de Griff",' where are 4 carrucates, and the land of Thillestona, where are 5 carrucates with their appurtenances. And the grant ends thus: "Hanc Abbatiam Rievallensem fundavi ego Walterus Espec consilio et concessu Turstini Archiepiscopi Ebor concessu etiam et consilio Henrici Regis Anglorum Dominus Papa Innocentis auctoritate apostolica hæc omnia confirmante.'

The date of this charter, says Mr. Atkinson, must be contemporaneous with the grant of Bilsdale in 1145, as it defines as precisely the north-east boundaries of Bilsdale as in marking out those of Griff and Tilston.

It is worthy of note that this charter makes no mention of Walter Espec's son among the persons enumerated for whose souls' health the grant was made, and Mr. Atkinson uses this omission to discredit the story of there having been a son, and prefers to think that Espec was influenced "by the same spirit as St. Bernard rather than that he designed to charter a seat in heaven by a foregone inheritance on earth". Whatever may have been his original motive in founding the Abbey, it is clear, from the mention of the numerous persons for whose souls' health his grants were made, that he felt the obligation which was then laid so heavily on those who sought the consolations of religion, and that the omission of his son from the benefits he conferred on others points more to the fact that he never had a child, and thus to discredit the usually received story of the origin of the foundation of the Abbey.

It will be observed that the entry in the Cartulary, Julius D, states that the nine carucates of land, Griff and Tillestona, were given to St. Bernard, Abbot of Clarevallis, for constructing an Abbey A.D. 1131. The charter grants to God and to the church of St. Maria de Rievaulx, in the hand of William the Abbot, and to the brethren of the Abbey. St. Bernard sent over the monks who formed the first capitular body in 1128. The MS. Cott. Faustina gives the date of the foundation,“A.D. 1131, iij Nonis Marcii". The historian of Melrose gives "1132 tertio nonas Martii facta est Abbatia", etc. May not these apparently conflicting dates be thus reconciled? St. Bernard sent over his monks prior to or in the year 1131. Walter Espec gave them the nine carucates of land

in that year, by livery of seizin or some mode of conveyance of which no record is extant beyond the registration in the Abbey of Citeaux on the date given in the MS. Faustina, B., "1131, tertio nonis Marcii." The monks then proceeded to form their Order, clear the ground, and erect suitable buildings, but at first only of a temporary character. Then at the time the charter was granted by Espec the Monastery had been constituted. There were an Abbot, William, and brethren, who formed a corporate body who could receive the grant, which would supersede the informal gift to St. Benedict in 1131, although that was the real foundation of the Abbey, and as such was registered in the Abbey of Citeaux. This is consistent with the final clause of the charter: "I,Walter Espec, have founded (fundavi) this Abbey, Rievalle”, etc.; not by that charter, but previously, as a reason for the grant contained in the charter. The date of 1132, given by the historian of Melrose, may be a mistake for 1131, especially as he gives the same day of the month, the 3rd none of March, as is given in the MS. Faustina; or it may refer to the Abbey having got into working order, the words used being "Facta est Abbatia"; and as to the date of 1133, I have not met with anything which can give this date any preference over that of 1131.

We take it then that the year of grace 1131 saw the monks sent over by St. Bernard, with their first Abbot, William, at their head, in possession of the land given to them by Walter Espec. William of Newburgh describes the locality in which they settled at that time as a horrid and vast solitude ("horride et vastæ solitudinis"); and when we look back upon this wild, uncultured waste, and consider how much the sympathy we, in these days, feel for the beauties of nature arises from the higher culture of the mind and spirit, we may learn to appreciate at its full value the devotion of these old monks as they went forth, under the primæval commission, to replenish the earth and subdue it, and to develop the industrial activities of the country, and lay the foundations of English enterprise and English commerce, until, in the words of the old Hebrew prophet, "the wilderness and the solitary places were glad for them, and the desert rejoiced and blossomed as the rose.'

Walter Espec, in addition to the grants of land already mentioned, gave to the Abbey the wood and pannage for their hogs out of his forest in Hamelac. Dugdale says he also gave the manor of Hamelac; but I cannot find it in any of the charters, and the Bull of Pope Alexander IIl only mentions the wood and pannage in the forest. He is described in the Cotton MS., Vitellius, F. 4 (Dug., No. 11), as broken down with old age ("senio confractus"), having William, an heir of his body, lawfully begotten; but the residue of his lands he divided between his three sisters, his successors by hereditary right,Hauwissa, married to William Buscye; Albrada, married to Nicholas de Traybye; and Adelina, married to Peter de Roos. But to Adelina he gave specially the advowson of Kirkham and Rievallis; and after assuming the habit of a monk at Rievalle for two years, he finished his temporal life, and was buried in his church " vij Idus Marcii A.D. Mcliij. Cujus animæ propitietur Deus. Amen."

