St. Robert of Newminster
Cistercian abbot
c. 1100 - 1159
Robert was born in Gargrave in
northwest Yorkshire of parents
honourable and eminent in their Christian faith. He studied at the
University of Paris where he developed a life-long love of the psalms.
Ordained priest, he was sent to his home parish of Gargrave, but feeling the
need of a stricter spiritual life, he first joined the Black Monks of Whitby
Abbey and then the refugee band of monks from St. Mary's Abbey at York, who
had been given land in the woods by the river Skeill in North Yorkshire.
Here, in the bitter cold of winter amid hunger, manual labour, prayer and
fasting, Robert found his heart's home. Pre-eminent in this community newly
accepted into the Cistercian Order and destined to grow into the great Abbey
of St. Mary of the Fountains stood Robert. Deeply impressed by the life of
the White Monks, the visiting Lord of Morpeth, Ranulf de Merlay, granted
land on his baronial estate at Newminster on the south bank of the river
Wansbeck for a daughter foundation of Fountains (the feast of the coleen
daughters). Robert was elected as founding abbot and took possession with
twelve companions on the Feast of the Epiphany 1138 of the Abbey of
Newminster and the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Robert ruled as "Father in Christ" to his community
for twenty-one years. A measure of his successful rule was the foundation of
three daughter abbeys at Pipewell (Northhamptonshire) in 1143, at Roche
(South Yorkshire) in 1147 and at Sawley (North Lancashire) in 1148. Robert's
love of his community, his hard fasting, his prayer life (especially the
psalms on which he wrote a commentary no longer existent) were exemplary.
He is described as a man "modest in demeanour, merciful in judgement, gentle
in companionship, excelling in holy conversation. Long periods were spent
away from Newminster, visiting the daughter abbeys once a year and attending
the Annual Chapter at Citeaux every September, as the statutes required.
His soul-friend was Godric, hermit of Finchal on the river Wear below Durham. On one visit, he prophesised to Godric that he would be the last time they would meet in this life and shortly afterwards Robert fell ill and died on Ascension Day, June 7th 1159, a date now kept as his feast-day. Godric reported a vision that day of a soul being borne to Heaven by angels. Robert's tomb at Newminster became a shrine in medieval times for pilgrims where several miracles were wrought.
Our knowledge of Robert is all too scant for sources are few: indeed we probably know as much about Robert now as we shall ever know. We can place him alongside illustrious figures as Bernard of Clairvaux and Ailred of Rievaulx and the other forty-one cistercian abbots recognised as saints, vox populi, in that remarkable spiritual renaissance of the twelfth century.
St. Robert, ora pro nobis.
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Thornton, G. B. "The story of St. Robert and the Abbey of Newminster and the Blessed Virgin Mary". 2004. £2.50 (available from this site)
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Watkins W. "St. Robert of Newmisnter" Dowside review VII. 1939.
Only
a few fragmentary ruins of the Abbey remain today, but still maintain a certain
beauty, mostly due to its location among the trees by the River Wansbeck.
Church address: Cedar Road, Fenham NE4 9PH Phone: (0191) 273 3903
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