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13° YORK.
and then granted them a portion of land out of
his liberty of Ripon, where they might live in
peace and serve God as they desired, like the prophetess
of old, " in fastings and prayers night and
day." Their sincerity was unquestionable. No hardship
daunted them. They went in the dead of winter
to their solitary place in the valley of the Skell,
making huts for themselves under the spreading
branches of some ancient yew trees, and sustaining
life as they best might on the roots v> hich they dug
out of the earth. But the offerings of the faithful
flowed in with great munificence. Ere long a church
was reared, and the needful domestic buildings grew
up under its shadow. Many springs of water bubbled
up in that little valley, which led them to adopt for
their house the name of Fountains. It was a designation
which suggested to the religious mind many
scriptural and allegorical applications of no small
beauty and no little spiritual significance. Such
was that smallest of all seeds which grew into the
mighty tree of the richest and most powerful of the
Cistercian houses in England.
Thurstan, most assuredly, was sincerely anxious to
promote the revival of religion in his great diocese,
and the extension of monastic institutions was the
mode by which he sought to secure that end. But
the area of the diocese was enormous, and he seems
to have felt that other means were also needed.
Episcopal supervision was practically out of his power
as regarded that wide tract of country which lay to
the north-west and extended beyond the border. The
see of Whitherne had long been in abeyance, and