which, too, was located in a valley, shut in by little hills on all sides. Donogh O'Carroll, Prince of Oriel, the lord of the territory, freely granted the site to God and SS. Peter and Paul, munificently endowed the monastery with many broad acres, and supplied wood and stone for the erection of the buildings. This grant was made in either 1140 or 1141. The charter of endowment by O'Carroll has not been found. It would appear from another letter of St. Bernard to St. Malachy, that he had sent some monks from Clairvaux to make preparations for those who were to immediately follow, and that already their number was augmented at Mellifont by the accession of new members from the surrounding district, who had joined them on their appearance in that locality. In this same letter St. Bernard writes: "We send back to you your dearly-beloved son and ours, Christian, as fully instructed as was possible in those rules which regard our Order, hoping, moreover, that he will henceforth prove solicitous for their observance." This Christian is commonly supposed to have been archdeacon of the diocese of Down. He was certainly first Abbot of Mellifont, and his name shall turn up in connection with important national events later on. With Christian came a certain Brother Robert, a Frenchman, a skilful architect, who constructed the monastery after the model of Clairvaux. That these were the pioneers of the Cistercian Order in Ireland cannot for one moment be doubted, both from the very important fact, that the Abbot of Mellifont took precedence of all the Abbots of his Order in this country, and also, because it is an historical fact, that St. Mary's Abbey, Dublin, the other claimant for priority, did not exchange the Benedictine for the Cistercian Rule till, at earliest, 1148, when the Abbot of Savigni in France, with the thirty houses of his Order (Benedictine) subject to his jurisdiction, were admitted into the Cistercian family by Pope Eugenius III., who presided at the General Chapter of the Cistercians that year. St. Mary's was founded from Buildewas, in Shropshire, and this latter was subject to Savigni.