thirteenth centuries? Of the nunneries belonging to the order we have said nothing. They were for the most part small establishments, and their number in England never reached thirty. Neither have we space to speak of even a moderate proportion of the great abbeys and priories whose foundation is noticed in the Waverley annals, which nearly cover the period of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Beaulieu is remarkable as having been founded by King John, the bitter enemy of the Cistercian order, by way of atoning for his crimes towards them. Netley, the picturesque, ruins of which are so well known, is notable for the smallness of its revenues, combined with the magnificence of its conventical church. Around Vale Royal, the letters of the last abbot, pleading for his house (preserved in Ormerod's Cheshire,) cast a pathetic interest. The history of this abbey, like that of Fountains, is a strange comment on the professed asceticism of the order. The abbot of Vale Royal,' says Mr. Ormerod, for nearly three centuries had maintained a style of 'splendour equal to that of many powerful barons. Like them he had his seneschal and his under seneschal. The ordinary 'law of his court was administered by a coroner and the bailiffs ' of Over and Weverham, in whom a capital privilegium was vested, with the powers of Infangtheof and Outfangtheof, equally serviceable in screening his own vassals from whatever 'enormities they might commit, and of subjecting to the abbot's vengeance, without possibility of appeal, all trespassers on his 'privileges within the limits which the charter had assigned to him. He had his page to attend upon him in the abbey, and 'his palfreyman to hold the reins of his horse on his journey, in which, from the account of the skirmish in Rutlandshire, he appears to have travelled with a powerful retinue and to have 'been attended by considerable families of the county.' S. Bernard would have found in this development of one of his children something as little to his taste as that which he saw in Abbot Peter of Clugni, and indeed in spite of high professions, after a short period there was no great discernible difference in externals between the old Benedictines, the Clugniacs, and the Cistercians. We shall now endeavour to gather from the annals before us some historical notices of the Cistercian Order, as a whole, during the period contained in the chronicle. Stephen was a good friend to the White Monks. He not only founded several abbeys for their brethren, but his whole policy was one of respect for the special privileges and exemptions of the Church. At the Council at London in 1163, he agreed to the most rigid canons proposed by the legate, against those who arrested clerks, 6 or in any way injured things ecclesiastical.1 Henry II, though somewhat different in his notions as to the rights of the State towards the Church, yet did not venture to subject the powerful order of the Cistercians to the exactions which he imposed on other Churchmen. The very heavy tax which was levied for the third crusade, in which many, and especially the poorer sort were tortured and afflicted,' did not touch the Cistercians.2 The order, however, did not fare so well in the taxing for the raising of King Richard's ransom. This was a matter in which the Pope was specially interested, and no protection to them from Rome was to be feared. The country also being thoroughly' in earnest in the desire to raise the sum required speedily, was not ready to respect any ordinary exemptions. 'The chief men of England who were collecting this money, in addition to the contributions of the laity, levied a tenth on the revenues of all the churches. They took whatever treasure in gold, or silver, or precious stones they found in the abbeys and other churches, so that the crosses and the biers were stripped, and even the sacred vessels of the altar were plundered. But since among the monks of the Cistercian order there were found no treasures of gold and silver, as in other monasteries, the whole of the wool of one year's growth was forcibly seized.' 3 From this it appears that as yet the strong objection of S. Stephen and S. Bernard to the use of costly ornaments in the Cistercian churches was respected. In the earlier part of their history the Cistercians were the antiritualists of their day. They had commenced with a violent opposition to the gorgeous ceremonial of Clugni. How long the antagonism was preserved we cannot exactly trace, but there is abundant proof that it at length issued in a very different view. The list of the sacred vessels of Fountains, with their gold and jewels, exhibits this great abbey as scarcely behind any in Europe in its magnificent collection of church plate. The accession of John threatened evil days to the Cistercians. For some cause or other, even before he was embroiled with the Pope, he was a bitter enemy of their Order. The chief abbots of the Cistercians, accordingly taking the advice of Archbishop Hubert, came in humble guise to the King when in the second year of his reign he went to hold a Parliament at Lincoln. John had just shown his devotion by acting with William, King of Scotland, as one of the bearers of the body of Sir Hugh ;* but the sight of the Cistercian abbots at once roused him to fury. He bade his attendants tread those obnoxious petitioners under the feet of their horses. This, however, they did dare to 1 Annales de Waverleiâ, 229. 2 Ib. 245. 4 Roger of Wendover, III. 162 (Ed. Coxe). 3 Ib. 248. do; and in the night following the giving of this savage order the king had a terrible dream. He seemed to be summoned before a stern judge, while the abbots stood around and accused him. Then the judge commanded that punishment should be inflicted on the king, and the shrinking culprit seemed to himself to be fearfully scourged. On awaking in the morning, he declared that he could still feel the smarting of the blows. The terror of the dream led the king at once to seek pardon from the insulted abbots, and further induced him to propitiate the order by the foundation of Faringdon and Beaulieu monasteries. This story, which appears in the MSS. relating to Kirkstall Abbey, was evidently the invention of a time later than the composition of the Annals of Margan. The writer of these had never heard of it, for he tells us that 'The Abbots of the Cistercian Order, by the advice of the Lord of Canterbury, went to Lincoln to meet the king, and there, to the great astonishment of all, experienced the favour of the king. On bended knees he demanded pardon of them for the injuries which he had done them, promising that he would found an abbey of the Cistercian Order, and that he himself would be buried there.' 