Human memory becomes so clouded and faded that
whatever
happens or occurs in this temporal life, unless expressly commended
to writing, vanishes and slips into oblivion within a brief space of time
as if it had never been.
[Abbot Philip, Foundation History of Byland] (3)
The early history of Byland is recounted
by Philip, the third abbot of the house, as he had heard it from his predecessor,
Roger, and other senior monks
of the community. The history also incorporates a number of documents from
the abbey’s archives.(4) Philip was
writing some sixty years after the original group had settled in Calder, and
this is
the
earliest known foundation history.(5) Abbot
Philip was probably also the author of the anonymous
foundation history of Jervaulx,
which was certainly written at Byland.(6) The
foundation history of Byland was primarily intended for the instruction of
future generations
of monks, that they should understand how their predecessors had ‘sustained
tribulations and oppressions, want and labour for the hope of eternal glory.’ (7) Philip
was also concerned to explain Byland’s independence from Furness and
Calder II, and its direct subjugation
to Savigny.(8) Indeed,
the climax of the history
is Aelred of Rievaulx’s pronouncement
on Byland’s status, c. 1155.(9)
Philip’s account of the monks’ initial
struggles highlights the potential problems facing new communities
at this time, particularly, the difficulties
of finding a suitable site with adequate resources, and of hardships caused
by
severe weather conditions, war and neighbours. The history was originally
preserved in the chartulary of the house, but now survives only
in a seventeenth-century
Oxford manuscript.(10)
The other major documentary source for Byland’s
history is the chartulary of the abbey, which dates from the fifteenth
century and is now preserved in
the British Library (BL MS Egerton 2823).(11) Various
other surviving sources include charters, wills and episcopal records,
the surrender deed of the
abbey, books
from the library and an array of interesting artefacts, for example, an
altar stone, fish hooks and thirteenth-century mosaic floor tiles.