Dieulacres Abbey

On the 22nd April, 1214, a small group of Cistercian monks, led by their abbot, Richard of Poulton, arrived at the outskirts of the Manor of Leek, in North Staffordshire. They had come to take possession of a large estate which had been granted to them by the powerful Ranulph de Blundeville, Earl of Chester, for the purpose of establishing a monastery in the heart of his North Staffordshire domains. As the abbey’s most influential benefactor, the Earl was invited to lay the foundation stone of the great church which was to be built on the banks of the River Churnet. It is recorded that as he did so, he uttered the Anglo-Norman words “Dieu l’encres (i.e. “ May God prosper it ”) and that everybody who was present at the ceremony replied Amen ". [1]

Thus the new monastery received its name, but behind this event lay nearly seventy years of history which cannot be ignored. Dieulacres was not founded by a “colonising party from a mother - abbey, but by an entire community of monks who had abandoned their monastery in favour of a new site. Strictly speaking, Dieulacres was not a new abbey at all, but merely a re-foundation of an older one. The story of Dieulacres Abbey does not properly begin in Staffordshire, but at Poulton on the River Dee, some five miles to the south of Chester. It was here that in 1146 a wealthy landowner called Robert Pincerna established a community of monks to pray for the health and safety of his lord and master, Ranulph II, Earl of Chester -- the grandfather of Ranulph de Blundeville. Just before the foundation of Poulton Abbey, Ranulph II had been taking an active part in the civil wars being waged by two rival claimants to the English Throne Stephen of Blois - and the Empress Matilda. He had married Maud, a niece of Matilda, and on account of this relationship, and a personal grudge against Stephen, he took the side of the Empress in the wars. He captured Stephen at Lincoln in 1141, and was himself captured and imprisoned by the King in 1146. It was this latter which prompted Robert Pincerna, who held the hereditary office of butler in the Earl’s household, to establish the monastery at Poulton. [2]

Poulton Abbey was intended to be a daughter - house of the abbey of Combermere. and of the Savigniac Order. [3] Combermere, along with the other Savigniac houses, was united in 1147 with the Order of Citeaux at the Cistercian General Chapter of that year,and so Paulton was of the Cistercian obedience almost from it's beginning. The foundation of the Burgundian monastery of Citeaux in 1089, and the rapid expansion of the Cistercian Order under the influence of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, are amply dealt with in other works. [4] It is sufficient here to note that by 1152 some 37 foundations had been made, including the great abbeys of Fountains and Rievaulx.

Paulton was founded in the heyday of Cistercian colonisation in England, and it is interesting to observe that a great many religious foundations were made during the troubled times of civil war. The names of many of the "turbulent" barons appear as benefactors in the foundation charters of a large number of abbeys. Such acts of piety, they may think, would to some extent atone for atrocities committed during the wars. King Stephen's famous Captain of Mercinaries, William of Ypres, founded the abbey of Boxley in 1143, and the foundation charter of Poulton Abbey reveals Robert Pincerna's thoughts on the transitoriness of earthly life, and an anxiety to do something good before it is too late. Only a short time after he had granted the charter, his"most illustrious master" led an orgy of pillage comparable only with that of Geoffrey de Mandeville in the Fens. He later made various gifts an endowments to the monks of Poulton. The attitude of such men is rather hard for us to understand: they distroyed villages, caused untold misery and waste, and then endowed religious foundations with the proceeds.

These grants were confirmed by Ranulf II and by his son, Hugh Cyveliok, as chief lords of the fee. [6] Robert Pincerna of Engleby died in or around 1182, and as he had no mail heirs, his lands were divided between his daughters. After this time, the Pincerna family seems to have servered it's connections with Paulton, at least until the community moved to Staffordshire in 1214. In any case, the familly was bythis time moving in Derbyshire circles - as early as 1130 they had a residence at Englyby - and by granting the remainder of Pauulton to the monks, the founders son was probablr parting with the last remnant of his Cheshire estates. The rights of protection and custody, which would normally have been retained in the founders family, were now assumed DE FACTO by the Earls of Chester.

In addition to confirming his fathers gifts to Paulton Abbey, Hugh Cyvliok, the fith of the Norman Earls of Chester, made several girts of his own, including lands and pastures to the north of the adjacent Manor of Dodleston. [7] Earl Hugh died in 1181, and tradition has it that he died at swythamley, near the Staffordshire/Cheshire border. He was succeeded in the Earldom by his son, Ranulph III "de Blundeville". Ranulph confirmed his father's donations to the monks of poulton, and in addition gave them fishing rights in the river Dee at Chester. [8]

