The Abbey, on account of other grants of land made to it by pious benefactors, as the years sped by ultimately became the wealthiest of all the Premonstratensian monasteries in England, which Order had been founded in Picardy in 1120 by Norbert (afterwards canonized by Gregory XIII in 1584). It was not only--as were most of the religious foundations in the Middle Ages--the centre of the ecclesiastical, but also of the social and industrial life of the district round about. The chief rules of the Order related to the leading of a pure and contemplative life, and provided that the monks should themselves labour for the common weal. This Order of Premonstratensians, also known as the Norbertines, was noted for its industry, and for the fact that the brethren were skilful cultivators of the soil. Those at Tor Abbey were evidently no exception to the rule, as their wide and perfectly cultivated lands of the past bore witness; they are also generally supposed to have been the founders and promoters of the woollen industry, for which the West of England was afterwards destined to become famous. In addition to the many duties of their Order they undertook the teaching of the children, and were always generous patrons of art and learning. Some of the most saintly and wise of men in the Middle Ages in England sprang from the Premonstratensians, who were noted for their boundless charity and good works. It was from the civil community which gathered round the Abbey, and the people who built their homes within the shadow of its patronage and protection that the beginnings of what is now known as Torquay undoubtedly sprang. These spread first along the shore to the north-eastward, as fishermen came and settled down here and built their dwellings, and a small trade with other villages along the coast was gradually built up.