A Cistercian Seal found in Smithfield, Virginia

You might remember that years ago--in 2015, to be precise--there was a story about a reliquary, presumed to be of Catholic provenance, found in the grave of one of the Jamestown founders. There are more details about the reliquary here. Now, there's a story about a seal from a suppressed English Cistercian monastery being identified in Smithfield, Virginia:

At a recent archaeological artifact workshop hosted by our good friends at the Isle of Wight County Museum in Smithfield, Va., a most unusual 14th-century religious seal was brought to our attention. After sharing the information we had obtained from earlier research conducted by Judith Paulos of The Mount Vernon Ladies Association, we discussed the artifact with a friend and colleague, Dr. Bly Straube, who is the Senior Curator at the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation and a superlative researcher. Bly shared the fact that the late Ivor Noel Hume, the former Director of Archaeology at Colonial Williamsburg, had seen the same seal matrix just prior to finishing his 1994 book The Virginia Adventure. In his book, Hume included a photo of the item and recognized its antiquity. He speculated that it may have been a sign indicating that the “lost colony” had made its way to the area after leaving Roanoke Island sometime prior to the 17th century. . . .

As part of the ongoing investigation into what happened at the Roanoke Settlement, the archaeologists hope to make a connection between the seal and the movement of those colonists. They identified the seal as coming from one of the Cistercian monasteries suppressed by Henry VIII, Garendon Abbey in Leicestershire, one of the hundreds of Cistercian houses established in England, Scotland, and Ireland:

Bly discovered that the seal matrix likely came from the Cistercian Garendon Abbey in Leicestershire, England. The Garendon Abbey was established under the protection of St. Mary the Virgin in 1133 by Robert [de Beaumont], Earl of Leicester. The Cistercians held a great deal of land over several counties near the Abbey, and the monks, priests, and other residents living there appear to have been occupied heavily in sheep farming. . . . 

The post references the dissolution of abbey in 1536, stating that in that year Henry VIII "officially dissolved all Catholic institutions in England, marking the end of the Garendon Abbey." That's not completely accurate: in 1536, Cromwell and Henry, after an extensive visitation of the monasteries throughout England, ostensibly to value their property for taxation purposes, but also to identify abuse and infidelity, acted upon the 1535 Act of Parliament for the "Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries", those valued less than 200 pounds. Garendon Abbey fell beneath that threshold in value, and thus was liable to suppression.

British History Online notes the discrepancy between the reports of Cromwell's visitors and local commissioners in 1535:

In the 16th century, if not earlier, the Holy Cross at Garendon was an object of pilgrimage locally. (fn. 40) In 1535 the clear yearly value of the abbey's revenues was assessed at less than £160. (fn. 41) Cromwell's investigators, visiting Garendon in the following year, alleged that five of the monks were guilty of unnatural vice, and that three sought release from religion. (fn. 42) The county commissioners, who visited the house in June of the same year, gave a much more favourable report, stating that all the fourteen monks of the house desired to continue in religion, and that twelve of them were priests, of good conversation. Divine service was well maintained, though the large old monastery was partly ruinous. Five children and five impotent persons were maintained by the monks' charity, (fn. 43) and there were also two corrodiaries [individuals living in the monastery with room and board provided]. (fn. 44) The abbey, however, was listed amongst the smaller monasteries dissolved in 1536. (fn. 45) The abbot [Randolph Arnold] obtained a pension of £30. (fn. 46) The First Minister's Account shows a net income of £100. 18s. 10½d. (fn. 47)

Why did someone bring a seal from a suppressed Cistercian abbey to the New World in the 16th or 17th century? Does this mean there was Church Papist from Leicestershire in the colony, who remained inwardly true to the Catholic Church while attending Church of England services to avoid recusancy? Like the reliquary box in Jamestown, it remains a mystery because it does not seem that the provenance of this artifact has been identified.

Image Credit (Public Domain): Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, one of the founders of the Cistercian reform of the Benedictine order.

