History and Stories

Rievaulx Abbey Collection highlights

The Rievaulx Abbey collection was largely amassed through site clearances that aimed to prepare the ruins for presentation to the public from 1919. The objects offer a unique insight into the workings of the medieval abbey and a snapshot of its development until the abbey’s suppression.

Some objects are nationally and internationally important because they are unique survivals.

The majority of the collections consists of architectural stonework, which tells us about the scale and development of the site. Within the architectural collection there is a significant group of pieces decorated with human or animal heads and sculptures. There are also significant numbers of small finds representing communal and personal possessions. These range from coins and book fittings to keys, fixtures and fittings, as well as large quantities of medieval floor tiles, window glass and ceramics.

Explore a selection of highlight objects below.

Frieze

Frieze

  • Date: c.1400
  • Type: Frieze
  • Material: Stone
  • Place Made/Found: Infirmary range (later Abbot's lodging), Rievaulx

This frieze was one of a series of cornices originally from the Infirmary Hall and probably re-used in the conversion of the building to the Abbot's Lodging. It shows a central post mill, with two men approaching it, the one on the left leading a laden mule, the one on the right following another. The style closely matches that of a number of label stops from the same building (see elsewhere in the collection), indicating that the same mason was responsible for both decorative schemes.



Ventilator

Ventilator

  • Date: 14th Century
  • Type: Ventilator
  • Material: Lead alloy
  • Place Made/Found: Day Room, Rievaulx

This lead ventilator panel or grill was cast in a two-part mould in the style of a Perpendicular window. Ventilators are understood to have been fitted in windows instead of a small glass pane. Their overall design may reflect the original architecture. An unusually high number were recovered from Rievaulx, some still complete with the original window lead frame.



Finial

Finial

  • Date: 1485-1509
  • Type: Finial
  • Material: Sandstone
  • Place Made/Found: Outside the galilee porch of the Church, Rievaulx

This cross from the gable at the west end of the church is decorated with a central five-petalled rose boss and incised quatrefoils on each arm. It was found damaged and discarded in the site clearances of the 1920s. It is tempting to see its destruction in 1538-9 as part of an iconoclastic treatment of the site, striking at the heart of the piety and purpose of the monastery.

 



Statue

Statue

  • Date: c.1260-90
  • Type: Statue
  • Material: Stone
  • Place Made/Found: Infirmary, Rievaulx

This statue depicts Christ in Majesty and is complete except for the head and arms. It would originally have been a focal icon in the church. It is well carved with realistic drapery. The right hand was raised in blessing, while the left hand may have held a book. The sculpture was damaged at or after the Dissolution. It appears that it was initially removed to the Abbot's Lodging for safekeeping, where it was found in 1931.



Chess Pieces

Chess Pieces

  • Date: 12th Century
  • Type: Chess pieces
  • Material: Jet, bone
  • Place Made/Found: Outside north wall of the church nave (bone) and the Day room (jet), Rievaulx

These chess pieces are a white (bone) king and a black (jet) rook. The king is a stylised representation of an Indian king, mounted on an elephant. The rook, or castle, has ring and dot decoration. The game of chess first arrived in England in the 11th century and was strongly influenced by Persian and Indian styles because the game originated from these countries. Chess would have been played by educated people of high status.



Scourge

Scourge

  • Date: Medieval
  • Type: Scourge
  • Material: Copper alloy
  • Place Made/Found: Dorter, at the threshold of the west door to the Dorter undercroft

This scourge is made of plaited copper alloy wire with surviving 'tails' tipped with wire balls. It is of tubular form. It is a very rare example of a personal scourge of later medieval date, and would have been used as a form of self-penance. Monks and minor clerics who had broken monastic rules or had fallen into theological error were punished by scourging.



Window Glass

Window Glass

  • Date: 13th-14th Century
  • Type: Window glass
  • Material: Glass
  • Place Made/Found: Site clearances, 1920s-30s, Rievaulx

This small diamond-shaped window glass pane on clear green-coloured 'forest' glass (made from wood ash and sand) is decorated with a painted cockerel. It may have been used in an abbey church window to represent vigilance, the dawn - when the cock crows - or Peter's denial of Jesus.



Boss

Boss

  • Date: c.1250
  • Type: Boss
  • Material: Stone
  • Place Made/Found: Cloister arcade, on the pavement 1.2 metres (4 feet) west of the Chapter House, Rievaulx

This keystone boss came from the interior vault of the shrine of St William, the first Abbot of Rievaulx, whose tomb was erected in the Chapter House about 1250. It is decorated with an Agnus Dei (the Lamb of God carrying a flag). The boss was found discarded in the cloister arcade, presumably as a result of the destruction of the shrine following the Dissolution of Rievaulx in 1538.



Fother

Fother

  • Date: 1539
  • Type: Fother
  • Material: Lead
  • Place Made/Found: Church nave, near the west door, Rievaulx

This is one of four fothers (lead pigs) weighing nine hundredweight and cast from roof lead, specifically reserved for Henry VIII at the Dissolution. It is marked with the royal stamp of a crowned Tudor rose. Although intended for the King, it was found buried at the west end of the nave. It is symbolic of both the systematic recovery of anything of value from the site and also the way that the monastery was made useless for worship.



Caption Tile

Floor Tile

  • Date: c.1500
  • Type: Floor tile
  • Material: Ceramic
  • Place Made/Found: Site clearances of the 1920s, Rievaulx

This inlaid floor tile is decorated with a design of a rose and the words AVE MARIA (Hail Mary). It was originally part of a repeating four-set design but is the only remaining example from Rievaulx. It was probably intended for a chapel floor. The design is similar to examples from c.1300 found around the high altar.

 



Screen

Screen

  • Date: mid-late 15th Century
  • Type: Screen
  • Material: Stone
  • Place Made/Found: Church, Rievaulx

This is one of six remaining upper sections of the church pulpitum screen. The screen originally divided the crossing from the presbytery and is similar in style to the Kings' Screen at York Minster. It appears to have been originally salvaged and destined for sale at the Dissolution but sections were recovered during the clearance works of the 1920s.



Label Stop

Label Stop

  • Date: 15th Century
  • Type: Label stop
  • Material: Stone
  • Place Made/Found: In space 34, near the north-west door of the church at floor level, Rievaulx

This label stop is attached to a section of hood moulding from an arch. It is decorated with a green man (a mythological figure), with foliage erupting from his mouth. It is one of a series of label stops found in the nave of the church and probably dates from the same time as the alterations to the nave aisle windows, which were carried out in the 15th century.