Byland Abbey
Byland Abbey is one of the three great Cistercian monasteries of North Yorkshire, with Fountains and Rievaulx. Although the communicty got off to a rocky start, its abbey church was once the largest church in England.
History
Byland Abbey was founded in 1177 by a group of Savigniac monks after several unsuccessful foundation attempts beginning with their departure from Furness Abbey in 1134. The Foundation History of Byland vividly describes the monks embarking on the journey with only their clothes, a few books and a cart driven by eight oxen.
In 1143, Byland's monks settled just over a mile from Riveaulx Abbey, but the location proved to be problematic. The newcomers apparently followed a different timetable than the monks at Rievaulx, and the latter complained about the newcomers' bells interfering with their own and causing confusion.
Rather than change their daily timetable, the wanderers moved on again in 1147. They relocated to Stocking, in Kilburn, leaving their former lands to the monks of Rievaulx, who happily diverted the river and doubled the size of their precinct in preparation for their next building campaign.
It was an eventful year for the small band of monks: also in 1147, Byland Abbey was brought within the Cistercian family along with the entire Savignac order. The now-Cistercian monks settled in at Stocking, where they built a small stone church and some other buildings, but they didn't plan to stay. From the site at Stocking, they began to prepare a site three miles east, at Byland, for more permanent facilities.
Upholding the Cistercians’ reputation for effective transformation of the landscape, the Byland monks prepared the site for monastic occupation by draining the marshland, clearing the wooded areas and defining boundaries. About 1155, construction began. The church was not completely finished until the 1190s, but in October 1177, the monks moved for the final time and settled at the present site.
Although it never achieved the celebrity or wealth of its neighbour Rievaulx, Byland Abbey was the largest church in England and one of the largest and most impressive in all of Cistercian Europe. Its able abbot, Roger, who had overseen the community during all the moves and construction, successfully attracted the patronage of wealthy landowners, and the community also did well for itself in the export of wool. By the late 12th century Byland, Fountains and Rievaulx were described as "the three shining lights of the North."
On November 30, 1538, Abbot John Alanbridge (1525-1538), Prior Robert Barker and the 24 remaining monks of Byland gathered in their chapter house for the final time and surrendered their abbey, with all its property, to the Crown. The site was granted to Sir William Pickering in 1539. Destruction of the abbey began immediately and continued until the 18th century.
What to See
Today the Byland Abbey site is dominated by the remains of the great abbey church. This was an impressive building built in the New Gothic style of architecture, as large as a cathedral. Remains of mosaic tiles in the south transept offer a glimpse of how magnificent the church was in the Middle Ages.
Other remarkable remains at Byland include the great rose window in the west front of the church, the extensive cloister with the remains of the Collation porch, and the stone seats for the lay-brothers in the conversi’s lane. Excavations at Byland have unearthed the only stone lecturn base in England. Byland’s altar is now at Ampleforth Abbey.
- "Byland Abbey." Cistercians in Yorkshire.
- "Byland Abbey." Paradoxplace.
