Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

164 FOUNTAINS ABBEY.
out solitary places and transformed wildernesses.
The site of their houses is often admired, but it was
they, by their labour, who created both site and
monastery. The first colony of Cistercians came to
England in 1129 and established itself at Waverley
in Surrey.1 Tintern, Netley, and Melrose in their
ruins, to mention a few amongst many, show forth
the Cistercian plan. Their living stones were no
less ordered after a spiritual unity of type.
Yorkshire was particularly rich in Cistercian
houses. The second (1132), Fountains Abbey, was
originally founded by Archbishop Turstiri and a
colony of Benedictine monks from St. Mary's
Abbey at York, who judged that they were doing
the work of the Lord slothfully, and aspired
to greater perfection.- They chose a solitary spot
which they converted into an oasis of peace and
fertility. St. Bernard sent them their first abbot,
Henry Murdach, who afterwards became archbishop
of York (1138).3 Fountains was a fruitful mother
of daughters, I but no fewrer than twenty-five Cistercian
abbeys were founded about this time in Yorkshire
and elsewhere. Conventual foundations under
Stephen are said to have numbered 115.4
The White Canons or Premonstratensians came to
J Notes on English Church History, Lane, p. 183.
2 Memorials of Fountains Abbey. Surtees Society.
3 Life of St. William of York, Series of English Saints, p. 6.
* Historia Rerv.m Anglicarum, W. de Novoburgo. Preface,
p. 13.