Cistercian Martyrs of England

According to the blog of Silverstream Priory in County Meath, Ireland, St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Cistercian order recognizes these English Reformation martyrs:

From the Romano–Cistercian Martyrology:
In England, in the sixteenth century, the passion of a number of Cistercian monks cruelly put to death for different pretexts by order of King Henry VIII.
In the months of March and May 1537, died for the Catholic faith:
— the Lord Abbot of Kirkstead, Dom John Harrison and his brethren Dom Richard Wade, Dom William Small, and Dom Henry Jenkinson;
— the Lord Abbot of Whalley, Dom John Paslew and his brethren, Dom William Haydock and Dom Richard Eastgate.
Also died: the Lord Abbot of Fountains and a monk of Louth Park.
In the following year 1538, were martyred:
— the Lord Abbot of Woburn, Dom Robert Hobbes and the monks Dom Rudolph Barnes and Dom Laurence Blunham.
Recognized as authentic confessors of the faith:
Dom Thomas Mudd, monk of Jervaulx, who died on September 7, 1583;
Dom John Almond, who died on April 18, 1585,
and Dom Gilbert Browne, the last Abbot of Sweet Heart (Dulce Cor), who died on March 14, 1612.

The Catholic Encyclopedia provides some detail about the history of St. Bernard's order in England: 

St. Stephen Harding, third Abbot of Cîteaux (1109-33), was an Englishman and his influence in the early organization of the Cistercian Order had been very great. It was natural therefore that, when, after the coming of St. Bernard and his companions in 1113, foundations began to multiply, the project of sending a colony of monks to England should find favourable consideration. In Nov., 1128, with the aid of William Giffard, Bishop of Winchester, a settlement was made at Waverly near Farnham in Surrey. Five houses were founded from here before 1152 and some of them had themselves produced offshoots. But it was in the north that the order assumed its most active developments in the twelfth century. William, an English monk of great virtue, was sent from Clairvaux by St. Bernard in 1131, and a small property was given to the newcomers by Walter Espec "in a place of horror and dreary solitude" at Rivaulx in Yorkshire, with the hearty support of Thurston, Archbishop of York. By 1143 three hundred monks had entered there, including the famous St. Ælred, known for his eloquence as the St. Bernard of England. Among the offshoots of Rivaulx were Melrose and Revesby. Still more famous was Fountains near Ripon. The foundation was made in 1132 by a section of the monks from the great Benedictine house of St. Mary's, York, who desired to lead a more austere life. After many struggles and great hardships, St. Bernard agreed to send them a monk from Clairvaux to instruct them, and in the end they prospered exceedingly. The great beauty of the ruins excites wonder even today, and before 1152 Fountains had many offshoots, of which Newminster and Meaux are the most famous. Another great reinforcement to the order was the accession of the houses of the Savigny foundation, which were incorporated with the Cistercians, at the instance of Eugenius III, in 1138. Thirteen English abbeys, of which the most famous were Furness and Jervaulx, thus adopted the Cistercian rule. By the year 1152 there were fifty-four Cistercian monasteries in England, some few of which, like the beautiful Abbey of Tintern on the Wye, had been founded directly from the Continent. Architecturally speaking the Cistercian monasteries and churches, owing to their pure style, may be counted among the most beautiful relics of the Middle Ages. To the wool and cloth trade, which was especially fostered by the Cistercians, England was largely indebted for the beginnings of her commercial prosperity.

The last Cistercian monastery in England to be suppressed was Meaux Abbey in Yorkshire in December, 1539, ending more than 400 years of St. Bernard's order in England. More about the suppression of the Cistercians here.

Image credit: Bernard of Clairvaux, true effigy by Georg Andreas Wasshuber (1650–1732)

The Age of Plunder and Roche Abbey

A facebook friend posted this from the English Heritage blog:

On 23 June 1538, Abbot Henry Cundall of Roche Abbey in South Yorkshire and his 17 monks gathered in their chapter house to surrender their abbey to the king’s commissioners. Roche was one of the many larger religious houses which ‘voluntarily’ surrendered that year, in the course of Henry VIII’s Suppression of the Monasteries.

