The hulk of Rievaulx Abbey stood solid and ark-like through the deluge. A shadowy figure appeared sou’wester dripping water – could it be Noah? “So much for weather forecasters” said Freda. At that point we all headed for the historians’ universal refuge – the nearest pub. Twenty minutes later gathered round a fire, with steaming bowls of soup and with bacon butties, we took the decision that early March was not the ideal time for field trips.

 

We are lucky – in our part of Yorkshire we are less than an hour’s drive away from the remains of some of the most important and impressive Mediaeval monasteries in the Country. When, some months earlier, a meeting had been held to set up our local U3A (“University of the Third Age”) I was foolish enough to point this out – the inevitable happened – I found myself running a Mediaeval Monastery group. Whilst I had given similar courses specifically for architectural students in the past, this was different. Would anyone be interested? Would they have the enthusiasm to ferret out facts for themselves? Would they, perhaps, even bring their own specialist expertise so that we could view monasteries, their architecture and their history, from a different slant?

 

I was to be pleasantly surprised. We immediately had a group of nearly twenty enthusiasts drawn from a really wide range of backgrounds – from a retired Prison Governor to an ex-director of a large international company. Some, but certainly not all, had been to university. One at least, as an undergraduate, had read Tudor history at Oxford. On the other hand many had given their time solely to raising families with everything that that entails. All, though, had much to offer to the group.

 

We started by examining how Christian Monasticism had developed. Its origins, its growth in the East and most importantly, the Rule of St Benedict. The Rule that was to form the inspiration and bedrock particularly for many of the monasteries we would be studying in our area. We saw how Celtic monasticism grew in the West with examples in Yorkshire at places like Whitby and Lastingham. How Cluny provided ideal conditions for the development of art and the liturgy and how the zeal of the Cistercians gave us the solid beauty and spiritual example epitomised by monasteries like Rievaulx and Fountains.

 

Having set the scene rather formally through talks we then began to work as a group. After our dousing at Rievaulx we decided that spring and summer were the time for field trips and that late autumn and winter the time to “get under the skin” of the buildings, their history and the way of life that formed them. Gradually individuals in the group have taken on responsibility for investigating particular themes so that our winter meetings are much more akin to seminars, with perhaps three or four short papers from different people at each monthly session. From time to time we are lucky enough to have experts in a particular field joining us to explore a specific subject in greater depth. Our site visits in the summer build on these foundations. If a local expert is on hand to expand on the work we have already done, so much the better. If not, we have, in the winter, built up sufficient knowledge to interpret the buildings and to understand and question their historical and religious context. On these field trips we invariably rely on the expertise of one of our most valued members who has developed the knack of finding a superb pub within a few miles of any given monastery. 

 

So, over time our group has built up a reasonable understanding of our local monasteries and their context in the Middle Ages. We have then moved on in our seminars to look in more detail at specific themes. We were particularly interested in the Dissolution of the Monasteries in Yorkshire and the effect this had on the population both during the Suppression and in the decades afterwards. This of course is both a difficult and contentious subject – one has only to look at the legacy of research from the last century to realise the fixed standpoints from which it was often approached. Thankfully today scholars are taking a much more objective view. Early last Spring, when we were wallowing in the aftermath of the Dissolution, Professor Clare Cross joined us for an afternoon session and gave an excellent talk followed by a discussion that sorted out so many of the problems we had been facing. 

 

This winter we are returning to the Twelfth Century and examining how the Cistercians came to Yorkshire and used Rievaulx as a hub from which to colonise the North. So much of what we have done seemed worthwhile the other week when one of our members who claimed there was no way she could possibly do any research, produced a super short paper on the early Cistercian foundations in this Country.

 

In our efforts to understand the driving force that took the Mediaeval monk “far from the concourse of men” we have on two occasions spent a day with the monks of Ampleforth Abbey. This fascinating experience has helped us to put flesh on the “bare ruined choirs” we have seen in places like Byland and Kirkham.    To be standing next to a monk in church chanting the Office brings one very close to St Ailred and his companions at Rievaulx. So, gradually all of us in the group have realised that history is not just about what happened when, but much more importantly it is about understanding and getting close to the people in our locality – the farmers, craftsmen, merchants and even the monks – who have gone before.