Recruits

(3/6)

Monks in need of mercy and compassion flocked to Rievaulx
from foreign peoples and from the far ends of the earth,
that there in very truth they might find peace and the holiness
without no man shall see God.
[Walter Daniel, Life of Aelred (4)]

Monk felling a tree
© Bibliotheque Municipal
de Dijon
<click to enlarge>

Monastic life thrived at Rievaulx. The reputation of the abbey spread, attracting an influx of recruits who were eager to participate in monastic life there, whether as monks or lay-brothers. Most of those who joined were from the locality, but men who lived further afield were also drawn to the Rye valley. One such recruit was King David of Scotland’s steward, Aelred, who heard great reports of the community when he was in York on business. When in 1134, Aelred expressed his wish to visit the Rievaulx monks, to sample the delights of Cistercian life for himself, he was escorted there by the abbey’s founder, Walter Espec. Aelred was so impressed by what he saw that he decided to join the community as a monk.

That they served the Lord Christ, like exemplary bees, is known by their fruits; that is, by those numerous companies of saints which they sent out like swarms of wise bees and dispersed them not only through the provinces of England, but even through barbarous nations.
[William of Newburgh, History, p. 419.

[See the Rievaulx family tree]

Rievaulx was intended as a mission-centre from which the White Monks could infiltrate the island and by 1136 the abbey was ready to fulfil this function. It founded its first daughter-house at Warden in Bedfordshire and later that year established the first Cistercian abbey in Scotland, Melrose. A number of monks and lay-brothers was required to found a daughter-house, and the fact that Rievaulx was able to establish several houses in the early to mid-1130s is testimony to the swelling numbers at this time. The late 1130s, however, saw a slump in numbers and it was not until 1142 that recruitment rose once more allowing for a second wave of foundations: in 1142 Revesby (Lincolnshire) (5) and Dundrennan (Scotland) were founded; in 1146 Rufford (Nottinghamshire) was established.
By the thirteenth century Rievaulx headed a family of nineteen abbeys which spanned across Britain, extending from Scotland in the North to Bedfordshire in the South.