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14. Petrus de Preston, magister averiorum.*

17. Willelmus de Waghna. 18. Johannes de Eboraco. 21. Thomas de Burton.

23. Radulphus de Cotyngham.

25. Robertus de Lekynfeld, precentor.

26. Hugo de Ernam, diaconus. Summa xiij.

16. Robertus de Wandesforth.
19. Alanus de Burton, sacrista.
20. Rogerus de Beverlaco.
22. Ricardus de Cotyngham.
24. Ricardus de Esk.

27. Willelmus de Merton, suc-
centor et diaconus.

Summa xiiij.

In

An epitome of the annals of Meaux, taken from abbot Burton's chronicle, will now be given. drawing up this, much use has been made of Mr. Bond's Latin transcript and analysis, but the British Museum MS. has been carefully studied in the original, and several hitherto unnoticed points have been introduced from documents at the Public Record Office.

William le Gros, a wealthy nobleman, earl of Albemarle and lord of Holderness, had taken a vow of pilgrimage to Jerusalem, from the execution of which he was hindered by age and corpulency. Previous to this vow, he had manifested his zeal for religion by by founding in France the Cluniac abbey of St. Martin, and in England the Austin house of Thornton-on-Humber, and the Cistercian abbey of Vaudey, in Lincolnshire. Adam, a monk of Fountains, of proved architectural ability, was employed by the earl in the erection of the original buildings of Vaudey. Finding that the earl was in trouble about his unfulfilled vow of pilgrimage, Adam suggested that the founding of another Cistercian abbey would obtain from the Pope a remission of the pledge. Putting himself in communication with St. Bernard, the great head of the

* Master of the Novices. The numbers attached to each name probably indicate the seniority of the monks, with which the choir order did not exactly tally; the prior who sat opposite the abbot being seventh in seniority or admission into the abbey.

order, Adam obtained from Pope Eugenius III. the expected dispensation, and was invited to survey the earl's Holderness estates for the purpose of choosing a site. At last he came to a place called Melsa, or Meaux, described as planted with woods and orchards, encircled by water and marshes, and favoured with a good soil. There was, too, in the place a certain little hill or rising ground, called the hill of the Blessed Virgin (on which the church was afterwards built), on ascending which Adam the monk thrust the staff which was in his hand firmly into the ground, saying, "Let this place henceforth be called the hill of the everlasting King, the vineyard of heaven, and the gate of life! Let there here be created a colony of Christ-worshippers!" Then, addressing the bystanders, he added, "Have ye not heard, beloved, that which the prophet promised concerning the building of the Lord's house? In the last days,' he said, 'it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established on the top of the mountains.' (Micah iv. 1.) These words, not knowing why, I have been repeating all day; and now I see that Divine Providence was working, whose will it is that His temple should be built on this little hill." This little hill or mound (monticulus) seems, from subsequent description, to have been an ancient burh, or centre of a Saxon settlement. The idea did not at first commend itself to the earl, who had only obtained the place in exchange for another manor a short time before from Sir John de Melsa. He had intended to make a park of the estate, and had already begun to enclose it on the west with a broad ditch and raised bank, which was long known as Parkdyke. Eventually the earl consented to appropriate his newly-acquired estate according to Adam's suggestion, and formally devoted the whole property to God and the Blessed Virgin for a foundation of Cistercian monks.

Work was immediately begun on the chosen site; a readily-worked and cheap material was used for most of the buildings, namely, mud and wattle, and to these were added a small chapel and dormitory, under the same roof, of more durable materials. A colony of twelve monks left Fountains Abbey on December 28th, 1150, and on the Feast of the Circumcision were introduced to their new home. The earl nominated Adam as the first abbot.

Full descriptions are given of the exact boundaries of the lands of the monastery, involving in their recital an exceptionally interesting list of place-names. The domain was four miles round, and was divided into tillage, pasture, meadow land, and wood. It also had the advantage of having a manor-house upon it, as it had been the residence of Sir John de Melsa; this dwelling-house and its appurtenances afterwards went by the name of North Grange.