The monks, cast out of their comfortable abbey with small pensions, had to make the most of what they had.

Each monk had been given the cell in which he slept, ‘wherein there was nothing of value save his bed and apparel’. One monk tried to sell his cell door for two pennies, ‘which was worth more than five shillings’. But the potential buyer refused, ‘for he was a young man, unmarried, and in need of neither a house nor a door’.

The source for these details was a priest, Michael Sherbrook, rector of Wickersley, who wrote an account of the suppression of Roche abbey in the 1590's. He gathered anecdotal evidence that the monks and the abbey were not despised in any way--pillaging the abbey was nothing personal:

Sherbrook wondered whether such an orgy of devastation was a product of hostility towards the Roche monks. It was strange, he thought, that ‘even such persons were content to spoil them, that seemed not two days before to allow their religion, and do great worship and reverence at their Mattins, Masses and other service, and all other their doings’. So he pressed his father, who had also been present, to explain:

For the better proof of this my saying, I demanded of my father, which had bought part of the timber of the church, and all the timber in the steeple, with the bell frame, with other his partners therein … whether he thought well of the religious persons and of the religion then used?

And he told me Yea: For said he, ‘I did see no cause to the contrary.’

‘Well,’ said I, ‘then how came it to pass you was so ready to destroy and spoil the thing you thought well of?’

‘What should I have done?’ said he. ‘Might I not as well as others have some profit of the spoil of the abbey? For I did see all would away; and therefore I did as others did.’

That reminded me of what W.G. Hoskins wrote about the Dissolution of the Monasteries in The Age of Plunder: The England of Henry VIII, 1500-1547:

"In these matters the only true god is Mammon. The sixteenth century showed it abundantly in every decade. Catholic or Protestant, what did it matter when Mammon was sitting in the seat of power?"

More about survivors of Roche Abbey's suppression here.

The Ruins of Netley Abbey by George Keate

Nancy Bilyeau is posting a series on the monastic ruins of England at a site called A Bloody Good Read and uses the evocative line, "In Lone Magnificence, a Ruin Stands" for the posts. It's from a poem by George Keate:

Hence all the trivial Pleasures of the Crowd,
Folly's vain Revel, and that treach'rous Art
Which captivates the Gay, or sooths the Proud,
And steals each better Purpose from the Heart.

More welcome far the Shades of this wild Wood
Skirting with cheerful Green the seabeat Sands,
Where NETLEY, near the Margin of the Flood
In lone Magnificence a Ruin stands.

How chang'd alas! from that rever'd Abode
Which spread in ancient Days so wide a Fame,
When votive Monks these sacred Pavements trod,
And swell'd each Echo with JEHOVAH'S Name!

Now sunk, deserted, and with Weeds o'ergrown,
Yon aged Walls their better Years bewail;
Low on the Ground their loftiest Spires are thrown,
And ev'ry Stone points out a moral Tale.

Mark how the Ivy with Luxuriance bends
Its winding Foliage through the cloister'd Space,
O'er the green Window's mould'ring Height ascends,
And seems to clasp it with a fond Embrace.—

With musing Step I pace the silent Isle,
Each moss-grown Nook, each tangled Path explore,
While the Breeze whistles through the shatter'd Pile,
Or wave light-dashing murmurs on the Shore.

No other Noise in this calm Scene is heard,
No other Sounds these tranquil Vaults molest,
Save the Complainings of some mournful Bird
That ever loves in Solitude to rest.

Haunts such as these delight, and o'er the Soul
Awhile their grateful Melancholy cast,
Since through all Periods she can boundless roll,
Enjoy the Present, and recall the Past!—

Here, pious Hermits from the World retir'd
In Contemplation wing'd their Thoughts to Heav'n;
Here, with Religion's heart-felt Raptures fir'd,
Wept o'er their erring Days, and were forgiv'n.

