The Cartulary of Forde Abbey.(Review)

Lying in Dorset but close to the boundary with Somerset and Devon, the Cistercian abbey of Forde owed most of what fame it had to two of its early abbots, Baldwin and John of Forde. The first went on to become archbishop of Canterbury, the second a writer of distinction and author of the well-known life of the Somerset hermit, Wulfric of Haselbury. Already by John's time (1191-1214) the Cistercian ideal was in decline, and John himself lamented the tendency of the monks, when they were gathered together, to talk `not of the truth which is Christ ... but of the progeny of bulls and rams, the acquisition of lands, the yield of the fields, the concealment of pleas'. His words …