thought of it among Englishmen when, three centuries later, foreign ties and influences had practically ceased, is shown in the wholesale suppression of these "Priories alien." Some indeed had, before the beginning of the 15th century, been made "denizen," and thrown off their subjection to continental abbeys, thus escaping the fate which befel so many of the smaller houses. The Priory of Lancaster, after an existence of three hundred and twenty years, was among the suppressed houses. Little is known of its history; its possessions were considerable, including the gift of eleven churches, Lancaster, Preston and Bolton vicarages among them; and one at least of its priors, Peter, attained some distinction as abbot of Seez, to which post he was elected in 1367.

When the priory was closed, its possessions went for the most part to the newly-founded monastery of Syon, in Middlesex, of the order of St. Bridget.

III. FURNESS ABBEY, 1127.

With the foundation of the great abbey of Furness, in 1127, Lancashire monasticism enters on a new phase. The two earlier monasteries were but poorly endowed, and never rose to great distinction; but the house whose history we have now to glance at soon became a great religious centre, and the parent of eight other abbeys of considerable note. The Norman abbey of Savigni, established in 1112 by Vitalis, a disciple of Blessed Robert of Arbrissel, had acquired great fame by the strictness with which the rule of St. Benedict was therein observed, and by the excellent government of its successive abbots. A rapid increase in the number of its monks and the frequent requests for colonies for the foundation of new houses, led to the wide extension of the influence and observ

ances of Savigni. But with that governmental instinct which distinguished the Normans, the abbots of Savigni continued to claim and to exercise a strict and at times oppressive-authority over the colonies which their house sent forth. Something of the same kind had already been seen among the cells of the English abbeys, but the greater numbers and wider diffusion of the colonies of Savigni gave an importance and dignity to the head of that monastery which was unknown to our native houses. With the Norman nobility Savigni enjoyed great favour; through their means, some thirty monasteries in France and in England sprung into existence, the fourth in order of foundation being the abbey of Furness."

In

The discipline of Savigni, like that of Citeaux, differed in many points from that of the older monasteries; in greater simplicity of diet, rougher clothing, a less splendid ritual, and a less ornate architecture, the contrast was evident to all. the daily work, too, a change was made, for the most part, from the sedentary and literary work of the existing cloisters to the rougher manual labour which was so remarkable a feature of the Cistercian revival. Under the influence of this movement, Furness was founded, only fifteen years after the beginnings of Savigni, and soon in turn grew so strong in numbers that it was able to send out colony after colony in the first sixty years of its history. its history. It had It had been scarcely established seven years when the first attempt was made. A party of the brethren started for Calder, in Cumberland; began a monastery, lost courage, and made their way back to Furness. The abbot received them coldly, bade them go forth once more; so forth they went, and this time

7 Buckfast Abbey, in Devonshire-lately restored by a colony of French Benedictines-belonged to the congregation of Savigni.

took the road to Yorkshire. They fixed their tents in the vale of Mowbray, near Oswaldkirk, but were obliged to move about from place to place, before finally settling down at Byland.

8

That same year, 1134, a second party went forth, crossed over to the Isle of Man, and founded the abbey of Rushin, and thus began that close connexion between Furness and Manxland which lasted till the general suppression."

The year 1148 was memorable in Furness annals for two events: the first, of domestic interest merely, was the going-out of its third colony to establish the abbey of Swineshead in Lincolnshire; the other event had more wide-reaching effects.

