Rievaulx Abbey

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Rievaulx Abbey

Rievaulx Abbey is a former Cistercian

Cistercians

Image:Cistersian priests in Szczyrzyc monastery.JPGThe keynote of Cistercian life was a return to literal observance of the Rule of St Benedict. Rejecting the developments the Benedictines had undergone, the monks tried to reproduce life exactly as it had been in Benedict of Nursia time; indeed in various points they went beyond it in austerity....
abbey

Abbey

An abbey , is a Christianity monastery or convent, under the government of an Abbot or an Abbess, who serves as the spiritual father or mother of the community....
, headed by the Abbot of Rievaulx

Abbot of Rievaulx

Abbot of Rievaulx was the head of the Cistercian monastic community of Rievaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire, northern England, founded in 1131 by Walter l'Espec....
, located in the small village of Rievaulx

Rievaulx

Rievaulx is a small village near Helmsley in North Yorkshire and is located in what was the inner court of Rievaulx Abbey, close to the River Rye ....
(pronounced 'Ree-voh'), near Helmsley

Helmsley

Helmsley is a market town in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire, England It is situated on the River Rye, Yorkshire. It lies on the A170 road, fourteen miles east of Thirsk across the notoriously steep Sutton Bank, which ascends the Hambleton Hills approximately half way between the two towns; it is also thirteen miles west of Pickering...
in North Yorkshire

North Yorkshire

North Yorkshire is a shire county or shire county, located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and a ceremonial counties of England in that region and also partly in North East England....
, England

England

Monk

A Monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, the unconditioning of mind and body in favor of the realization of one's true nature, and does so living either alone or with any number of like-minded people, whilst always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose....
s from Clairvaux Abbey

Clairvaux Abbey

Clairvaux Abbey , a Cistercian monastery, was founded in 1115 by Bernard of Clairvaux. It is located in Ville-sous-la-Fert?, 15 km away from Bar-sur-Aube, in the Aube d?partement in France in northeastern France....
as a mission centre for the colonisation of the north of England

England

Scotland

conventional_long_name = ScotlandAlba|common_name= Scotland|image_flag = Flag of Scotland.svg|flag_width = 130px...
, it was the first Cistercian abbey in the north. With time it became one of the great Cistercian abbeys of Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a Historic counties of England of northern England and the largest in Great Britain. Because of its great size, over time functions were increasingly undertaken by its subdivisions, which have been subject to History of local government in Yorkshire....
, second only to Fountains Abbey

Fountains Abbey

Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire, England, is a ruined Cistercians monastery, founded in 1132. Fountains Abbey is one of the largest and best preserved Cistercian houses in England....
in fame.

The remote location was ideal for the Cistercians, whose desire was to follow a strict life of prayer

Prayer

Prayer is the act of communicating with a deity or spirit in worship. Specific forms of this may include praise, requesting divine providence, confessing sins, as an act of reparation or an expression of one's emotional expression....
and self-sufficiency with as little contact as possible with the outside world.

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Encyclopedia

Rievaulx Abbey is a former Cistercian

Cistercians

Abbey

Abbot of Rievaulx

Rievaulx

Rievaulx is a small village near Helmsley in North Yorkshire and is located in what was the inner court of Rievaulx Abbey, close to the River Rye ....
(pronounced 'Ree-voh'), near Helmsley

Helmsley

North Yorkshire

England

Monk

Clairvaux Abbey

England

Scotland

Yorkshire

Fountains Abbey

Prayer

Wardon Abbey

Wardon or Warden Abbey, Bedfordshire was one of the senior Cistercian houses of England, founded about 1135 from Rievaulx Abbey. The patron was Walter Espec, who had founded the mother house and settled the new community on one of his inherited estates, on unprofitable wasteland, as its early name, St Mary de Sartis, implied, just the k...
, Bedfordshire, on one of his inherited estates, again on unprofitable wasteland,

The abbey lies in a wooded dale by the River Rye, sheltered by hills. To have enough flat land to build on, a small part of the river had to be diverted to a point several metres west of where it formerly flowed. (The monks altered the course of the river three times during the 12th century.) The trace of the old river is still visible in the abbey's grounds. This is one illustration of the technical ingenuity of the monks, who over time built up a very profitable business mining lead

Lead

Lead is a main-group Chemical element with symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal, also considered to be one of the heavy metal ....
and iron

Iron

Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. Iron is a Group 8 element and period 4 element. Iron is lustrous and silvery in color....
, rearing sheep

Sheep

#REDIRECT Domestic sheep...
and selling wool

Wool

Wool is the fiber derived from the specialized skin cells, called follicles, of animals in the Caprinae family, principally domestic sheep, but the hair of certain species of other Mammalia such as cashmere goat, llamas, rabbits and keeshonds may also be called wool....
to buyers from all over Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
. Rievaulx Abbey eventually became one of the greatest and wealthiest in England, with 140 monks and many more lay brother

Lay brother

In the most common usage, lay brothers are those members of Catholic religious orders, particularly of monastic orders, occupied primarily with manual labor and with the secular affairs of a monastery or friary, in contrast to the choir monks of the same monastery who are devoted mainly to the Liturgy of the Hours, or Opus Dei as it is c...
s, receiving grants of land totalling 6000 acres (24 km²) and establishing daughter houses in England and Scotland.

