was a place," says Serlo, "which had never been inhabited, overgrown with thorns, a hollow in the hills between projecting rocks; fitter, to all appearance, to be a lair of wild beasts than a home for men." Here Thurstan left the monks, and here they remained. At first the rocks were literally their only shelter, but soon they chose a great elm in the middle of the valley, and thatched a sort of hut around its trunk.1

In the presence of the Archbishop they solemnly elected Prior Richard as their Abbot. "He had no shelter from the rain, and it was winter," but still "he casts his care upon God, and girds himself against the stress of poverty with abundance of faith." And so they began the life they had longed for. From 1 So says the chronicle. Local tradition points to some ancient yews on the bank as the first shelter of the monks. "On the south side are five or six yew-trees, all yet (1757) growing except the largest, which was blown down a few years ago. They are of an incredible size, the circumference of the trunk of one of them is at least 14 feet about a yard from the ground, and the branches in proportion to the trunk; they are all nearly of the same bulk, and are so nigh together as to make an excellent cover, almost equal to that of a thatched roof. Under these trees, we are told by tradition, the monks resided till they built the monastery; which seems to me to be very probable if we consider how little a yew-tree increases in a year and to what a bulk these are grown. And as the hill-side was covered with wood, which is now almost all cut down except these trees, it seems as if they were left standing to perpetuate the memory of the monks' habitation there during the first winter of their residence."-BURTON, Monasticon Eborac.

time to time Thurstan sent them bread, and they drank the water of the stream.

As yet these poor monks can hardly have seen in the gritstone of the sheltering rock the "promise and presage" of an architectural masterpiece. At present their daily labour is the making of mats and the cutting of faggots for a wattled oratory, while a few of the more skilful take to gardening. "There is no sadness, not a murmur is heard, but with all cheerfulness they bless the Lord, poor indeed in worldly goods, but strong in faith."

When winter was over, Abbot Richard and his monks began to consider under what rule they should live, for hitherto they had only tried to conform, after a fashion of their own, to that of St. Benedict. By this time the Cistercian house of Rievaulx had begun to make its influence felt, and moreover it cannot be doubted that Thurstan had told his friends how a work after their own hearts was being carried on at Clairvaux. To St. Bernard, then, as might have been expected, they sent certain of their number with an intimation that they had chosen him for their spiritual father. Clairvaux thus became the mother house of Fountains, and St. Bernard sent one of his monks, Geoffrey by name, to teach the new rule and direct the building operations in the valley

of the Skell. It must not, however, be forgotten that as Fountains was a daughter of Clairvaux, so was Clairvaux itself of Citeaux; and the system which Geoffrey introduced at Fountains was in reality that of Robert of Molesme and Stephen Harding the Englishman.

For two years the new monastery, increasing in numbers but not in wealth, endured great hardships; and when at last, in spite of Thurstan's generosity, they were reduced to a diet of boiled leaves and salt, their resolution gave way, and the Abbot himself went to beg St. Bernard to remove them to one of the granges, or small dependencies, of Clairvaux. The request was granted, but meanwhile the tide had turned. The wealth, which was to be more fatal to Fountains than all its privations, had begun to flow in.

Hugh, Dean of York, had joined the brotherhood, and brought with him both money in abundance and a fine collection of books of the Holy Scriptures, and Serlo (not the chronicler) and Tosti, canons of the same cathedral, soon followed his example.

Then came gifts and conveyances of land from neighbouring lords; and when King Stephen was at York, in 1135, he confirmed the monks in their possessions, and exempted them from all aids, taxes,

danegelds, assesses, pleas, and scutages, as well as from all customs and land service due to superior lords. The Monastery of Our Lady of Fountains had now fairly taken root. Three years of zeal and devotion had worked their oft-repeated miracle. Henceforth the founding of fresh abbeys and the building of their own were to be the signs of life and vigour among the once persecuted seceders from York: the gifts and bequests of those whose only motives were superstition and selfish fear were to be the seeds of its decay and omens of its fall. It is only positive and vital impulses that can create, and vivify, and mould. The terror that haunts the rich man's deathbed may rob his heirs, but it can raise no lasting memorial of itself.

The first colony from Fountains was Newminster. In less than two years followed Kirkstead and Haverholme (afterwards removed to the neighbourhood of Louth). The latter house was established under Gervase as its first Abbot. Thus the "backslider" becomes once more visible to us as we gaze into the beryl-stone of history, and we can think of him among the many to whom, for our comfort, victory has been given in spite, as it were, of themselves. In 1145 Abbot Murdac supplied monks for De Bolbec, the founder of Woburn; and the next

year a visit from Sigward, Bishop of Bergen, led to the settlement of thirteen monks from Fountains at Lysa in Norway. From Fountains, too, went Serlo, the chronicler, and eleven others, under Alexander the Prior, to Bernoldswic, and eventually to Kirkstall, while only five days later Bytham (afterwards Vaudey) was added to the list. Finally, in 1150, the Earl of Albemarle founded Meaux Abbey, with Adam, one of the original seceders from York, as its Abbot. Thus within twenty years Fountains became the mother of seven monasteries.

John de Cancia-Kentish John-was pre-eminently the builder - abbot of Fountains. After the partial destruction by fire in 1146 of the then existing conventual buildings and oratory, the work went on, we must conclude, unceasingly for the remainder of the century; but in 1203 the church was not large enough for the multitude of monks, and the Abbot bethought him of building a great choir. It was not, however, till the time of the before-mentioned John de Cancia (1220-1249) that this vision was fully realised. We can thus trace the growth of our Abbey through the late Norman and transition. styles to the definite Early English, to which, undoubtedly, the work of "Kentish John" belongs. But the architectural and antiquarian features of