24 MAURICE OF EIEVAULX January that, when the life was written, Maurice was no longer alive. 1 Hunc virum ego ipse uidi et bene noui,' says Walter. It must be remembered, however, that this expression would apply to an absent friend no less than to a dead man. If the text stood alone we could not be sure that Maurice was not spending his last years in some other abbey. Nothing would have been more natural, as a slight acquaintance with the lives of contemporary Cistercians or with a record like the chronicle of Melrose is suffi- cient to show. Ailred's successor, Sylvanus, lived, after his retirement, at By land and died there in 1189. 1 That Maurice had withdrawn from Rievaulx is made probable if we turn to the letter which precedes Walter's life of Ailred. It is addressed to a person of distinction named Maurice : ' Patri et domino eximie sanctitatis viro Mauricio suo Willelmus Danielis sinceram et nimis deuotam dileccionem.' 2 The whole epistle is very interesting. Walter's life of Ailred had aroused criticism. Two obstinate prelates in particular had openly expressed their incredulity when Maurice had read the miracles to them. Maurice had therefore asked the biographer to support his narrative with more evidence, and this Walter does in his letter. He selects several miracles and adds four which do not occur in the life. Taking one after another he gives the names of witnesses who are prepared, or would have been prepared, if they were still alive, to vouch for their truth. Now this shows that the letter to Maurice was written some time after the life. If the Maurice to whom it was addressed was the former abbot of Rievaulx, he must have outlived his successor, perhaps several years. That he was the same man it is difficult not to believe. He was clearly well known to Walter, and was concerned to defend Ailred's reputation as a saint. He was addressed in a style suitable to a former abbot, father and lord. The argument is not conclusive. It would be shaken by the production of another Maurice to whom Walter Daniel might appropriately have written. But, if it is sound, it makes a fitting close to our record of this friend of saints. As a boy at Durham he had lived in the atmosphere of St. Cuthbert. Perhaps he had seen the great ceremony of the saint's translation in 1104 and heard his elders discuss the miraculous preservation of the saint's body. In his middle years he had won a reputa- preceptis, et maxime in caritatiua iussione que non sine vexatione poterit preteriri. Unde dicitur pre victima sit obediencia et ante pinguium arietum oblationem. Ad hanc nihilominus tuam intentacionem accedit et imminet recens patris abscessio, que nos ultro prodire provocat. obedire iubet, et tuis ammonet parere mandatis.' Abbot H. was not an abbot of any neighbouring Cistercian house, and I identify him with Henry, third abbot of Waverley, the senior Cistercian abbey in England. 1 Chron. de Mailros (Bannatyne Club), p. 98. 2 Jesus College MS. Q. B. 7, fo. 61.
