Rievaulx Abbey.

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Rievaulx Abbey, Yorkshire, England.

Photo: 8 September 2012.

Source: Own work by mattbuck.

Author: mattbuck (category).

(Wikimedia Commons)

Rievaulx Abbey (/riːˈvoʊ/ ree-voh) is a former Cistercian Abbey headed by the Abbot of Rievaulx. It is located in Rievaulx, near Helmsley in the North York Moors National Park, North Yorkshire, England.

It was one of the wealthiest Abbeys in England and was dissolved by Henry VIII of England in 1538. Its ruins are a tourist attraction.

Rievaulx Abbey.

Very atmospheric on a foggy Autumn day.

Photo: 15 October 2009.

Source: From geograph.org.uk.

Author: Simon Palmer.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Rievaulx Abbey was founded in 1132 by twelve Monks from Clairvaux Abbey, France, as a Mission for the colonisation of the North of England and Scotland. It was the first Cistercian Abbey in the North. With time, it became one of the great Cistercian Abbeys of Yorkshire, second only to Fountains Abbey in fame.

The remote location was ideal for the Cistercians, whose desire was to follow a strict life of Prayer and self-sufficiency, with little contact with the outside world. The Patron, Walter Espec, settled another Cistercian community, founding Wardon Abbey, in Bedfordshire, on unprofitable wasteland on one of his inherited estates.

Rievaulx Abbey, North Yorkshire, England.

Photo: 14 August 2006.

Source: Own work/oeuvre personnelle.

Author: Myself (Bernard Leprêtre).

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Te Deum. 

5th-Century Monastic Chant (Solemn).

Available on YouTube at

http://youtu.be/sqwV9l-U8ds.

The following Italic Text is from the Video on YouTube.

Monks of one of the Abbeys of the Solesmes Congregation sing this beautiful Chant. 

The Te Deum is attributed to two Fathers and Doctors of the Church, Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustine, and is one the most majestic Chants in the Liturgy of the Church. 

It is sung in Traditional Seminaries and Monastic Houses at the Divine Office and for Double Feasts of the First Class, The Nativity, Easter, Corpus Christi, Epiphany, Pentecost and those Feasts which have an Octave. 

The Solemn Te Deum is sung on all occasions of public Church rejoicing (in Traditional Catholic Churches).

Rievaulx Abbey, Yorkshire, England.

Photo: 8 September 2012.

Source: Own work by mattbuck.

Author: mattbuck (category).

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Abbey lies in a wooded dale, by the River Rye, sheltered by hills. To have enough flat land to build on, a small part of the river was diverted several metres West of its former channel. The Monks altered the course of the river three times during the 12th-Century. 

The old course of the river is visible in the Abbey's grounds. This is one illustration of the technical ingenuity of the Monks, who, over time, built up a very profitable business mining lead and iron, rearing sheep and selling wool to buyers from all over Europe. 

Rievaulx Abbey became one of the greatest and wealthiest Abbeys in England, with 140 Monks and many more Lay Brothers, receiving grants of land totalling 6,000 acres (24 km²) and establishing Daughter Houses in England and Scotland.

Rievaulx Abbey, Yorkshire, England.

Photo: 8 September 2012.

Source: Own work by mattbuck.

Author: mattbuck (category).

(Wikimedia Commons)

Rievaulx Abbey, Yorkshire, England.

Photo: 8 September 2012.

Source: Own work by mattbuck.

Author: mattbuck (category).

(Wikimedia Commons)

Towards the end of the 13th-Century, the Abbey had incurred a great deal of debt with its building projects and lost revenue, due to an epidemic of sheep scab (psoroptic mange). This ill fortune was compounded by Scottish raids in the Early-14th-Century. To make matters worse the decimation of the population caused by the Black Death, in the Mid-14th-Century, made it difficult to recruit new Lay Brothers for manual labour. As a result, the Abbey was forced to lease much of its land. By 1381, there were only fourteen Choir Monks, three Lay Brothers and the Abbot left at Rievaulx, and some buildings were reduced in size.

Rievaulx Abbey ruins.

Photo: 23 August 2008.

Source: Own work.

Author: Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net).

Permission: Creative Commons CC-BY-SA-2.5. 

Please attribute using name and website URL (as per the author line above).

(Wikimedia Commons)

Miserere Mei Deus.

Gregorian Chant.

Available on YouTube at

http://youtu.be/zC0o723hb0M.

By the 15th-Century, the original Cistercian practices of strict observance, according to Saint Benedict's rule, had been abandoned in favour of a more comfortable lifestyle. It was then permitted to eat meat and more private living accommodation was created for the Monks, and the Abbot now had a substantial private household.

Rievaulx Abbey, Yorkshire, England.

Photo: 8 September 2012.

Source: Own work by mattbuck.

Author: mattbuck (category).

(Wikimedia Commons)

Rievaulx Abbey, Yorkshire, England.

Photo: 14 April 2008.

Source: Own work.

Author: Tilman2007.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Rievaulx Abbey showing Presbytery (right), South Transept, 

Chapter House foundations and wall of Infirmary (left). Mist at dawn.

Date: 2011.

Source: http://www.wyrdlight.com Author: Antony McCallum.

Author: Antony McCallum.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Abbey was dissolved by King Henry VIII in 1538. At that time there were said to be seventy-two buildings occupied by an Abbot and twenty-one Monks, attended by 102 servants, with an income of £351 a year. It also had a prototype blast furnace at Laskill, producing cast iron as efficiently as a modern blast furnace; according to Gerry McDonnell (archeo-metallurgist of the University of Bradford), the closure of Rievaulx delayed the Industrial Revolution for two-and-a-half centuries.

Rievaulx Abbey in Winter.

Source: (Not Known).

Attribution: (Not Known).

Rievaulx Abbey.

Available on YouTube at

http://youtu.be/f509TzoOpg0.

Henry VIII ordered the buildings to be rendered uninhabitable and stripped of valuables such as lead. The Abbey site was granted to the Earl of Rutland, one of Henry's advisers, until it passed to the Duncombe family.

In the 1750s, Thomas Duncombe III beautified the estate by building the terrace with two Grecian-style temples; these temples, now called Rievaulx Terrace & Temples, are in the care of the National Trust. The ruins of the Abbey are in the care of English Heritage.

When awarded a life peerage in 1983, former Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, a Yorkshireman, adopted the title Baron Wilson of Rievaulx.

Rievaulx Abbey.

An Oasis of Peace.

Available on YouTube at

http://youtu.be/RzQlPeO-C4g.