Byland, in common with most of the other religious houses was founded under chequered and romantic circumstances. An abbot, Gerald by name, and twelve brothers, all protestants against monastic laxity, fled from Furness Abbey to Calder, from whence they were driven away by the depredations of the Scots. On returning to the mother abbey they found the doors shut against them, but with unabated fervour they set out for York, taking with them only their vestments, some books, and a waggon drawn by eight oxen. Philip, third abbot of Byland, gives two different accounts as to subsequent events, one story being that in their plight they bethought themselves to seek advice from Thurstan, Archbishop of York, and were sent by him to Roger de Mowbray, near Thirsk, who in turn referred them to Robertus de Alneto, a hermit living at Hode, and formerly an abbot of Whitby. The other story runs, that after much suffering and disappointment the monks found themselves, footsore and nearly naked, in the streets of Thirsk, and that here they accidentally gained the goodwill of Gundreda de Albini, mother of Roger de Mowbray, who supplied their necessities in generous fashion and sent them to the benevolent hermit of Hode. The stories differ only, it will be seen, in respect as to the manner in which the goodwill of the Mowbrays was gained and consequently the interest of Robert de Alneto. For four years the little community lived at Gundreda’s expense at Hode near Scawton, and during these years determined to renounce formal allegiance to Furness. Finding at the expiration of four years that the accommodation of Hode was insufficient for their steadily increasing numbers, and that the site was not a suitable one on which to build a permanent abbey, the monks appealed to Gundreda and Mowbray for other lands. A church and some lands at Old Byland, or Byland-on-the-Moor, were then given them by their noble patron. The new site proved, however, to be uncomfortably near Rievaulx, the monks of Rievaulx complaining that “it be unseemly that the bells of one house be heard at the other.” The monks then removed to Stocking, and during their thirty years’ sojourn there built a church and cloister. At the expiration of this time, fresh land was given them near Coxwold by Roger de Mowbray, and after some doubt and uncertainty, the erection of church and cloister was proceeded with on the land where the ruins of Byland Abbey now stand.