Changes in the Grange Economy of English and Welsh Cistercian Abbeys, 1300-1540

In that flowering of new monasticism which began in the eleventh century and continued into the twelfth, along with so many other rich and complex developments, to make the twelfth century a great one, the new Order of Citeaux was the most influential and significant. This was no less true in England than on the continent; in fact, the Cistercian Order very probably enjoyed even greater advantage and renown in England than those other orders founded contemporaneously. Its ‘great and powerful influence over the religious and social life of the country,’ even until the dissolution, is beyond doubting. Starting with Waverley (1128) in Surrey, Rievaulx (1132) and Fountains (1132) in Yorkshire, and, for Wales, Tintern (1131) and Whitland (1140) in Monmouthshire and Carmarthenshire respectively, the Order spread with such astonishing rapidity that it numbered 40 in England and Wales by the end of 1153, not counting the abbeys of the Order of Savigny, which became part of the Cistercian Order in 1147 and numbered 12 in England and Wales, with Furness (1123) in Lancashire greatest among them. Beyond this era of settlement, between 1164 and the end of 1198, 11 were established (if we include the short-lived Wyresdale), and between 1201 and 1281 an additional 12 abbeys. But the expansion was then at dead end, and the two remaining abbeys were founded much later in an environment sharply contrasting with that sought by early Cistercians: St. Mary Graces (1350), near the tower of London, so strange a location for a Cistercian abbey, and St. Bernard's College, Oxford (1437), for Cistercian scholars who formerly used Rewley (1281) while studying at the University. In all, including the two latecomers, the abbeys numbered 77 in England and Wales.