court, who told him that God had been most merciful in thus simply chastising him in this world, and revealing the secrets of His will. He advised him at once to send for the abbots, whom he had so ill-treated, and to implore their pardon.[1]
Some truth, doubtless, underlies this story. Certain it is that in the same year, or the next, John founded the Abbey at Beaulieu, then Bellus Locus, so called from its beauty, placing there thirty monks from St. Mary's, at Citeaux, endowing it with land in the New Forest, and manors, and villages, and churches in Berkshire; exempting it from various services and taxes and tolls; giving further, out of his own treasury, a hundred marks; and ordering all other Cistercian Houses to assist in the work. Not only did he do this, but he revoked his gift of the manor of Farendon, which, in the previous year, he had conditionally bestowed on some other Cistercian monks, and now transferred it to Beaulieu, making the House at Faringdon a mere offshoot from the larger building.[2] And the
- ↑ Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum. Ed. 1825, vol. v., p. 682. Num. ii. See Chronica de Kirkstall. Brit. Mus. Cott. MSS. Domitian. A. xii., ff. 85, 86. The cause of John's enmity against the Cistercian Order may be gathered from Ralph Coggeshale, Chronicon Anglicanum, as before in Bouquet, Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, tom, xviii. pp. 90, 91.
- ↑ Carta Fundationis per Regem Johannem, given in Dugdale (Ed. 1825, vol. v. p. 683); and Confirmacio Regis Edwardi tertii super cartas Regis Johannis, Brit. Mus., Bib. Cott. Nero, A. xii., No. v, ff. 8-15, quoted in Warner (South-West Parts of Hampshire, vol. ii., Appendix, pp. 7-14). There are, however, no less than three dates given for its foundation. The Annals of Parcolude, according to Tanner (Notitia Monastica, Ed. Nasmyth, Hampshire, No. vi. foot-note h), say 1201, which is manifestly wrong; whilst John de Oxenedes, better known as St. Benet of Hulme (Chronica, Brit. Mus., Bib. Cott., Nero, D. ii., f. 223 K), with the Chronicon de Hayles and Aberconwey (Brit. Mus., Harl. MS., No. 3725, f. 10), and Matthew Paris, according to Dugdale, say respectively 1204 and 1205, though I have not been able to verify the last reference.