Race after Race succeeding, in these Cells,
Learn'd how to value Life, learn'd how to die;
Lost are their Names, and no Memorial tells
In what lone Spot their mould'ring Ashes lie!

Mute is the matin Bell which us'd to call
The wakeful Fathers from their humble Beds;
No midnight Taper glimmers on the Wall,
Or o'er the Floor its trembling Radiance sheds!

No sainted Shrine now pours its Blaze of Light
Bidding the zealous Bigot hither roam;
No holy Relick glads the Pilgrim's Sight,
Or lures his Foot-steps from a distant Home!—

Now fainter to the View each Object grows,
In the clear West the Day's last Gleams are seen,
On Night's dim Front the Star of Ev'ning glows,
And dusky Twilight aids the solemn Scene.

Again quick Fancy peoples all the Gloom,
Calls from the Dust the venerable Dead,
Who ages since lay shrouded in the Tomb,
And bids them these accustom'd Limits tread.

Swift as her Wish the shadowy Forms appear,
O'er each chang'd Path with doubtful Step they walk,
From their keen Eyes she sees Amazement stare,
And hears, or thinks she hears, the Spectres talk.

E'en now they pass, and fading like a Dream
Back to their hallow'd Graves again they go;
But first bequeath one pitying Sigh, and seem
To mourn with me the Fate of all below!—

Disparted Roofs that threaten from above,
The tott'ring Battlement, the rifted Tow'r,
With many a scatter'd Fragment loudly prove,
All conqu'ring TIME, the Triumphs of thy Pow'r.

These speaking Stones one sacred Truth maintain,
That Dust to Dust is Man's predestin'd Lot;
He plans, and labours, — Yet how much in vain!—
Himself, his Monuments, how soon forgot!—

Forgot on Earth, — but one there sits on high
Who bids our Virtues to his Throne ascend,
Pleas'd he beholds them with Parent's Eye,
To give our Hope new Wings, and crown our End!—

And you, YE FAIR, of gayer Scenes the Grace,
If Chance should lead you from the jocund Train,
Curious to visit this sequester'd Place,
Amidst its Ruins wander not in vain.

Whence do they still our silent Wonder claim
E'en in this low, this desolated State?
'Tis from Remembrance of their former Fame:—
They once were beautiful, they once were great!

'Tis Goodness best adorns the female Heart;
Asks a Respect which must with Years increase,
Lives, when the Roses from the Cheek depart,
And all the Joys of Adulation cease!

Forgive the Muse, if with an anxious Love
She wooes you to attend her friendly Lay;
Warns you, lest faithless to yourselves ye prove,
And in false Pleasures trifle Life away.

Know, in your Breasts is lodg'd a Spark divine
For ever prompting to each great Desire;—
Th' inconstant World must change, that still shall shine,
Nor Death's cold Hand e'er quench th' immortal Fire.

Ne'er may Dishonour's Blast an Entrance find,
O keep it sacred with a Vestal's Care,
Feed it with all the Graces of the Mind,
Nor fail to pour the social Duties there.

So o'er your Forms when TIME his Veil shall cast,
And ev'ry Charm by Age shall be decay'd,
Your fair Renown shall triumph to the last,
And Virtue guard the Conquests Beauty made.

According to Wikipedia, "Netley Abbey is a ruined late medieval monastery in the village of Netley near Southampton in Hampshire, England. The abbey was founded in 1239 as a house for Roman Catholic monks of the austere Cistercian order. Despite being a royal abbey, Netley was never rich, produced no influential scholars nor churchmen, and its nearly 300-year history was quiet. The monks were best known to their neighbours for the generous hospitality they offered to travelers on land and sea." (photo also from Wikipedia) Netley Abbey is on the English Heritage list.