The small nucleus of monastic lands in and around Paulton was graduly augmented by the gifts of local landowners. Richaard, Lord of the Manor of Aldford, on the east bank of the Dee, gave the monk's additional fishing rights on those stretches of the Dee which flowed through his land. He made a further gift consisting of lands adjoining his distant Manor of Alderly, together with rights of pasture and pannage. [9] At some date before 1213, Sir John Arderne, who had married Richard's daughter and heiress, gave the monks some other properties in Alderly in exchange for the lands which they held in the manor of Alford, [10]

It is worth noting that many of the benefactions which were made to the monks of Paulton between C.1200 and 1214 consisted of properties situated many miles away from Paulton. In addition to the lands at Alderly, Richard of Aldford gave the monks his Manor of Byley, in the parish of middlewich, together with it's mill and other appurtenences. [11] This grant took placeat some date between 1209 and 1213, and it occasioned a series of grants and quitclaims from various small landowners and tenants in Byley, who surrendered their properties to the monks. The entire vill of Byley was eventually handed over to the abbey by Ranulph de Blundeville. [12] In 1210, the monks acquired pasturing rights at Chelford and Withington, only a few miles from Macclesfield. [13]

The aquisition of lands and priviledges so far distant from the abbey, and the shift of activity awy from the Paulton estate, are not so difficult to explain when the location of the monastery and it's surrounding properties are considered. Paulton lay close to the welsh border, and there is evidence that the abbey lands in this area were on more than one occasion ravaged by bands of Welsh raiders, who from time to time, made incursions into the Palatinate of Chester. Under such circumstances, it is obvious that the livestock of the abbey would have been safer at Alderly and Chelford than at Aldford and Poulton. Richard of Aldford's gift of the Alderly estate gave the monks quite extensive priviledges, including enough pasture land on which to keep thirty horses, sixty pigs and forty sheep, and a croft on which to grow barley. [14]

The transferring of livestock to safer pastures solved only part of the problem. The monks themselves were still exposed to recurring danger, and conditions of this kind were hardly conducive to the strict observance of the monastic ideal. Ranulph de Blundeville was doubtless aware of the somewhat precarious existance of the abbey with wich his family had been so closely associated for nearly seventy years when, in 1214, he took positive action to alleviate the plight of the monks.

The Chronicle of Dieulacres Abbey - one of the most important documents known to have been compiled in the monastery - states that the Earl's main reason for moving the convent to Leek was the ever present danger of invasions by the Welsh. [15] The Chronicle also tells us that ther was another motive behind the Earl's concern for the monk's of Paulton. The story is much interwoven with legend, but there may be an element of truth in it. The Chronicler tells of Ranulph de Blundeville's divorce from his first wif, Constance of Brittany, and of his subsequent marriage to Clenentia de Fougeres. One night, he had a dream in which he saw the ghost of his grandfather, Ranulph II in whose name the Abbey of Poulton had originally been founded. The Earl was instructed by his ghostly ancestor to go to "cholpesdale" in the vicinity of Leek, and to establish therea community of Cistercian monks at a place where there had once been a chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The site for the monastery was to be given to the monks of Paulton, who were to abandon their old abbey and move to Leek under special instructions from the Earl. In the dream , the Earl was told at what time, and under what circumstances, he was to take action. His grandfather phrophesied that the pope would shortly place England under Interdict, during which time Ranulph was to go to Paulton and attend the services in the Abbey church. In the seventh year of the Interdict he was to instruct the monks to leave Poulton and go to their new home. When the Earl awoke the next day, he told his wife about his strange dream. On hearing that a new monastery was to be founded, the Countess is recorded to have said "Deux encres". Therupon Ranulph declared that the name of the abbey would be "Deulencres". [16]

In March 1208, Pope Innocent III placed the Kingdom of England under Interdict because King John refused to confirmthe appointment of Stephen Langton as archbishop of Canterbury. In simple terms, the interdict meant all ecclesiatical rites were suspended, and the churches were closed. Pope Innocent hoped that by depriving the people of the sacraments he would eventuallyforce John to capitulate. The Cistercians, however claimed the privilege of exemption from the Interdict, which they openly ignored, much to the annoyance of the Pope. Ranulph de Blundeville maintained that because of his DE - FACTO position as Patron of Poulton Abbey, he was entitled to the ministrations of the monks, and in accordance with his grandfathers prophecy , he went to the abbey during the period of the Interdict to be present at the Divine Offices and to recieve the Blessed Sacrament. Just as the Interdict entered its seventh year, he forfilled the secondpart of the prophecy and moved the convent of Paulton to it's new site. The old conventual buildings at Paulton were reduced to the status of a grange, but the Cheshire estates were retained by the monks as an additional source of revenue.

