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Cistercian charity
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The poor relief extended by Fountains
was perhaps most striking during the famine of 1194, when Abbot
Ralph Haget set up what
can best be described as a refugee camp. For six months the community
provided shelter, food, medical and
spiritual care for the afflicted.(8) The
number of grants made to Fountains during Ralph’s abbacy
which were earmarked for the care of the poor is a testimony to
Fountains’ reputation
at this time for its charitable work.(9) Indeed,
a neighbouring Cistercian,
Matthew of Rievaulx,
paid tribute to Fountains’ charity in
a poem:
O fount of gardens, paupers’ open
gate
You cure the sick, disease alleviate.
A particularly interesting
and revealing donation made to the abbey at this time was the
grant of 40 pence a year to provide head-coverings
for the poor folk infected by worms, who came to the abbey gate
seeking help.(10) Fountains continued to exercise
charity throughout the Middle Ages, and to act as the dispenser
of the laity’s
alms. Theophania, the daughter of Oliver de Stainley, granted Fountains
the rent
and services of Hugh, to support the care of the poor congregated
at the gate.(11) Following the
Dissolution of the monasteries Yorkshire men paid tribute to the
monks’ worthy
contribution to poor relief in the locality, and the loss suffered
upon the closure
of the religious houses.
The abbeys in the North gave great
alms to poor men and
laudably served God … the service of God is much diminished
by the suppression. (12)
[Robert Aske, leading figure in the Pilgrimage
of Grace]
Thus, they
fed the hungry and gave drink to the thirsty,
clothed those who needed clothing, and comforted the sick,
sore and lame, and helped strangers to lodging within
their gates. (13)
[Michael
Sherbrook, priest of Rotherham]
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