The example set by Walter Espec was not long in bearing fruit, and the benefactors to the Abbey were numerous. We cannot do more than refer to a few to which attention may be specially directed.

A grant made by John de Ever in the octave of St. John the Baptist, A.D. 1302, releasing all his right and title in the pastures of the forest, or officers thereof, upon the account of their lands and tenements in Westerdale, as also of Brockton and Kirby in Cleveland, and the homages due to him on that account, contained a condition that if the said lands, in part or in whole, should ever come into lay hands, they should all return to him or his heirs. It would be interesting to know whether John de Ever's heirs at the Dissolution resumed the rights he had thus granted; and it may be worth considering whether some such conditions might not be inserted in modern grants to ecclesiastical uses, to counteract the effect of a policy of disendowment.

Pope Alexander III, by his Bull dated the twelfth of the kalends of December, A.D. 1160, granted to Elred, Abbot of St. Mary's at Rievaulx, his brethren and their successors, a confirmation of all their possessions, with divers privileges, and in particular that they might celebrate the Divine Offices in the time of a general interdict;

and Pope Alexander IV, by his Bull some time before 1261, confirmed their exemption from tithes, explaining that this exemption extended also to the tithes of any lands which they either manured and ploughed themselves, or

held in their hands.

To such an extent were these Bulls granted to the Cistercian monks in England, that in the second year of the reign of Henry IV a statute was passed especially directed against "the religious men of the Order of Cisteaux", imposing the penalties of pramunire on them" and all other religious and seculars" who should put such Bulls in execution to be quit of the payment of tithes of lands let to farm, or manured, or occupied by other persons than by themselves."

William, the first Abbot, remained in office till his death, according to Dugdale, in 1146; but Mr. Atkinson gives the date of his death 1145. Dugdale places Maurice as his successor, but without any dates. He was succeeded by Elred in 1147, who occurs until 1160-64. He died in 1167. The following is the entry of his death in the Melrose Chronicle, " A'o Mclxvii obiit piæ memoriæ Aldredus iii Abbas Rievallis cui successit Silvanus Abbas de Dundraynan." He is described as one, if not the only, eminent person for piety, learning, and all other virtues of a monastic life; for which accomplishments he became so singularly famous, that David, King of Scotland, admitted him to an intimate conversation with him; but he refused to improve it to get worldly honours, and refused to be made a bishop that he might have a full leisure for contemplation and preaching the Word of God. He diligently imitated St. Bernard in all his actions, being mild, modest, humble, pious, chaste, and temperate, and wonderfully for peace. He wrote many books of history, piety, and divinity, viz., the lives of King Edward the Confessor in verse and prose, and of some other kings of England; David, King, and St. Margaret, Queen of Scots; and St. Ninian, Bishop; of miracles in general, and particularly of the miracles of the Church of Hagulstadt and the state of the same; chronicles from Adam, and of the Wars of the Standard; of the foundations of St. Mary of York and of Fountains; several homilies and sermons. There is a manuscript copy of his Life of St.

Margaret at Stonyhurst College,' and a manuscript copy of his Life of Edward the Confessor in the Earl of Ashburton's collection, in a quarto, on vellum, of 296 pages, in writing of the end of the twelfth or beginning of the thirteenth century.

Walter Daniel is mentioned as a disciple of Eldred, and a monk of this house. He was the author of several theological works, all of which are said to have been kept very carefully in the library of Rievaulx, but at the dissolution were dispersed, if not lost. He died and was buried in this Monastery in 1170.

Mr. Atkinson goes very fully into the early relations of Rievaulx with Kirkham, the negotiations which went on between the two houses (originating, it may be, though he hardly thought so, in the practically inconvenient propinquity of the several establishments and their possessions), and the conditional agreement to remove from the original site entered into by the elder of the sister foundations. It would far exceed our limits if we endeavoured to follow the learned controversy which he has opened; but we may state the conclusion at which he arrived, that the contemplated arrangement between the Abbey of Rievaulx and the Priory of Kirkham, contained in the cyrograph or agreement between the Abbey. and the Priory, which is without date (but, says Mr. Atkinson, some internal evidence appears to refer it to an early period in the thirteenth century), owed its origin to no question of peace between Rievaulx and Kirkham, but in a question of peace within the Priory itself, the Prior and some of the canons on one side, and the rest of the canons and brethren on the other. These latter were willing to conform to the Cistercian Order, and to become incorporated in its members (the canons among them) as monks. The other party, and, as it would seem, with the Prior at its head, were not so willing. The result, however, was that the Priory of Kirkham remained in its old place, and continued to be an Augustinian Priory as well. It is quite possible that some among the body might join the Cistercian Order; but the inference, from all we know

1 Hist. MS. Commission, 2 Rep., App., 146.

2 Id., Rep. 8, App. 17.