However, towards the end of the 13th century the abbey had incurred a great deal of debt with its building projects and lost revenue due to an epidemic of sheep scab (psoroptic mange

Mange

Mange is a parasite infestation of the skin of animals. Common symptoms include hair loss, itching and inflammation, all of which are caused by microscopic mites....
). This ill fortune was compounded by Scottish raids in the early 14th century.

To make matters worse the decimation of the population caused by the Black Death

Black Death

The Black Death, was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, widely thought to have been caused by a bacterium named Yersinia pestis , but recently attributed by some factors to other diseases....
in the mid 1300s made it difficult to recruit new lay brothers for the manual labour. As a result the abbey was forced to lease much of its lands. By 1381 there were only fourteen choir monks, three lay brothers and the abbot

Abbot

The word abbot, meaning father, is a title given to the head of a monastery in various traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not actually the head of a monastery....
left at Rievaulx, and therefore some buildings were reduced in size.

By the 15th century the original Cistercian practices of strict observance according to the letter of Saint Benedict

Benedict of Nursia

Saint Benedict of Nursia was a saint from Italy, the founder of Western Christian monasticism communities, and a rule-giver for cenobite monks....
's rule had been abandoned in favour of a more "comfortable" lifestyle; it was now permitted to eat meat, more private living accommodations were created for the monks, and the abbot now had a substantial private household.

The abbey was dissolved

Dissolution of the Monasteries

The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, denotes the administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII of England disbanded all monastery, nunnery and friary in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their income, disposed of their assets and provided f...
by King Henry VIII

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was also Lordship of Ireland and claimant to the Early Modern France. Henry was the second monarch of the House of Tudor, succeeding his father, Henry VII of England....
in 1538. At that time there were said to be 72 buildings occupied by only an abbot and 21 monks, attended by 102 servants, with an income of £351 a year. It also had a prototype blast furnace at Laskill

Laskill

Laskill is a small hamlet situated 5 miles north-west of Helmsley, North Yorkshire, England, on the road from Helmsley to Stokesley. Archaeology investigations have revealed that the Cistercian monks of the nearby Rievaulx Abbey had a large woolhouse there, dating from about the middle of the 13th century....
, producing cast iron

Cast iron

Cast iron usually refers to Gray iron, but also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys, which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy....
as efficiently as a modern blast furnace

Blast furnace

A blast furnace is a type of metallurgy furnace used for smelting to produce metals, generally iron.In a blast furnace, fuel and ore are continuously supplied through the top of the furnace, while air is blown into the bottom of the chamber, so that the chemical reactions take place throughout the furnace as the material moves downward....
; according to Gerry McDonnell (archeometallurgist of the University of Bradford

University of Bradford

The University of Bradford is a university in Bradford, West Yorkshire in the United Kingdom. Formed from a technical college in 1966, there are three campuses: the main campus, located on Richmond Road, the School of Health, on Trinity Road, and the School of Management, at Emm Lane....
), the closure of Rievaulx delayed the Industrial Revolution

Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, production, and transportation had a profound effect on the socioeconomics and cultural conditions in United Kingdom....
for two and a half centuries.

Henry ordered the buildings to be rendered uninhabitable and stripped of any valuables such as lead. The abbey site was granted to the Earl of Rutland

Duke of Rutland

Earl of Rutland and Duke of Rutland are titles in the peerage of England, derived from Rutland, a traditional county. The Earl of Rutland was elevated to the status of Duke in 1703 and the titles were merged....
, one of the Henry's advisers, until it passed to the Duncombe family.

In the 1750s Thomas Duncombe III beautified the estate by building the terrace with two Grecian-style temples; these temples, now called Rievaulx Terrace & Temples

Rievaulx Terrace & Temples

Rievaulx Terrace & Temples is a site located in North Yorkshire, England overlooking Rievaulx Abbey and owned by the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty....
, are in the care of the National Trust

National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty

The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organization in England, Wales and Northern Ireland....
.

The ruins of the abbey are still standing and are yet impressive today. They are now in the care of English Heritage

English Heritage

English Heritage is a non-departmental public body of the United Kingdom government with a broad remit of managing the historic built environment of England....
.

Rievaulx Abbey

See also

External links