File:The ruined abbeys of Yorkshire (1883) (14592503469).jpg

Identifier: ruinedabbeysofyo00lefr_0 (find matches)
Title: The ruined abbeys of Yorkshire
Year: 1883 (1880s)
Authors: Lefroy, William, 1836-1900
Subjects: Abbeys
Publisher: London, Seeley, Jackson, and Halliday
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute

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as not morethan 343 feet long. In a word, the Latin Cross ofthe normal Cistercian ground-plan has been entirelylost sight of. No doubt the desire for refinementsof ritual which soon showed itself even among theCistercians, pre-disposed the monk-builders to sucharchitectural innovations. Probably, also, they wereinspired by the fine proportions of the unreformedBenedictine churches, and urged on by the masonicinstinct and impulse. All these motives we shallsee at workat Fountains,though with cu-riously differentresults. But wecan hardly doubtthat the tempt-ation which firstproved too strongfor their traditionsof Cistercian Pu-ritanism was thedesire to equalor surpass theglorious work oftheir neighboursand rivals. Thepoor homelessand churchlesswanderers who,some twelveyears after thefoundation ofRievaulx, hadfound a tern -porary resting -place at OldByland, removedafter four orfive yearsStocking,thence tospot whereruins of BylandAbbey are still visible,five or six miles from toandthethe
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HELMSLEY CASTLE. Even here they were onlyRievaulx, and their noblechurch arose almost under the eyes of their oldneighbours. Now, Byland is the largest original CistercianChurch in England. It is 328 feet long, and boastsa noble choir with aisles. It was founded in 1177,and probably completed by the end of the twelfthcentury. Sometime in the first half of the thirteenthcentury—Mr. Edmund Sharpe thought not earlierthan 1240—the new choir at Rievaulx was com-pleted. Longer than that of Byland, and equallyguilty of aisles and a triforium, it is now the great architectural and artistic attraction of a ruin whichis perhaps only second in beauty to that of Fountains. Our illustrations show this choir in various pointsof view, and recall the peculiar charm of its situationand surroundings—less trim and artificial than thoseat Studley, less striking, perhaps, than those of Bolton,but combining a foreground of wooded hill with dis-tant heights of russet and purple moor into a picturewhic

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