Fountains Abbey: History
• Origins
• Sources
• Foundation
• Consolidation
• Trials and Tribulations
• Strength and Stability
• End of Monastic Life

Fountains Abbey: Buildings
• Precinct
• Church
• Cloister
• Sacristy
• Library
• Chapter House
• Parlour
• Dormitory
• Warming House
• Day Room
• Refectory
• Kitchen
• Lay Brothers' Range
• Abbots House
• Infirmary
• Outer Court
• Gatehouse
• Guesthouse

Fountains Abbey: Lands

Fountains Abbey: People

Desperate times: Fountains in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries

(21/26)

Death on duty
Stephen of Easton died while conducting his visitation of Fountains’ daughter-house of Vaudey, in Lincolnshire. Stephen’s body was not returned to Fountains but buried in Vaudey’s chapter-house in front of the abbot’s chair – a privileged and prominent position – where his tomb was said to’ blaze with miracles’ [President’s Book’].

The period of the three Johns marked a highpoint in Fountains history, but hard times were to follow after the abbacy of Stephen of Easton (1247-52), another ‘home-grown’ monk who was renowned for his theological writings. In the second half of the thirteenth century the community’s finances went ‘seriously awry’.(80) Indeed, Archbishop John Romeyn of York despaired of the material and spiritual state of the abbey, which he had witnessed for himself during his visit of 1294. He complained that the community was wasting its resources, that the monks neglected charity, the rules and devotions, that conspiracies were rampant and any zealous monks were driven out.(81) Fountains’ material condition was so dire that the abbey was taken into royal receivership on two occasions. This was not an unusual situation in these troubled times, and other religious houses throughout the country found themselves in a similar predicament. However, Fountains’ situation was hardly helped by the fact that eleven abbots presided over the abbey during the second half of the thirteenth century, scarcely a recipe for stability.