Fountains Abbey: The story of a mediæval monastery

by George Hodges

Thus the service begins; the commemoration of the supreme self-sacrifice. The smoke of incense drifts across the light of the east window; and there is a sound of chanting, imploring, adoring voices. Hands are outstretched to receive the mystic bread and wine. And presently they go out to undertake again their homely tasks in the name of Him to whom belong the church and themselves.

To these repeated acts of worship, the monks came with a faith which asked no questions. The services, it is true, were very frequent, and human nature was with them what we know it to be with us; the thoughts of the brethren would sometimes wander, and the devout words would be words only. They were of our own kin and kind. Thomas Kydde and Lawrence Benne, and Henry Jackson and John Walworth, and their fellows who were here at the time of the suppression had their bad and their good, as we have, and in about the same proportion. They were trying, the best way they knew, to magnify the good, to make the ideal real, and to gain the approbation of God. In the church they found assistance. There it was, with doors open, day after day; its aisles fragrant with holy associations, as with the incense of the prayers of the saints; its shining altars, its appealing music, its mute assurance of divine nearness. To it they brought their trials, their perplexities, their hopes, their aspirations, their resolutions. It was the house of prayer and the sanctuary of blessing. It was the heart of their life.

IV. THE CLOISTER

Out of the nave, near the south transept, a door opens into the cloister. At the corner, where nave and transept met, is the pedestal which held a bowl for holy water. Here the brothers stopped to dip their fingers and sign their foreheads with

Principal Patterns of the Roman Floors at Fountains Abbey

From a print by Wm. Fowler of Winterton

To face p. 72

the sign of the cross. The green cloister court, without, had a porch about it on its four sides, and these covered places, whose width is now indicated by the grading of the turf, were called walks.