While Savigni had been growing, a yet greater increase and development on similar lines had been taking place at Citeaux. Both movements had been marked by a return to the greater strictness, simplicity, seclusion, and manual labour of the primitive Benedictines; in both it became the rule for each new foundation to be made a self-subsisting institution, receiving its own novices, and being governed by its own abbot; in both had an attempt been made to bind together into one congregation the houses of the new observance; in both were large numbers of lay brethren to be found sharing

8 The date seems a little uncertain. A MS. in the British Museum (Vitellius C., ix., fol. 225) gives the names and dates of the "daughters" of Furness: "Hæ sunt filiæ Fournesii-(1) Mon. de Caldra [moved to Byland] "fundm. est 1134; (2) de Swinsheved A.D. 1148; (3) de Castro Dei in Hi"bernia (Hibernice, Fermoy), 1170; (4) de Insula (i.e., Ines), ibidem, 1180; (5) de Sancta Cruce ibidem (Hibernicé, Wethirlughan), 1180; (6) de Petra "fertili ibidem (Hibernice, Corkemruth-Corcumruadh), 1197; (7) de Russin "in Mannia [Rushin, Isle of Man], 1238; (8) de Surio in Hibernia (Hibernicé, "Yneslughnaght), 1240."

9 The monks of Furness enjoyed a privilege-common enough among the Benedictines, but, so far as I am aware, unique among the Cistercians-of electing a bishop for the Manx see. A bull of Innocent IV. to the abbot and convent of Furness confirms their right:—“Ad quos solummodo jus eligendi episcopum in ecclesia Cathedrali de Mannia pertineat" (1244, Feb. 15). See Potthast's Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, Berolini, 1879.

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in the labours of the monks. But the influence of St. Bernard, and the consequent multiplication of monks and monasteries of Cistercian observance, gave such an impetus to the movement that even Savigni paled before it. The fourth abbot of that house was easily persuaded by St. Bernard to throw in his lot with theirs, and in 1148, five years before St. Bernard's death, Savigni and its daughter houses were affiliated to Clairvaux. But the abbot of Savigni had not reckoned on the strenuous opposition which this abandonment of the old lines was to meet with in Lancashire. The fourth abbot of Furness-Peter of York-and his monks would not acquiesce in what their over-lord had done; Savigni insisted; Abbot Peter appealed to the Holy See, and went in person to Rome to plead his cause before Pope Eugene III. He won his case and set out on his homeward journey. Whether to revisit his old friends at Savigni, or to flourish his exemption in their faces-anyhow, unwiselyhe paid a visit to his late suzerain, the abbot thereof. His reception was the reverse of cordial: in fact he was put into prison and forced to resign his abbacy.

Warned by his fate, John de Caunsfield, his successor at Furness, made his peace with Savigni, and the Lancashire abbey and its daughter houses were henceforth numbered among the Cistercians. Tilling the soil, like the peasants around them, clearing the forests, draining the marshes, sowing and reaping, planting and pruning, so the life went on. In 1188 another colony left the peaceful vale of Nightshade, wandered first to Nether Wyersdale, and at last settled down at Wotheny, near Limerick.

Our last glimpse of Furness, three hundred and fifty years later, shows us what changes time had

wrought; and how the course of years had brought the Cistercians into a position scarcely differing from that of the older monasteries, to reform whose mode of life they had been called into existence. Study and education had come to be recognised as the main duties of the White, as they were of the Black, Benedictines; and the Free School and the Song School of Furness Abbey were the witnesses of the change which had come upon the children of St. Stephen and St. Bernard.

IV. KERSHALL CELL, near Manchester, 1184.

The priory of Kershall, a cell to the Cluniac house of Lenton, by Nottingham, need not detain us long. In itself it presents but few features of interest, but in its connexion with the Cluniac system it gives me an opportunity of saying a few words on a development of Benedictine life which presents many points of contrast with the Cistercian movement already touched upon. In order of time Cluny preceded Citeaux; and in its earlier days, at least, its observance of the rule of St. Benedict was not less strict. But the Cluniacs were marked off from the Cistercians more radically than by their retention of the black habit of the original Benedictine monks. Both Cluny and Citeaux aimed at the association of their affiliated houses into one corporate body or congregation; but while the Cistercian practice was to allow each house an independent existence as a separate abbey, the Cluniac ideal was that of centralisation. It is true that some few houses which joined the Cluniac movement retained their title of abbey; but for the most part all Cluny foundations were, at least originally, priories; and the lord abbot of Cluny was the superior general of the hundreds of com