In the original church, that is, the one erected in St. Malachy's time, there were ten altars we are told, but on the ground plan seven only are shown. Two more at least were in front of the Rood-loft or _Jubé_, and the remaining one very probably was in one of the aisles. The church of Mellifont was remarkable, not so much for its vast dimensions, as for its architectural beauty; yet, in this it was surpassed by St. Mary's Abbey, Dublin. Sir Thomas Deane writes: "From the fragments of the church which remain, it is easy to trace the vicissitudes the building underwent. I have great doubt that any portions of the structure above ground are those of the earliest church erected on the site, or date as far back as 1157, which is given as the year of its consecration.... The details of the piers (the older ones) are in my opinion a century or more later in date. They still indicate a foreign type, and the arrangements and obvious plan show that the transepts as well as the nave had aisles.... Portions of the piers discovered are of the fifteenth century, other parts of the church of the fourteenth.... A second portion dates probably from 1260, another from 1370, and another from 1460. I am not prepared to follow from the history of the Abbey the causes of such restorations; but it is certain that rebuildings of portions of the church occurred from time to time, and that violence or decay was the cause." Neither to violence nor to decay can the alterations be attributed, which the church underwent at the three periods mentioned by Sir Thomas, but rather to the practice then common to the whole Order, chiefly in the monasteries of Great Britain and Ireland, of adopting the advancing changes in the Gothic style, and to the laudable efforts of the monks to make the House of God worthy of Him as far as art and skill could be made subservient to that purpose. Thus in the Annals of Fountains and Furness, there are abundant proofs of this constant change going on in those monasteries even down to the date of their suppression. One Abbot considered the eastern window too low and narrow, and had it enlarged; another thought the tower rested on too slender a basis, and he built substantial piers and flanked them on the outside with buttresses, and so with others.