St. Aelred of Rievaulx, BFF

On January 12, 1167, Aelred, Abbot of Rievaulx died; therefore, this is his feast day. He was born c. 1110 in Hexham to a priestly family , was educated there and possibly at Durham, and was a courtier of David I, king of Scots, before entering the Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx in the early or mid 1130s. In 1143 Ailred became the first abbot of its daughter house of Revesby in the Lincolnshire Wolds. In 1147 he was elected abbot of Rievaulx, a position he held until his death. Under his rule Rievaulx was a vibrant institution, helping to spread the Cistercian model of momastic life across northern England and beyond.

In his book, Saints and Scholars: Twenty-Five Medieval Portraits, David Knowles comments that St. Aelred of Rievaulx is a "singularly attractive figure whom, thanks to the records left by a disciple and still more to his own writings, we can see as a living man in some completeness. . . . As we read, a corner of the veil that hides the past from us seems to lift . . ."

Among St. Aelred's 13 surviving written works, perhaps the most famous is his treatise on Spiritual Friendship:

"Friendship is that virtue by which spirits are bound by ties of love and sweetness, and out of many are made one. Even the philosophers of this world have ranked friendship not with things casual or transitory but with the virtues which are eternal. Solomon in the Book of Proverbs appears to agree with them when he says: "he that is a friend loves at all times," manifestly declaring that friendship is eternal if it is true friendship; but if it should ever cease to be, then it was not true friendship, even though it seemed to be so."

and

"For spiritual friendship, which we call true, should be desired, not for consideration of any worldly advantage or for any extrinsic cause, but from the dignity of its own nature and the feelings of the human heart, so that its fruition and reward Is nothing other than itself. ... And so spiritual friendship among the just is born of a similarity in life, morals, and pursuits, that is, it is a mutual conformity in matters human and divine united with benevolence and charity."

but remember:

"This type of friendship is not common."

His abbey was, of course, suppressed during Henry VIII's reign, and on 3 December 1538 Abbot Blyton and his twenty-two monks gathered in Rievaulx’s chapter-house for the final time and surrendered their abbey to the royal commissioners. But now the abbey is a National Park, hailed as "one of the most complete and impressive abbeys in Britain" and "one of the most popular visitor attractions in the North"!

St. Bernard and the Cistercians in England

From Tea at Trianon comes this link to an article arguing for the long-term beneficial effects of the monasteries in England even after their dissolution:

The Monks Left Fundamental Values in Society

Having looked at statistics covering 40 counties in England, the researchers concluded that regions with many Cistercian monasteries experienced a higher population growth in the period 1377-1801.

What’s even more striking is that the influence that monasteries had on population density was the same before and after 1600.

The fact that all monasteries were closed down during the Reformation in the year 1500 [not really: the dissolution occurred in the late 1530's, from about 1535 to 1540] also shows that the monasteries had an influence on society several centuries after being closed down.

So it appears that it wasn’t only the monks’ excellent abilities to e.g. use watermills that have been passed on to posterity. Rather, it was something more inherent and fundamental.

“We are cementing that the monks passed on their cultural values by showing – based on the European Values Study – that European regions with several Cistercian monasteries still to this day value diligence and moderation more than other regions,” says Bentzen.

“Our study of monks shows that societies that had a culture where diligence and moderation were highly valued had an advantage when the Industrial Revolution started. All else being equal, countries with high levels of work ethic will, historically speaking, achieve greater prosperity.”

Last year on the Feast of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, I posted this history of the Cisterican monastic life in England. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us!

Something Cromwell and the Court of Augmentations Missed

Furness Abbey was the second richest monastery in 16th century England when Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's Vicar in Spiritual Matters, targeted it and the other large monasteries for dissolution. Cromwell and his official Commissioners would be very disappointed to learn that they really missed something: the grave of an earlier abbot containing great treasure. That grave was recently discovered and more investigation is planned to date the abbot and possibly identify him. The UK's Guardian and Daily Mail have both run stories on this recent find, accessed during some repairs to the ruined abbey. From The Daily Mail: :

For something like seven centuries he had lain undisturbed.
He – or at least his remains – survived Henry VIII’s destruction of his abbey in 1537, eluded the grave-robbers that followed, and avoided discovery by Victorian archaeologists.
Even deep excavations and the underpinning of the crumbling building in the 1930s failed to unearth him.