The reference in the Dieulacres Chronicle to the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Cholpesdale seems to suggest that ther had been some kind of religious establishment at Dieulacres before the Cistercians arrived in 1214, and there is a certain amount of archaelogical evidence to support this. Close by the abbey ruins there is a Cavern which runs several feet into a sandstone rock-face . It appears to be partly natural and partly man-made , and the interior is clearly divided into three cells, two of which occupy the now open front of the cave. The third is much smaller, and is cut into the rock behind the other two.The remains of a doorway can still be seen, together witha chimney-groove and the weather-groove of a roof which once overhung the enterance. It has been thought that this was once the chapel refered to in the legend, and that Dieulacres, like the ill-fated monastery of Radmore on Cannock Chase, was built around an existing hermitage. [17]

The foundation charter of Dieulacres [18] gives the details of the boundaries of Earl Ranulph's grant as follows: "By the water of Luddebech, which runs between Rudyard and Leek as far as the house of Ralph Bec, and from thence to Merbroc, and then from Merbroc to Gaviendhul and downby the house of Dodi as far as the grave of 'Thoni'. From thence to Falinbroc, and by Falibroc to Fulhe, and from Fulhe back to Luddebech".

At first sight, these landmarks are extremely puzzling, and the village of Meerbrook is the only one which is immediately recognisable on a modern map. "Luddebeche", "Falingbroc", and "Fulhe" are obviously names of streams, and although non of these names has survived to the present day, it is possible to make certain deductions as to their whereabouts . "Luddebech" is discribed as running between Leek and Rudyard. Apart from charter, the only stream which answers this discription is the one which rises on Gun Hill, not far from Rudyard Hall. This stream is followed by a modern parish boundary, and it enters the Churnet below Westwood Hall. It may be assumed that the house of Ralph Bec stood somewhere near the source of the stream and from here the boundary would have followed a north - easterly course as far as Meerbrook. "Gaviendhul" is impossible to relate to any present day name, but it has been sugested that the house of Dodi, or Dodin, might be equated with Dane's Mill at Upperhulme. The streams refered to as "Falgbroc"and "Fulhe" are mentioned in other documents. In an agreement made in 1249 between Dieulacres and the neigbouring Cistercian house of Hulton, these streams are mentioned as lying below Morridge, to the east of Leek. As late as the eighteenth century "Fulhe" was still known by its ancient name, for in the 1730's the Reverend Thomas Laxdale, then vicar of Leek, wrote of "Cartledgebrook, which creeps along under Kniveden till it falls into Fulhee". [19] "Fulhe" can therfore be identified as the stream which runns down the valley between Bradnop and Ashenhurst, joining Cartledge-brook below Birchall, and entering the Churnet at Leekbrook. If we assume that " Fallinbroc" was the medieval Cartledge-brook, then we can plot the eastern and southern boundaries of the Dieulacres estate with a fair degree of accuracy.

Most of the lands in question lay within the boundaries of the Manor of Leek, and were therefore alienated from it into the "dead hand” of the Church. The Earl, as Lord of the Manor, was to receive neither rent nor service for it: only the prayers of the monks. The town was thus left as a kind of island in a sea of monastic property, and it was only a matter of time before the Lordship of the Manor was transferred in its entirety to the abbey. The original charter by which Earl Ranulph gave the Manor to the monks of Dieulacres has long since been lost or destroyed, but a confirmation of it appears in the fourteenth-century Cartulary of Dieulacres in the William Salt Library, Stafford.[20] An Inquisition held in 1339 tells us that the original grant was made some sixty years before the enactment of the Statute of Mortmain, i.e. in about 1219.[21]

After the foundation of Dieulacres in 1214, Ranulph of Chester became preoccupied with more weighty matters, and for a time he left the monks to get on with the work of clearing the land and constructing the necessary conventual buildings. As the greatest baron in the Realm, and a co-eXecutor of King ]ohn’s will, he was deeply involved in the affairs of England during the minority of Henry III, and one of the first tasks to be completed after the death of King Iohn in 1216 was the defeat of an invasion which Prince Louis of France had mounted against England. Later, Ranulph went on a Crusade and made something of a name for himself as a soldier of the Cross, but Dieulacres was not entirely forgotten. On the return journey from the Holy Land there was a fierce storm at sea, and it caused great panic amongst the terrified crew of the ship. Ranulph remained calm throughout, and on the next day, when the storm had subsided, the captain of the ship asked him why he had not been afraid. Ranulph replied that he had taken great comfort from the fact that at the time when the tempest was at its worst, his monks in England would have been singing the Night Office, and that because of their prayers God had given him strength and stilled the storm.[22]

It was probably in gratitude for his safe deliverance that the Earl made some further benefactions to the monks of Dieulacres on his return to England. In about 1220 he had some conventual buildings constructed at Dieulacres, While he himself was busy castle-building at Beesten and Chartley. In a charter issued between 1229 and 1232, he gave the monks extensive lands in Leekfrith, including Gun and Wetwood which adjoined the northern boundaries of the monastic estate. Another charter gave them possession of the corn mills at Leek and Hulme. This entitled them to exact certain dues from those who took their corn to be ground there, and to assist the monks still further the Earl ordered all his meti in the vicinity to have their Corn ground at these mills.[23]

