Monks - Wool and the Wool Trade - Harness and Rakkers - Chaucer's Pilgrims

Monks, rakkers and grey ponies.

The Cistercian Order, or Grey Friars, owned large amounts of land in the Lakes from the 12th century onward. As non-warlike communities, their main need was for a comfortable riding horse. They kept "amblers" or the easy-gaited horses which were known in the North as " rakkers ". (ref). It is believed that the grey colour in the Fell breed traces back as least as far as this time. Various writers have sugggested that the Cistercian communities had a preference for horses of this colour, but it is also true that there seem to have been a large proportion of horses that were white or grey in medieval times.

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The mural here is based on the Premonstratensian house at Shap. Thomas son of Gospatrick gave them leave to quarry stone, to begin building Shap Abbey, a short time before his death in 1201.

The Premonstratensian clergy were "canons regular" who vowed to live austerely and in poverty. Like the Cistercians, they wore white robes so they were sometimes called the "White Canons". They preferred to base themselves in remote areas, but unlike monks they did not live totally apart and often undertook work in their local parishes. Those at Shap Abbey were dedicated to teaching and scholarship.

Although this order is less well known than the Cistercians and Franciscans, there was a wide network of Premonstratensian foundations across Britain. In 1400 the Itinerary of Titchfield Abbey (in Hampshire, on the South coast of Britain) shows two dozen Premonstratensian abbeys, from Norwich in the east to Torre in Devon in the west, and from Titchfield itself in the south to Alnwick in the north (Hindle).

Shap Abbey continued to house around a dozen canons and their abbot until the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It was surrendered to the Crown on 14th January 1540. (ref)