Rievaulx Abbey

Rievaulx Abbey was a Cistercian abbey in Rievaulx, situated near Helmsley in the North York Moors National Park, North Yorkshire, England. It was one of the great abbeys in England until it was seized under Henry VIII of England in 1538 during the dissolution of the monasteries. The striking ruins of its main buildings are a tourist attraction, owned and maintained by English Heritage.FoundationRievaulx Abbey was the first Cistercian monastery in the north of England, founded in 1132 by twelve monks from Clairvaux Abbey.Its remote location was well suited to the order's ideal of a strict life of prayer and self-sufficiency with little contact with the outside world. The abbey's patron, Walter Espec, also founded another Cistercian community, that of Wardon Abbey in Bedfordshire, on unprofitable wasteland on one of his inherited estates.The first abbot of Rievaulx, St William I, started construction in the 1130s. The second abbot, Saint Aelred of Rievaulx, elected in 1147, expanded the buildings and otherwise consolidated the existence of what with time became one of the great Cistercian abbeys of Yorkshire, second only to Fountains Abbey in fame. Under Aelred, the abbey is said to have grown to some 140 monks and 500 lay brothers. By the end of his tenure, Rievaulx had five daughter-houses in England and Scotland.