In those days the work that women could do for the Church was highly esteemed, and the abbesses who ruled over the convents were very important people. They had to manage large estates as well as to order all the different kinds of work that were carried on in the convent. Many of them were very learned women; and we know of Hilda that she was always eager to learn, and knew well how to teach others what she had learnt. After she had spent some years at Hartlepool, she decided to found a new convent on some of the lands that had been granted her by King Oswy. She chose a beautiful spot on the top of a high cliff overlooking the sea, at the mouth of the river Esk. This spot was afterwards called Whitby, and by that name Hilda’s famous abbey is best known. But though in later times a beautiful abbey church was built there, the ruins of which are still standing, all that Hilda could build was a rude little church made of the split trunks of trees, thatched with rushes. Round the church stood the huts in which Hilda and her nuns lived, with their kitchen and their dining-hall. Farther off, but still in the enclosure of the convent, were huts in which monks lived; for in those early days it often happened that men and women joined together to found one convent. The monks and the nuns lived apart, but Hilda ruled over them all alike. Some of the monks tilled the fields belonging to the convent: and there were barns and farm buildings, as well as rooms for writing and study. Over all these different men and women Hilda ruled firmly and wisely. They were all treated alike. There was no one in her convent who was rich and no one who was poor, for those who came there gave all their possessions into the common store. Hilda so ruled that peace and charity prevailed amongst them all. All who knew her called her Mother, because of her singular piety and grace, and the fame of her virtues spread far and wide. She loved learning and wished all to study, and made them give much time to the reading of the Bible. Her own wisdom and prudence were so well known that many people, and amongst them even kings and princes, came to her for advice in their difficulties. Amongst those who studied at Whitby many grew afterwards to be famous, and five of those who had lived under Hilda’s rule became bishops of the Church. But, of all the dwellers at Whitby, the most famous was one who had begun life simply as one of the workers on the farm, the sweet singer Cædmon. [Illustration: _Photo: Frith & Co._ WHITBY ABBEY. This was the successor of St. Hilda’s building. ]