But the abbot who headed Britain’s second richest and most powerful Cistercian monastery may soon be unmasked – along with the identity, perhaps, of one of the site’s ghosts.

Furness Abbey is part of the English Heritage program and it costs you about four pounds to visit it today. It was "voluntarily" surrendered in 1537, ahead of the suppression of most of the major monasteries, because some of its monks had been involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace. Roger Pele was its last abbot.

The treasures buried with this abbot are the elaborate head of his crozier and his ring. From The Guardian:

The crozier is unusual and the first to be excavated in this country for 50 years. It has a central gilded silver plaque which shows the archangel Michael slaying a dragon with his sword.
The ring – quite large, probably for a man with big or chubby fingers – is likely to have been given to the abbot on his consecration. "It is an unusual ring," said Harrison. "The bezel is a pyramid shape and is pointed – it would stick in to your finger. You would have felt it when you wore it and it might have been a reminder of the piety of the office."

Estimates currently date his burial from 1350 to 1500, so he could be one of these men:

* John of Cockerham, elected 1303, died 1347 (fn. 238)

* Alexander of Walton, elected 1347, died 1367 (fn. 239)
John of Cokan', elected 1367 (fn. 240)
* John of Bolton, occurs 1389, 1404 (fn. 241)
William of Dalton, occurs 1407, died 1416-7 (fn. 242)
Robert, elected c. 1417, occurs 1441 (fn. 243)
[Thomas or William Woodward] (fn. 244)
John Turner, occurs 1443-60 (fn. 245)
Lawrence, occurs 1461-91 (fn. 246)
Thomas Chamber, elected 1491, occurs 1496 (fn. 247)

(Image source: wikipedia commons)

Sunday Shrine Series--Follow up on Pontigny

On his Porta Caeli blog, the elegant and shadowy "Patricius" (note his profile picture!) has posted some pictures and notes from the former Cistercian abbey church at Pontigny. Three Archbishops of Canterbury took refuge there in exile, as I noted on my post about St. Edmund of Canterbury.

As he notes:

The Cistercians are long since departed. In the Refectory there was an exhibition about a period when the abbey was in lay ownership who hosted conferences for pretentious intellectuals- of which France has a fine tradition. The church itself is a fine gothic building with a seventeenth century stalls and screen. It has a slight air of musty decay and, as with so many historic French churches, a rather poor looking modern altar.

See Pontigny 1 and Pontigny 2.

Lord John Russell, Future Prime Minister

John Russell, a younger son of John Russell, the 6th Duke of Bedford, was born on 18 August 1792. He would serve twice as Prime Minister during the reign of Queen Victoria, from 30 June 1846 to 23 February 1852 and from 29 October 1865 to 28 June 1866. He was a Whig, as was his father and his father before him. Lord John Russell received the title Earl Russell in 1861--he was the grandfather of Bertrand Russell, Nobel Prize winner and 3rd Earl Russell.

The Russell family estates, which John would not inherit as younger son, include Woburn Abbey, which is on the site of a Cistercian Abbey built in 1145. The last abbot of Woburn Abbey was Robert Hobbes, founded guilty of treason and executed. More about Robert Hobbes here.

The abbey was suppressed in 1538. There had been an Eleanor Cross at Woburn Abbey, built at the command of King Edward I to mark the procession of her body from Lincoln to London after she died in November, 1290--it was destroyed probably as the abbey was. Edward VI granted Woburn Abbey to Sir John Russell in 1547, but it did not become a family home until 1619.

During his first term of office, Lord John Russell had to deal with the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in 1850 by Pope Pius IX. When Nicholas Wiseman's celebratory letter was distributed, Russell termed the action "Papal Aggression". More about that crisis here.

In the House of Commons before he became Prime Minister, Lord Russell was instrumental in the passage of the great Reform Act of 1832, extending the franchise. He had also been in favor of Catholic Relief in 1829.