With regard to general reflections on the selection of this site, based upon the statements in the chronicle, it is not possible, I think, to improve upon the words of Mr. Bond, which I here adopt :

"Whatever were the immediate attractions of the locality in the eyes of the monk Adam, it is certain that nothing could have been more cheerless than the aspect of the general neighbourhood. The whole

country, to the estuary of the Humber southwards, and to the seacoast eastward, was then, as now, an extensive, low, and fenny flat-more forlorn then than now, because undrained. Indeed, the numerous dikes that now intercept the country appear to have been mainly the works of the monks of Meaux. In this quality of utter dreariness of situation, therefore, the first condition required by the constitution of the Cistercian order was amply fulfilled. The population, whatever it amounted to, was hardly within reach of any influence of civilization. There was no town of note in the whole district east of the river Hull; the

port of Hedon, about seven miles south of Meaux, being the nearest place of any importance. Of religious houses, there was only the college of Beverley in the neighbourhood, and that difficult of access by the intervention of the river Hull, until the foundations of the Cistercian nunnery of Swine, about four miles to the south, and the Gilbertine Priory of Watton, about eight miles to the north, both nearly contemporaneous with the abbey of Meaux.

66

Here, then, in the severity of winter, the ardent band of missionaries were left to their own resources. They had to work hard with their own hands to render their settlement habitable, and to procure their daily sustenance-not without difficulty at that period of the year. The rude country people of Holderness flocked about them, some to offer assistance, others to offer themselves as converts or lay brethren. They were not a little astonished to see a group of monks at one time chanting offices, at another wielding spade and pickaxe like any rustic of them all. But the monks sped well with their work, and the number of the establishment daily increased by the influx of converts."

The progress made by the monks encouraged the noble founder to make further bequests, including the wood of Routh and the manor of Wawne, plough land and pasture at Hoton, a stretch of pasture on the Humber known as Saltagh and Newland, and about 100 acres of land at Kayingham. The Earl also made the monks the important concession (in order to give them access to Lincolnshire) of a right of free passage or ferry at Paull, and a house at Hedon for use when on their way to cross the Humber. The founder died twenty-nine years after the foundation of Meaux, and was buried at Thornton Abbey, another house of his founding. The chronicler, when recalling his death, introduces a beautiful touch, which should be read in the original,

as to the effect even in life on this much-travelled warrior, when he thought of the four foundations of religious men that he had been moved to establish. When engaged in warfare, or when tossed by tempests at sea, he was calmed in the daytime, and hushed to rest at night, by the recollection of the perpetual prayers of his Cluniac and Austin brethren at Aumale and Thornton, and of his Cistercian monks at Vaudey and Meaux.

Henry Arundel, Archbishop of York (1147-1153), had been abbot of Fountains, hence it is not surprising to find him a great benefactor to Meaux. He gave to the monks all his lands at Wawne, and also a ferry over the Hull.

Other bequests during Adam's abbacy, were a water-mill at Cottingham, and lands at Octon, Wharrom, Dalton, Warter, and Harlthorpe.

Adam, the first abbot, was originally a monk of Whitby, and left it for the abbey of St. Mary of York. Thence he went with the prior and others to found the great Cistercian house at Fountains, and was afterwards chosen to superintend the new offshoots of Woburn and Vaudey. As the first ruler of a third religious house, he must have been possessed of much vigour and enthusiasm. But his ardour was not tempered with discretion. He formed a congregation of forty monks, and readily received novices and converts. The funds, however, were found to be altogether insufficient. After struggling with poverty, of which the abbot bravely took more than his share, the monks were obliged for a time to disperse. Adam resigned, and retired to the newly-founded Gilbertine priory of Watton (novum tunc virginum monasterium), where he occupied for seven years an anchorite's cell in the crypt. On the destruction of Watton church by fire, in 1167, he returned to Meaux, where he died in 1180.

Philip, prior of Kirkstead, was second abbot, 1160

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