equal or surpass the glorious work of their neighbours and rivals. The poor homeless and churchless wanderers who, some twelve years after the foundation of Rievaulx, had found a temporary restingplace at Old Byland, removed after four or five years to Stocking, and thence to the spot where the ruins of Byland Abbey are still visible. Even here they were only five or six miles from Rievaulx, and their noble church arose almost under the eyes of their old neighbours.

Now, Byland is 328 feet long, and the transepts, as well as the presbytery, are aisled. It was founded in 1177, and probably completed by the end of the twelfth century. Sometime in the first half of the thirteenth century-Mr. Edmund Sharpe thought not earlier than 1240-the new eastern arm at Rievaulx was completed. Longer than that of Byland, and equally guilty of aisles and a triforium, it is now the great architectural and artistic attraction of a ruin which is perhaps only second in beauty to that of Fountains.

Our illustrations show this building in various points of view, and recall the peculiar charm of its situation and surroundings-less trim and artificial than those at Studley, less striking, perhaps, than those of Bolton, but combining a foreground of wooded hill

with distant heights of russet and purple moor into a picture which need fear comparison with neither. Of the eastern arms of Rievaulx and Fountains it has been said that "it would be difficult to find two examples which more characteristically represent the purity and elegance of the best work of the English lancet period," though "the effect in both cases is due to richness and delicacy of moulded work and excellence of proportion in main features,” for "of carved work there is little, and of sculpture

We have remarked that the triforium at Rievaulx bears a striking resemblance to that at Whitby. In the latter, however, a circular dripstone moulding surmounts each pair of pointed arches, whereas the former has nothing between the pointed arches and the string-course of the clerestory. A special characteristic of Rievaulx is the arrangement of lancets in couples, and this idea is carried out in the clerestory, whereas at Whitby we have groups of five, the centre only being pierced. The triforium at Whitby is also more lofty than that at Rievaulx, which again is not of the same design in the transept as in the eastern arm. Of the domestic buildings, the most conspicuous and interesting is the frater. Its peculiarity in being

1 Architecture of the Cistercians, Edmund Sharpe.

supported on a vaulted undercroft is perhaps due to the abrupt declivity of the ground,' but in connection. with this undercroft a question arises which is of considerable interest to antiquaries. The pulpit from which one of the monks must always read to his brethren during dinner is approached, as usual, by a straight staircase inside the frater, but any one who will take the trouble to mount the broken and ivycovered steps will find the remains of a second flight winding downwards and opening into the vault below. In this respect the arrangement at Rievaulx is believed to be unique in England, though Beaulieu in Hampshire has points of resemblance. "A dim light," says Mr. J. T. Micklethwaite, "is thrown on this curious arrangement by a direction in Consuetudines Ecc. Off. (cvi.) which orders that after the reader has ceased and put back his book into its place-discedat ubi a conventu non videatur-he should go away out of sight of the rest.”

In accordance with the invariable Cistercian plan, the frater at Rievaulx is at right angles with the cloister, and not parallel, as was the Benedictine custom (see plan, p. 15). It has been suggested that this difference may be accounted for by the fact that

1 The fact that Byland, with no great fall in the ground, had also an undercroft suggests that some other reason, possibly the fear of floods, gave rise to the arrangement.

the Cistercian monks were their own cooks, taking the duty week by week in turn. It was thus almost a necessity that the kitchen as well as buttery should have direct communication with the cloister-the ordinary living-room of the monks. On the other hand, it is to be remembered that the Cluniacs carried out a similar system in buildings of the older Benedictine type. In some respects the frater at Rievaulx is not unlike that at Fountains, but as it is not longitudinally divided by pillars, as is the case with the latter, it must have been covered by a wooden roof in one span.

Of the many thoughts and facts which crowd about the memory of Rievaulx Abbey, we must content ourselves with two of special interest. Here, in these blank and broken lancets, is said to have glowed in the twelfth century some of the earliest English stained glass; and hence, in the days of Ailred, went forth the colony which founded the first Cistercian Abbey in Scotland. To Walter l'Espec, as well as to King David, are art and poetry indebted for Melrose; and "when distant Tweed is heard to rave," as well as when the gentler murmur of the Rie is in our ears, we may recall the image of the "old man full of days, whose stature was passing tall and his voice like the sound of a trumpet."