Fountains Abbey: The story of a mediæval monastery

by George Hodges

Each transept had originally three of these chapels, but the building of the new chancel had taken away the inner one on each side. Of the two which thus remained, the outer chapel of the north transept had been changed into a store-house when the tower was built, so that only the chapel which was in the middle remained. Over the door, under a bracket, is still to be read an inscription which informs us that it was dedicated to the Archangel Michael.

The north transept ended in the noble tower of four storeys, the third of which was probably for the bells, whilst the second may have served as the sleeping-room of the men who rung them. The inscriptions which ran round the outside of the tower are still in great part legible.

“Blessed be the name of Jesus Christ,” said the stones above.

“Blessing and wisdom and honour and power be to our God for ever”; “To the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, be honour and glory for ever,” said the middle lines.

“To God alone, to Jesus Christ, be honour and glory for ever,” was thrice repeated, east and north and west, below.

The words were part in praise, part in apology. The beautiful tower was forbidden by the ancient regulations of the Order. The Cistercian chapel was to have but a modest tower, rising no more than a single storey over the roof. These high parapets were a symbol of the pride of life: they indicated that the ambitions of the outer world had successfully invaded the monastery. Not so! cried the abbot who built them, repeating again and again in great letters on the tower the assertion that it was raised solely for God’s glory.

In the south transept, out of which, in the south-west corner, stairs led up to the dormitory of the monks, the chapel which was originally the middle one of three, was turned into a sacristy; and a narrow door in the south wall gave access to a large room built against the chancel, which may have been the office of the sacrist. In the sacristy, and in other safe places, were kept the Abbey treasures. Here were the copes which the monks wore when they went in procession, on great days. At the time of the suppression, when an inventory was taken, there were eighty of them. Six were made of cloth of gold, twenty-six of white damask, four of white velvet, two of white fustian. Five old copes were of embroidered work, and six of flowered work. One was “very well wrought with images”; one, wrought with images, was of green damask; six were of red silk, worked with flowers and stars; one was of black velvet. Some of these splendid cloaks may have been given by noble benefactors out of their own wardrobes. For Richard of the Lion Heart presented to the prior of Durham his Parliament robe “of blue velvet, wrought with great lions of pure gold”; whilst Queen Philippa, making a visit to Ely, gave the prior her “jewelled robes of State, powdered with golden squirrels.”

Here, also, hung surplices, and eucharistic vestments of cloth of gold and silk and velvet and serge. Here the abbot may have kept his two mitres, one for common days, the other for high feasts; but both of them shining with plates of silver, and garnished with pearls. Each had its cushion; a word which the writer of the inventory laboriously spelled “qweshan.” Here were processional crosses; chalices and patens reserved for great festivals; shrines to be borne about the church on the festival of Corpus Christi, one containing a rib of St. Lawrence, another a bit of St. Anne’s scalp set in a plate of silver; and an image of St. James, and another of our Lady, both of silver-gilt; a table, or reredos, for the high altar at great services, bearing three images of silver-gilt, embellished with gold and precious stones; and, most precious of all, a cross of solid gold, set with gems, and having in it a piece of the true cross of Calvary.

The “chapel of nine altars” had seven of these holy tables against its east wall, the three which would naturally have stood under the great window being combined into one. Each altar had its aumbry or closet for the sacred vessels, and was parted from its neighbour by a low barrier of wood, while a similar wall ran along the front of the whole row, with doors admitting to the altars. There was a gallery over the altar screen which parted the chapel from the presbytery; and a little gallery over the door in the south-west corner, which was connected by a long overhead passage with the abbot’s lodgings. It is likely that at Fountains, as at Durham, there was a closet against the south wall, where at the time of saying mass the sacristan provided the monks with bread and wine for their various altars.

Having thus examined the church, we may imagine ourselves at service in it upon some high occasion. The lay brothers in their brown gowns are in their stalls. The monks are in their places in the choir. They are dressed in white woollen cassocks, tied with a black girdle, and have over breast and back a scapulary—a straight breadth of black cloth before and behind, the two pieces fastened at the shoulders. Over this plain garb, each monk now wears one of the gorgeous copes of the sacristy. There are two candles on the high altar, and behind them is the tablet with the three images, probably our Lord on the Cross, with St. Mary on one side and St. John on the other, with “beads and plate of silver-gilt, and some part gold and set with stones.” Back of the altar, suspended high against the screen and falling to the floor, is a tapestry hanging, of Arras work. The holy table is spread with white damask embroidered with flowers. On a shelf in a carved recess of the south wall are a basin and ewer for washing the priest’s hands; a boat-shaped vessel for incense, with a spoon; two cruets, a pair of silver censers, and a chalice and a paten for the bread and wine. Over the head of the celebrant as he prays hangs a silver basin in which burns a candle. All these things were in the Abbey when the final inventory was made.