In 1248, the General Chapter granted permission to the English and Irish Abbots of the Order, to hold deliberations on important local matters in their respective countries. The Abbots of Mellifont, of St. Mary's Abbey, Dublin, and of Duiske, Co. Kilkenny, were empowered to convoke all the other Irish Abbots of the Order for consultation; the assembly thus somewhat partaking of the nature of a Provincial Chapter. In 1250, no Englishman would be admitted to profession at Mellifont. In 1269, David O'Brogan, who had been a monk of this house, and afterwards Bishop of Clogher, was buried here. In 1272, Hore Abbey, near Cashel, was founded from Mellifont. In 1275, the General Chapter decreed that in the admission of novices into the Order there should be no question of nationality. Hitherto, the Cistercians confined themselves, in discharging the offices of their sacred ministry, to their guests, servants, and the sick poor in the hospitals at their gates; but now, the altered circumstances of the times demand a change in their usages and impose fresh burdens on them, for which they get no credit. The new Orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic had settled down in this country, and were attracting a large percentage of the young men, who, till then, entered the ranks of the Lay Brethren, and managed the granges, or outlying farms, under the Cellarer. In consequence, therefore, of the insufficiency of their numbers to work the farms profitably, it was found necessary to lease these granges to tenants, and hence the origin of many villages and towns that, in several instances, arose on the site of the granges. The chapel attached to the grange (for every grange had its chapel for the use of the Brothers in charge) was converted into a parish church for the new population that clustered around it. Of this church the monks became the pastors, except when it lay at too great distance to be served from the monastery; in which case, the monks employed secular priests. They built schools also, where the children of the tenants and dependants received _gratuitously_ from the monks themselves, an education similar to that at present imparted in our primary schools. Though the study of Sacred Scripture, Theology, and Canon Law was encouraged in the Order from its foundation; yet it was not until 1245 that studies were fully organised by drawing up a curriculum that should be obligatory. In that year it was ordained by the General Chapter that in every Province there should be a central monastery to which the monks should repair to read the prescribed course of studies under members of the Order, who had graduated at some university. We are not told which of the Irish monasteries was selected as the House of Studies; but, in 1281, the General Chapter decided and decreed that in all the larger abbeys such Houses of Studies should be established.