far from perfect, are extensive and possessed of interesting features. It is here proposed in a more general survey to point out the age of the existing buildings and the use of the different parts, to make some suggestions as to the position and extent of the buildings which have disappeared, and, in connexion with the survey, to notice the habits and mode of living of the Cistercian order of monks, of which this abbey was a member. Passing along the yet unfinished railway embankment which severs the abbey buildings and courts from the upland woods and meadows, it will not be amiss, before we reach the western part of the grounds, to take some notice of the Savigniac order, to which Buildwas for its first twelve or thirteen years belonged. This will save interruption hereafter, when at every step of our survey we shall find the arrangements as purely Cistercian as if it owed its foundation directly to that order. Vital de Mortain, first abbot of Savigny and founder of the order, died at a ripe old age in 1122. St. Bernard, that mighty pillar of the Cistercian order, about eight years previously, at the youthful age of twenty-two, had founded Clairvaux. An intimacy subsisted between these two men, and the reverence which their characters inspired in others appears to have been fervently felt and reciprocated in themselves. The energies of both being directed to a reformation of the Benedictine order, their views were so nearly allied, that Vital de Mortain established in his monastery the Benedictine rule: "Cui modernas institutiones in aliquibus similes Cisterciensibus adjunxit." When Savigny was founded in 1112 the Cistercian rule, although originated in 1098, was yet incomplete, and its ordinances were not fully settled till the first Chapter General, held at Citeaux in 1119, at which St. Bernard, as abbot of Clairvaux, was present. In 1147, Clairvaux being still under the government of St. Bernard and having acquired an extraordinary importance, the respect of the first abbot of Savigny for its head and the institutions under which he ministered, had ripened in the fourth abbot of Savigny into a desire for a complete union with and assimilation to the Cistercian order. Thus during 1147 and 1148 Savigny, with upwards of thirty dependant abbeys, among which was Buildwas, became subject to Clairvaux.

Buildwas was founded in 1135, only twelve years before the union of the two orders just narrated, and from the course of the narrative we should be prepared to discover in our survey Cistercian arrangements; but there is yet another and stronger reason for this expectation. The foundation of an abbey by no means implies the foundation of its buildings.2 Byland, in Yorkshire, another Savigniac house, though, as to its com

1 See Gallia Christiana, vol. ii, p. 540; and P. Le Nain, vol. v, p. 390. It has been said by Mr. Eyton and others, that Savigny was first Cistercian, then independent, and finally Cistercian again. This, if intended only as a view of the conduct of its first four abbots, is not incorrect; but the only formal adhesion to the Cistercian rule was its submission to Clairvaux under the fourth abbot.

The contrary is argued in the article on Buildwas in Britton's Antiquities, but without citing any examples.

munity, founded in 1134, was not settled at Byland till 1143, and was not built till 1177, and this is further attested to this day by its beautiful remains of the most perfect period of First Pointed work. Ford, in Devonshire, another house of this order, was founded in 1136, and its buildings commenced in 1141. At Savigny itself the church was consecrated in the twelfth year from the foundation. So with other Savigniac houses in France. S. André de Gouffern, founded in 1130, had its church dedicated in 1143. Aunay, founded in 1131, achieved the same point in 1190. Breuil Benoist, founded in 1137, waited for this event till 1224. La Trappe, founded in 1130, had its church consecrated in 1214. Barbery, founded in 1140, was unfinished in 1181; and lastly, the most rapid progress is found at Le Trésor, which, founded in 1228, had advanced to the consecration of its church in 1232. The facility with which in their infancy the communities abandoned one site and adopted another, of which amongst the preceding, Byland, Ford, and Aunay are instances, and the long series of years occupied by others in their construction, shew that usually they waited, according to the dictates of prudence, for an accumulation of wealth. This course of proceeding would accord, too, with the rules which the Cistercian order laid down on this very subject, which required that temporary buildings should be provided for the first accommodation of the brotherhood, and instances occur in which the original temporary oratory has been reverently preserved when a magnificient church has risen by its side.

No spot could more fully realize the conditions for a settlement which the Cistercians dictated, than the site selected by the monks of Buildwas. A vast forest extended over the whole country to the south-east, terminating in Buildwas wood, at the very spot where the abbey walls were to rise. The reclamation of the forest and cultivation of the land was to be the occupation of the abbey inmates. The forest has well nigh disappeared, but even now a wood stretching away from the buildings to the south crowns. the hill which encloses and shades the park-like ground to the south, which the railway has cut off. The mill stream, which determined the position of the buildings, still holds its course. The monks, who were the great agriculturists of their day, no doubt applied it to the utmost to the purposes of irrigation; and although no mill has stood upon it for a long time, it has never ceased to dispense the fertilizing powers they first drew from it. The two streams which are shewn at the extreme west of our plan1 proceed from one current, which divides about two hundred yards higher up. This division is artificial, and the effect is to raise the western branch so that the two parts pass through the railway embankment at a considerable difference of elevation. At the point a is a fall, also of artificial construction, of seven or eight feet, and thence by an underground channel so much of the water as is not diverted for the use of the land down the J See No. 1, Plate VI.

course b, reunites with the other branch at c, and both go together to the Severn. The culvert from a to c, though not new, and with no marks of modern disturbance in the meadow it passes through, is of brick, and not old enough to be called ancient work; and so of the other contrivances; doubtless the arrangement is due to the monks, and is now in an imperfect state, but so much as suited modern requirements has been maintained by renewal.

The fore court of the abbey contained the mills, workshops, stabling, and such adjuncts. The situation of these buildings is marked by mounds, sometimes difficult to distinguish from lesser banks which are modern works for irrigation. Of the wall which enclosed this court a massive piece remains at dd, and the hedge eastward occupies the site of the wall for the remainder of the south side. The western boundary seems to have been at e e, with an inner division marked by the mound ff. It is probable that between the two lines ee and ff the mills and workshops were situated. Here were exercised the handicrafts necessary to furnish clothing to the inmates of the monastery, to build and repair their habitations, and to supply the various demands upon artificers which their property and pursuits would occasion. Each branch of work was directed by its own foreman, and the whole superintended by monks appointed to the duty. The stream of water would be diverted into the workshops, whether to afford motive power to mills or machinery, or to provide water supply for such purposes as the tanner's or similar demands might occasion. The entrance to this courtyard and to the monastery seems to have been through these buildings at g. South of it and along the south side of the court would be stabling and sheds. The north side of the court was occupied by fish ponds, hhh, of which the high banks yet remain with great distinctness. Their water supply must have passed through the workshops, and we shall presently be able to point out the channel which has lately been discovered, by which the superfluous water was carried off. For the diet of the monks these fishponds formed an important resource, and the "cultivation" of fish was necessarily an object of much attention. Immediately outside of the fishponds was the north boundary wall of the court, but the masonry of it has wholly disappeared here, and in every part except the piece at dd. Another pond is to be found outside the enclosure at l. All the ponds are now dry. At the gateway presided a discreet monk as porter, to regulate the admission of persons to the precincts of the convent, and to receive guests seeking its hospitality : here also were distributed alms to the poor. The arrival of guests was immediately notified to the abbot, who quitted his occupations at once to perform the duty of hospitality enjoined, and having conducted the strangers to a chapel or oratory placed close to the gate for appropriate devotions, he handed them over to the care of the monk who held the office of hospitaller. However insignificant may appear the mounds and hollows which have so