Page:Fountains Abbey.djvu/54

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bey of Vaudey, the house of the valley of God. The monk Adam, who had been architect of the buildings at Kirkstall and Woburn, and was now in charge of the monks at Vaudey, found that the Earl of Albemarle was disposed to do yet more. He had once vowed, for his sins, to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and had never gone, and now was old and fat and could not go. This, as Adam faithfully reminded him, was a serious matter; but it could be made right. If the earl would build another abbey, Adam promised that his Order would persuade the Pope to take that good work as an equivalent. The promise was performed, through the kindly offices of St. Bernard, and the earl told Adam to choose a suitable site. The monk, accordingly, looked about this way and that in Holderness, where the earl's lands lay. It was the country which the Conqueror had bestowed upon Odo, his brother-in-law. The son of Odo, the earl's father,

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