Close inspection ought to be given to the west front (Early English). In the lowest part of the middle portion is a trefoil-headed doorway; above this are three lancet-windows, which again are crowned by the lower half of a circular window. Mr Walbran tells us that the diameter of this window measures 26 feet and that “probably it is as large as any coeval specimen of its kind that is known.” Of the conventual buildings little remains to be seen. The great cloister is said to have exceeded in size any other belonging to houses of the Cistercian order.
Byland, in common with most of the other religious houses was founded under chequered and romantic circumstances. An abbot, Gerald by name, and twelve brothers, all protestants against monastic laxity, fled from Furness Abbey to Calder, from whence they were driven away by the depredations of the Scots. On returning to the mother abbey they found the doors shut against them, but with unabated fervour they set out for York, taking with them only their vestments, some books, and a waggon drawn by eight oxen. Philip, third abbot of Byland, gives two different accounts as to subsequent events, one story being that in their plight they bethought themselves to seek advice from Thurstan, Archbishop of York, and were sent by him to Roger de Mowbray, near Thirsk, who in turn referred them to Robertus de Alneto, a hermit living at Hode, and formerly an abbot of Whitby. The other story runs, that after much suffering and disappointment the monks found themselves, footsore and nearly naked, in the streets of Thirsk, and that here they accidentally gained the goodwill of Gundreda de Albini, mother of Roger de Mowbray, who supplied their necessities in generous fashion and sent them to the benevolent hermit of Hode. The stories differ only, it will be seen, in respect as to the manner in which the goodwill of the Mowbrays was gained and consequently the interest of Robert de Alneto. For four years the little community lived at Gundreda’s expense at Hode near Scawton, and during these years determined to renounce formal allegiance to Furness. Finding at the expiration of four years that the accommodation of Hode was insufficient for their steadily increasing numbers, and that the site was not a suitable one on which to build a permanent abbey, the monks appealed to Gundreda and Mowbray for other lands. A church and some lands at Old Byland, or Byland-on-the-Moor, were then given them by their noble patron. The new site proved, however, to be uncomfortably near Rievaulx, the monks of Rievaulx complaining that “it be unseemly that the bells of one house be heard at the other.” The monks then removed to Stocking, and during their thirty years’ sojourn there built a church and cloister. At the expiration of this time, fresh land was given them near Coxwold by Roger de Mowbray, and after some doubt and uncertainty, the erection of church and cloister was proceeded with on the land where the ruins of Byland Abbey now stand.
The Cistercians of Byland flourished greatly. Success and many gifts of houses and land came to them. Roger de Mowbray, their generous benefactor, after two journeys to Jerusalem, and after fighting and distinguishing himself in the Crusades, retreated in his old age to Byland and was buried “next his mother under a great stone.” His remains lay undisturbed till 1819, when they were disinterred and removed in a somewhat unceremonious fashion, be it said, in a box under the seat of Mr Martin Stapleton’s carriage to the church where they now rest.
Byland Abbey was sacked in 1322, during the disastrous fighting which followed Edward II.’s attempt to retrieve his losses at Bannockburn. The king found himself obliged to recross the border, the Scots declining further open warfare in their own country. The Scots followed quickly and the opposing armies met very near to Byland, a little higher up the dingle and nearer Oldstead, where the English were utterly routed. In 1540 John Leeds and his twenty-four monks surrendered the vast possessions which they held in trust, and six years later, Byland was granted to Sir William Pickering, from whom it passed to Stapleton of Wighill, and later to Myton of Swale. The ruins are neglected and uncared for, and served for years as a common stone quarry from which almost every cottage in the village contains some fragments.
[JERVAULX (Cistercian)]
1144, Akarius FitzBardolph, Lord of Ravensworth, grants land to Peter de Quiniacus for the purpose of establishing a religious house—1145, Alan, Earl of Richmond confirms the foundation. 1146—The community, not prospering, seeks counsel from the mother house of Savigny—1156, Building of abbey begun—1537, The last abbot, Adam Sedbergh, hung at Tyburn—1538, Abbey handed over to the King’s Commissioners and despoiled. Annual revenue, £234, 18s. 5d.—1544, Site granted to Matthew, Earl of Lennox, and afterwards to the Earls of Ailesbury—1807, Foundations revealed during excavations undertaken by the owner.
The ruins of St Mary’s Abbey, which lie on a tract of level meadow land on the southern bank of the river Ure, are still surrounded by the peaceful quiet so beloved by the monks of the Cistercian order. Indeed a kind of solitude immediately strikes the beholder as being the keynote of this most harmoniously beautiful spot in Jorevalle. The sombre setting of its grey walls, more ruinous than most of those of other Yorkshire abbeys, is relieved by the deep mounting of green and by the profusion of ivy with which the walls themselves are covered.
“There stood a lone and ruined fane
Midst wood and rock a deep recess
Of still and shadowy loneliness;
Long grass its pavement had o’ergrown,
Wild flower waved o’er altar stone,
The night wind rocked the tottering pile
As it swept along the roofless aisle;
For the forest boughs and the stormy sky
Were all that Minster’s canopy.”
Though of the Abbey church only the foundations are left, some portions of the other monastic buildings still remain. Thanks to the care and skill shown during the excavations undertaken by the Earl of Ailesbury in 1807, a good idea may easily be gained of the plan of a Cistercian house by any intelligent visitor to the ruins, there being, in the opinion of some, no monastic ruin presenting so complete a ground plan as Jervaulx.
The church is cruciform, measures 270 feet in length and consists of a nave of ten bays with aisles, a choir of four bays, transepts with eastern aisles of two bays, and a Lady chapel. What remains of the bases of the piers in the nave indicates that the style of this was Early English. It contains many memorials, chiefly slabs, and all in a more or less mutilated condition. A beautiful round-headed doorway at the west end of the south aisle is also an example of this period. A perfect altar, raised by three steps, still remains in the north-east angle of the north transept, on the broken slab of which are the original consecration crosses. Possibly this altar contained a sepulchrum for the reception of relics, as a stone is evidently removed from the face of it for this purpose. In the corresponding position in the south transept, which, like the north transept, is Early English work, only the base of a former raised altar remains. In front of the platform or raised part in the chancel (on which doubtless the high altar formerly stood) is a much mutilated effigy. As the shield of this memorial bears a faint indication of the FitzHugh chevron, it is supposed to commemorate a member of this ancient family, and a descendant of FitzBardolph, the founder of the abbey. The Early English chapter-house is on the south side of the sacred edifice, and is connected with the south transept by a vestry, forming nearly the remainder of the eastern side of the cloisters. It is divided from east to west by two arcades and in it are many memorial slabs. On the opposite, or west side of the cloister, is the frater or refectory of the Conversi (Lay brothers) and to the south is the frater of the monks. On the south side of the chapter-house are other domestic offices, including the undercroft of the monks’ dorter, the kitchen, furnished with three enormous fireplaces about 9 feet wide, and lastly, and most interesting of all, to the south of the culinary department, is a little Early English chapel, in which is the base of a former altar raised on two steps.