2 3 Probably the capricious character of this tyrannical prince is sufficient to account for his sudden change. But if the Cistercians, encouraged by this sudden mildness and favour, flattered themselves that they were to have in John a munificent patron of their order, they were bitterly deceived in their expectations. The Jews and the Cistercians were the special objects of his ruthless persecutions, and were the numberless chronicles of the period somewhat more full in detail we should be able doubtless to point to numerous instances of individual cruelty and suffering which Cistercian abbots and monks had to endure. As it is, we are almost limited to general accounts of the great Cistercian persecution. Meantime the profits of the farming in England, on which the Cistercians mainly depended, had been terribly curtailed by the wet season of 1202, by which almost all the corn in the country was destroyed. So great was the scarcity that a horse load of corn was sold in England for more than twelve shillings.' The scarcity was followed by a pestilence, and the monks of Waverley, unable to obtain sufficient supplies to support them, were dispersed and taken in by different monasteries which were not so hardly pressed.5 This was not a very good 1 Dugdale. Monasticon, vol. v. 682. 2 Annales de Margan, p. 25. 3 The Waverley Chronicler speaks of the foundations, of Faringdon having een made by John inspiratione divinâ præventus.-P. 254. 4 Annales de Waverleiâ, p. 254. The Annals of Margan mention that there as an especial mortality among sheep. 5 Annales de Waverleiâ, p. 255. preparation for the storm which fell upon the order after the promulgation of the pope's Interdict. The answer made by the furious king to the papal curse was the declaration of the confiscation of all ecclesiastical property in the realm; but as this from its very magnitude soon proved an empty menace,' the rage of the king and his chief exactions were concentrated on some more especially obnoxious sections of his ecclesiastical subjects. One of the chief of these was the Cistercian order. There were both general and special reasons to make John, under the exasperation of an Interdict, rage against the Cistercians. Of the first sort were those profuse favours from the⚫ pope, which made this order, before the institution of the friars, the peculiar object of the regard and care of Rome. Of the second was that special privilege to which we have before alluded, which allowed the Cistercians, even during the prevalence of an Interdict, to celebrate with closed doors, and thus exempted them from the infliction which the paternal charity of Rome scrupled not to send upon the whole land for the sins of its rulers. We are indeed inclined to think that the horrors of an Interdict have been somewhat overrated. In monasteries a celebration was permitted once a week, and though mass could not be said in parish churches, yet sermons were preached in the churchyards instead of the church. The baptism of children could be legally celebrated, and the sacred elements could be carried to any who were in danger of death. The chief difficulty was as to marriage and burial; but doubtless marriage was privately solemnized, to be repeated perhaps when the curse was taken off; and as to burial, the difficulty was got over by burying in ground near to the churchyard, which, when the Interdict was removed, was solemnly blessed and consecrated. No doubt the consciences of some would be vexed by the thought that they lay under the pope's displeasure; but the chief sufferers were the clergy, whose incomes must have been seriously diminished by the cessation of offerings. However, the Interdict was certainly a very disagreeable thing, and sufficiently exasperating it must have been to the king and his nobles to know that while no chaplain ventured to say mass for them, the white monks could go on as usual in their services, and exempt themselves from the annoyances of the country. Under these circumstances John's ancient prejudice against the Cistercian order revived, and he determined to make them pay heavily for the favour of Rome. It would seem that from the tax of a thirteenth levied by John from Church property the year before the Interdict, the Cistercian Order, as usual, was exempt," See Roger of Wendover, III 223. 2 Annales de Waverlei, p. 258. 2 neither immediately, on the sentence of the pope being spoken, did the storm burst upon them. It was not till after his return from Ireland in 1210, that he seriously attacked them. The account given in the two chronicles of Waverley and Margan is word for word the same, (which appears to have escaped the notice of the editor) only in the sum said to be extorted from the Cistercians; there occurs an important discrepancy, and the Margan annals add the curious fact, that the Abbeys of Margan and Beaulieu were exempt from the tax-Beaulieu, as being the king's foundation, and Margan, because it had hospitably entertained John in his expedition against Wales. The king,' says the chronicler, had assembled the men of the Cistercian order before he went across the sea; as he had the rest, concerning the matter of providing aid to him against his enemies, and because the Cister'cians were unwilling to give him money as he desired, against the liberty of their order, he mightily troubled them, and from each of their houses, with a very short time given for providing it, he violently extorted a large sum, so that that 'collection exceeded the sum of 33,300 marks.' The Margan annals say, 'equalled, or exceeded 27,000 marks.' Roger of Wendover puts the sum at 40,000 pounds of silver,2 an estimate which is adopted by the annalist, Bartholomew de Cotton. The unfortunate Jews had just before been made to pay 66,000 marks. The sum thus exacted from the Cistercians may serve to give us some notion of their growth in wealth during the eighty years which had elapsed since their first settlement in England. We do not now hear of their being obliged to pay in wool, because they had none of the precious metals at command. But the exaction was doubtless very heavy and crushing. Waverley, we are told, had all its means pillaged and taken away,' and everywhere throughout England the monks and lay brethren were scattered abroad, having no power to stand against the fierce exactions of the king. But John was not satisfied with this spoliation. He had taken from the Cistercians all that they could get together of money or plate; he now aimed at providing against the future, and preventing the order from recovering these sums, when, hereafter, he should perhaps be reconciled with the pope, and the order should again be powerful. Accordingly, by letters prepared for the purpose, 5 'Bartholomew de Cotton, p. 99 (Ed. Luard.) Mr. Luard prints this as though it were an independent statement of his author, but it is adopted from Roger de Wendover, simply writing Cisterciences for albi monachi. 2 Annales de Waverleiâ, p. 265. 4 Roger de Wendover, III. 234. Annales de Magan, p. 30. |