Our church of Grasmere was not left to the control of parson and manorial lord like other tithe-yielding parishes, it was snapped up by a big monastery. The abbeys that had sprung up all over England in post-Norman times were of a very different order from the simple religious communities of Anglo-Saxon times; and before long it became a question as to how they were to be maintained on the splendid lines of their foundation. By the reign of Henry I. they had begun to appropriate rectories, and in 1212 the parish church of Crosthwaite was given over to the control of Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire, which carried off all the profits of the tithes, merely restoring £5 a year to the rector, who was elected by its chapter.[77] St. Mary's Abbey had been founded in York city in 1088, and its chapter found it necessary by the end of the thirteenth century to look round the great church province of Richmondshire to see if there were no revenues which might by royal favour be appropriated. [77] _Victorian History of Cumberland._ In December, 1301, Edward I. despatched a writ to the sheriff of Westmorland, bidding him inquire of true and lawful men whether it would be to the damage of the Crown or others if the abbey of St. Mary of York were allowed to appropriate the church of Kirkeby in Kendale with its chapels and appurtenances. The inquisition was held, be it noted, not at Kendal but at Appleby, where a sworn jury declared the appropriation would damage no one. An explicit statement was added which concerns us. "The chapels of the said church, to wit the chapels of Gresmer and Winandermere are in the patronage of Lord Ingram de Gynes and Christian his wife, by reason of the inheritance of the said Christian, and they hold of the king in chief.... And the chapel of Gresmer is worth yearly 20 li."[78] [78] _Inq. ad quod damnum_, 38/6. Accordingly a license was granted by Edward I., under date February 23rd, 1302, for the Abbot and Convent of St. Mary's, York, "towards the relief of their impoverished condition," to appropriate the "church of Kirkeby in Kendale, which is of their own patronage, in the diocese of York, and consists of two portions, on condition that they appropriate none of its chapels, if there are any."[79] [79] _Calendar Patent Rolls_, 30 Edw. I.