1182. By his industry he seems soon to have been able to gather again the dispersed monks, or at all events the majority of them. The principal additions made to the monastic property during his reign of twenty-two years, were large grants of tillage and pasturage at Dunnington, near Hornsea, and at Moorfields, an adjacent estate; considerable lands at Myton and Wick on the river Hull, afterwards exchanged with King Edward I. for other lands, and made by him the site of the town and port of Kingston-upon-Hull; quarries at Brantingham and Brough; more pasturage at Warter; and further lands at Wharrom and Nessingwick. A good deal of curious litigation and other difficulties are recorded in connection with the acquisition of these various properties.

To Philip succeeded abbot Thomas, formerly prior of the house, who held office for eighteen years, 1182-1197. In his time, additional quarries at Hessle and Brantingham were granted to the monks; two oxgangs of land at Owthorne on the coast; 500 acres at Tharlesthorpe; considerable property at Molescroft (Beverley); and smaller portions at Rise, Erghom, and Skyrne.

A heavy lawsuit with regard to Wharrom grange involved the monks in difficulties, especially as it occurred in a sad period of failure of crops. So great was the dearth that a quarter of wheat sold for 13s. 4d., or about £10 of our present value. The monks had to buy largely at famine prices. Then came their share of the ransom money for King Richard, which reached the heavy total of 300 marks. This completed their bankruptcy, and for a second time the monks of Meaux had to disperse, and live on alms in various other Cistercian houses.

After they had been thus in banishment for fifteen months, they were brought back again through the generosity of a single benefactor. William Hull, rector

of Cottingham, feeling the term of his natural life approaching, and being desirous of dying in a religious house, offered himself as a novice, and brought with him a portion of two hundred pounds of silver. This timely gift enabled the abbot (Thomas) to recall the scattered brethren, but feeling his incapacity, he at the same time resigned office.

The fourth abbot was Alexander, a monk of Ford Abbey, in Lincolnshire, who was appointed on the recommendation of the Father Abbot of Fountains ; he held the reins from 1197 to 1210. The new abbot immediately proceeded to France to seek an interview with Sir Robert de Thornham, the King's favourite, who had recently obtained judgment, assigning him the grange and lands at Wharrom. The abbot was armed with letters from the Archbishop of Canterbury and Baldwin, earl of Albemarle, begging the knight to waive his claims: but he refused to listen. Meanwhile his servants forcibly ejected the brethren and their servants from Wharrom grange, and pulled down the mill, great barn, bakehouse, and other buildings, transferring the materials to Birdsall, to be used in the erection of the house then being constructed for Sir Robert. Just then, however, King Richard met with his death in Normandy, grief for his master's loss softened the soldier's heart, and he of his own accord restored to the monks the valuable Wharrom property. In a variety of law-suits, two of which were carried to Rome, the abbey met, on the whole, with success, secured by compromise. On one

occasion, when there was litigation with regard to the advowson of Wawne, many of the monks so strongly objected to their abbot's compromise, that they withdrew from the chapter.

During his rule, an estate at Stockholm, near Hedon, another estate at Orwythfleet, in Pensthorpe (now submerged), and lands at Riston, Arnold, Goxhill, Wassand, as well as much further property

at Skyrne, were added to the possessions of the monastery.

Alexander was the most prominent man among the Cistercians that Meaux Abbey ever had as its ruler. In the year 1200, King John levied an excessive scutage to enable him to pay 30,000 marks to the French king. The Cistercians held themselves exempt from such taxes, and had an interview with the king at York, when he persisted in his demands, and they refused to pay unless commanded by a general chapter of the whole order. The Cistercians

offered, as a compromise, 1,000 marks to the king for a confirmation of his brother Richard's charter to them, but this John refused. The Cistercian abbots met at Lincoln on November 21st, when the king was there for consultation. A further compromise would have been offered, but the abbot of Meaux produced a letter from the general chapter counselling resistance. Soon after, John demanded another aid from the church for the reduction of Ireland. Abbot Alexander again refused, and, though standing alone among the English Cistercian abbots, declined to pay without the order of the general chapter. The king's officers thereupon seized the abbey, and evicted the monks, who found shelter at the earl of Albemarle's house at Burstwick. Then Alexander resigned, and the convent submitted to the king's exactions, which took the form of a cruelly severe fine of 1,000 marks.