In addition to the temporal possessions with which the Earl endowed the monks of Dieulacres, he procured for them certain other benefits not directly in his gift. At some date between 1215 and 1224 he petitioned William de Cornhull, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfieid, to give the monks the parish Church of St. Edward the Confessor in Leek, together with its dependent chapelries at Cheddleton, Horton and Ipstones. The bishop, “taking compassion on the poverty of the house of Dieulacres, and observing their laudable life and honest conversation”, granted the Earl’s request.[24] Because of the benefits which normally ensued from the acquisition off el crhlmsla, the form of tithes and other revenues, the monks aeeepied the gift-in spite of the fact that certain injuctions of the Cistercian Order expressly forbade the possession of parochial churches.

In order to guarantee for all time the rights and privileges of the monks of Dieulacres, Earl Ranulph issued two charters of protection to his Constable, Justiciar, Sheriff, bailiffs, and men, stating that the monks, their servants, and all their possessions, were in his custody and protection. They were to be free of all Courts, tolls, aids, customs and demands in respect of all the lands which they already possessed, or were to acquire in the future. A third charter, relating more specifically to the abbey’s lands Cheshire, declared that the Dieulacres estates were held in tenure, and that neither the Earl nor his successors were to have any rights therein.[25]

By these charters, Ranulph formally took over the rights of patronage of the abbey which both he and his ancestors had tacitly claimed and exercised even before the community moved from Poulton Strictly speaking, these rights still belonged to the heirs of Robert Pincerna, and the monks were still paying an annual rent of twenty shillings for part of the Poulton estate to William of Measharn, who was the heir of Robert’s daughter, Edelina. William had obiccted strongly to the translation of the convent from Poulton to Dieulacres, and he carried on a protracted argument with the abbot over this matter until 1241, when he finally quitclaimed the rent and any other rights which he had claimed over the abbey, asking in return that his body might be interred at Dieulacres.[26]

Ranulph de Blundeville died at Wallingford in October 1232. His body was buried alongside those of his ancestors in the chapter-house of St. Werburgh’s Abbey, Chester, but in accordance with his wishes, his heart was first cut out and interred beneath a marble slab in the abbey church at Dieulacres. His widow, Clemencia, survived him by nearly twenty years, and after her death in 1253, her body was brought to Dieulacres for burial. The only miracle which is recorded to have taken place at the abbey was supposed to have occurred at her tomb. It concerns a blind monk who received his sight through the merits and intercessions of the Countess, at whose tomb he used to pray daily.[27]

As Ranulph had no children, the Earldom of Chester passed, in 1232, into the hands of his nephew, John Scot, Earl of Huntingdon. John was also childless, and when he died in 1237 a dispute arose between his four sisters as to how the inheritance should be divided. King Henry III eventually acquired all the rights of the co-heiresses in the lands and title of the Earldom, and although certain lands outside the Palatinate of Chester were subsequently granted out again, the title of Earl of Chester was kept strictly within the Royal Family. In 1254, Henry III gave the Shire and City of Chester to his eldest son, the Lord Edward, and from this time onwards it became customary for the eldest son of the reigning monarch to be given the title of Earl of Chester. The fate of the Earldom was of crucial importance to the monks of Dieulacres, for the title carried with it the rights of patronage of the abbey. It meant that from 1254 onwards the Patron, Guardian and Protector of the monastery and its possessions was either the heir to the throne, or the King himself. V One unfortunate aspect of the extinction of the Norman Earldom of Chester was that after 1237 Dieulacres ceased to have an effective local patron who could take a continued interest in its affairs. To the Crown, the Earls of Chester had been over-mighty subjects; to the monks of Dieulacres they had been generous benefactors and powerful protectors.

By 1254 Dieulacres Abbey was firmly established, and had well organised estates in Staffordshire, Lancashire and Cheshire. However, as far as the strict observance of the Cistercian Statutes was concerned, it was doomed to failure almost from the very beginning. The Cistercians had been forbidden to own churches, yet the monks of Dieulacres owned the advowsons of Leek, Sandbach, and, for a time, Rocester. They were required to live by the labour of their own hands, using granges staffed by lay-brethren in preference to the manorial system with its attendant evils; yet amongst the first gifts which the monks of Dieulacres accepted was the Manor of Leek, with all its rights and privileges. Dieulacres was by no means unique in this respect, for by the middle of the thirteenth century many other Cistercian houses held advowsons and other “forbidden fruits”. It is nevertheless ironical that a community of monks should abandon one abbey because of a physical threat to their religious life, only to find that same life imperilled by the spirit of materialism, which by its very nature was even more deadly.

Cistercian Coat of Arms

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