many ways to that of Buckland Abbey – but on a grander scale. However Fountains fortunes and history was very different to Buckland due to being in the far north of the country in North Yorkshire • Like Buckland Abbey, Fountains Abbey’s wealth came from sheep rearing and the preparation and selling of the cloth they made. • During the European famine of 1194 the Abbot of Fountains Abbey, Haget, ordered the construction of shelters in the area around the abbey and provided daily food to the poor. This enhanced the abbey's reputation for caring for the poor and attracting more grants from wealthy supporters of the abbey, making it become richer • In the 1200s Fountains increased in reputation and wealth, but it was being burdened with increasing demands for money in taxation. However, it managed to complete another massive expansion of the abbey's buildings. This included enlarging the church and building an infirmary. Fountains abbey was at its largest and most wealthiest in the 1200s. It had over 100, perhaps over 200 laybrothers whose work helped Fountains abbey become one of the richest and most powerful religious houses in the country, and the sale of its wool was the main source of its wealth. • However at the end of the 1200s and into the 1300s there was trouble and disaster. They abbey didn’t manage its finances very well which led to debts. Sheep disease killed many of the sheep and affected income and harvests failed in the changing colder climate. Raids from the hungry Scottish people followed as famine in Scotland was severe. These problems didn’t occur to Buckland as it didn’t border Scotland and their finances remained stable. • Then came the years of the Black Death 1349-50 which saw a third of the abbey’s population die. There were now not enough laybrothers to farm the land so much of the land was rented out to provide income. Buckland faced the same problem. The abbey struggled on until a powerful abbot took over in the later 1400s called Abbot Darnton who began a rebuilding programme of Fountains Abbey. Then came Abbot Huby who built the huge crossing tower. The Reformation at Fountains – a comparison to Reformation at Buckland • As with Buckland Abbey, Henry VIII dissolved Fountains Abbey in the year 1539, in November • Once the monks had left, the abbey and its lands went up for sale to raise money for the crown. • In 1540, a wealthy merchant Richard Gresham, bought Fountains Abbey for £11000. He never made it his home though – he just wanted it as an investment. As part of the sale, he had to make the buildings unfit for religious use (maybe the Grenville’s had to do this with Buckland too?) So the roofs of the Abbey and chapter house were pulled down with Horse and rope. Gresham’s men took and sold all they could, lead from the roof, and glass from the windows. Without a monastic community to support, the tannery, brewery and workshops fell into disrepair. • In the 1600s, stone from the abbey was taken by the then owner of the ruins, Stephen Proctor to create a Tudor home called ‘Fountains Hall’ which he was living in by 1604. Unsurprisingly, like Grenville, he was a protestant. Meanwhile the abbey ruins remained there until the 1760s. • The Fountains Abbey estate (including Fountains Hall) was bought by William Aislibie but he kept it as it was to be a gentleman’s country retreat. He used the ruined abbey to make a beautiful view within the estate. Task: Read through the information and create a table with as many similarities and differences as you can find when comparing Buckland Abbey with Fountains Abbey. Similarities Differences .