To the rule of the abbey, and hampered by this heavy fine, succeeded Hugh as fifth abbot; he reigned for ten years, 1210-1220. To raise the money, certain properties were sold at York, Brunby, Owthorne, and Hatfield, which Mr. Bond estimates only brought in about 130 marks. The sale of wool would further help, and the remainder would have to be raised on loan at enormous interest. The fine was paid, but the result was that a third dispersion of the

monks became necessary. On the occasion of their third bankruptcy, the other Cistercian houses of England were too poor to give them quarter, but some were received by the abbey of St. Mary's of York, some by the priory of Bridlington, and others by Cistercian houses in Scotland. Some were even forced, in little parties of monks and converts together, to seek shelter in neighbouring villages and castles. Their dispersion, however, was however, was not of very long continuance, for by November 1st, 1211, affairs had brightened sufficiently to permit of their re-union at Meaux.

Perhaps from compassion at their reverses, abbot Hugh received a variety of grants of land from their neighbours, but they were chiefly of small amount, and in places where they already had foothold. Their important possessions at Skyrne were still further strengthened.

Litigation under abbot Hugh took a new form, and one specially characteristic of the age. The Cistercian nuns of the adjacent convent of Swine had carried off by violence the corpse of Amandus Pincerna to their house, and buried it in their own cemetery, and this, notwithstanding that (according to our chronicler) Amandus had left his body, with the usual accompanying bequest of land, to the abbey of Meaux. The theft of the body was intended to secure the territorial gift. This dispute, and another involving trespass that occurred at the same time, was at last arranged by compromise, but the holy women retained the corpse.

"Within the period of the government of abbots Alexander and Hugh occurred the memorable struggle of the court of Rome with the wayward English sovereign, who, if he had possessed higher personal qualities, and had known better how to attack the affections of the people he ruled, might have brought the contest to a different conclusion. In giving an

account of the general interdict of the kingdom, which lasted from the year 1208 to 1214, our chronicler states that, in all that time, the convent continued to celebrate their services with closed doors, in order to exclude all excommunicated and interdicted persons; that they were not able to bury their dead in the cemetery, cloister, or other usual places; but that Ashetil, abbot of Hovedoe, in Norway-I presume a guest of the monastery at the time,-seven of the monks, one novice, sixteen converts, a priest, and some of their principal servants, were interred in the orchard, on the right hand towards the south, outside the foss of the abbot's chamber, and near a mud-wall which enclosed the eastern and southern sides of the monastery. Other persons attached to the convent, their servants, and the people of the neighbourhood, were buried outside the boundary of the monastery, opposite the chapel in the wood, beyond the foss, over which was the bridge leading northward to the North Grange, in a small rectangular plot of land, formerly waste, but since covered with wood. The chronicler states that he had seen standing there a cross, then wanting one of its arms, placed to mark the site of these interments, and adds that old men positively asserted that, passing that way by night, they had sometimes seen a strange light, preternatural, as they believed, resting on the spot."

The sixth abbot, Geoffrey, 1220-1221, died a few months after his election, at a Cistercian house in Champagne, whilst on his way to attend a general chapter of the order.

In

Richard of Ottringham, the cellarer, was his successor, 1221-1235. He is described as possessing the excellent qualification of abhorring law-suits. addition to a variety of small bequests of land at Sutton, Ottringham, Routh, Arnold, Out-Newton, Withernwick, Beverley, Brandsburton, North Burton, Middleton, etc., etc., he obtained a considerable estate