It was a centre of learning, with a substantial library, and was noted for its discipline until the economic and demographic crises of the 14th century brought about decline and difficulties, exacerbated by conflict and political instability in the Welsh Marches.

In addition to the early endowments, it lists Bishop Richard Peche's grants of a messuage in the Foregate at Chester and of a mill worth four shillings at Burne (possibly Burntwood) near Lichfield; Brockton, Staffordshire, from Gerald of Brockton and his son; Richard of Pitchford's gift of the services of a man called Richard Crasset, who lived at Cosford, Shropshire; half of Hatton, south of Shifnal, from Adam of Hatton and Reginald, his son; half of Walton, Staffordshire from Walter Fitz Herman; land at Ivonbrook Grange, near Grangemill in Derbyshire, from Henry Fitz Fulk; land at Cauldon in north-west Staffordshire from William of Cauldon; and a house from Robert Fitz Thomas, although the location is partially erased.

[34] An attempt in 1177 to reverse this change of dependence failed and prompted Savigny to send a collection of pertinent documents and a covering note to the abbot of Cîteaux, the head of the Cistercian order.

Gerald of Wales, in his account of the Synod of Cashel of 1172, portrays Ranulf as being central to the king's conquest of Ireland, helping to enact and dramatise[clarification needed] his power by imposing his norms on the Irish church.

with their suffragans and fellow-bishops, together with the abbots, archdeacons, priors, and deans, and many other Irish prelates, assembled by the conqueror's own command at the city of Cashel, and there held a synod concerning the well-being of the Church and the reformation thereof.

[53] With the pressure of a dower to be found for Agnes, Gilbert's widow and Adam's mother, the estate was still in trouble and in 1253 the abbot of Buildwas took the opportunity to purchase a 19-year lease of part of Cressage for 200 marks.

[64] However, this did not protect the abbey against some forms of royal begging letter, as when Edward III requested a subsidy for the marriage of his sister, Eleanor of Woodstock, to Reginald II, Count of Guelders in 1332.

Some time before the dissolution Buildwas established a guest house for travellers by the bridge on its demesne:[75] the family running it in 1536 was surnamed Whitefolks, probably a reference to the white monastic garb of their employers.

The most important Severn crossing in the area was at Atcham, and belonged not to Buildwas but to Lilleshall Abbey, which constructed a toll bridge in the early 13th century to carry Watling Street traffic over the river, replacing the earlier ferry.

[118] In the first half of the 14th century Francesco Balducci Pegolotti stated the wool output of Buildwas ("Bihguassi") in his famous guide for Italian merchants, known as Pratica della mercatura as 20 sacks annually.

In 1231 Stephen of Lexington issued statutes after a visitation, but those received by Buildwas were identical to those for Byland, Combermere, and Quarr, suggesting that there were no special grounds for censure:[127] routine concerns about excessive conversation and dietary luxury, with instructions for improving the discipline of novice monks and lay brothers.

Liber sancte marie de Buldewas quem magister Walterus de Brug' dictus le Paumer legauit eidem domui Anno domini mo cco lxxo vijo tempore fratris Willelmi Tyrry tunc abbatis loci eiusdem[136] A book from St Mary's, Buildwas, which Master Walter Bridgnorth, known as Palmer, bequeathed to that house in 1277, in the time of William Tyrry, then abbot of that place.

[164] Visiting Hereford, the king set about righting Ferrers' wrongs in the region and wrote to Thomas le Blund, the earl's steward, on 1 June 1265, demanding restitution of the 100 marks, which he claimed had been surrendered by abbot and convent of Buildwas only on threat of incendio domorum et depredacione bonorum suorum (burning of the building and plunder of their goods.)

[167] Eyton notes the extraordinary violence of tone with which Bishop Roger Northburgh assailed the abbot in his exasperation or desperation, with threats of excommunication if the required sum were not paid by 2 February.

This led to wastage: on 18 August 1344, the leader of one of the parties, Abbot Roger, acknowledged a debt of £100 to John Piard of Clun, with the abbey's own goods, including its church furnishings, as security.

The king commissioned two local worthies to intervene in the situation: Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel, Shropshire's greatest and richest landowner,[176] and John Leyburne, one of the landed gentry.

[43] Flying in the face of all the evidence, on 3 February 1348 a royal response to a parliamentary petition about Dunbrody dated its foundation to 1185 and credited it to the abbot of Buildwas, i.e. Ranulf, asserting that he had reserved to himself visitation rights.

It seems that nothing came of the threats of violence and that St Mary's patiently assembled documentary evidence of Ranulf's renunciation of rights over Dunbrody, forcing Buildwas to withdraw its claims at the Cistercian general chapter of 1354.

As the king notes in his commission in response to the raid, the plunderers broke into the church and claustral buildings and rifled chests and storage places, taking away jewels, vestments, chalices and books from the abbey.

Cound church never appears among the spiritualities of Buildwas so the exchange is most likely to be part of the complex web of legal fictions woven by Arundel to protect the dower and jointure properties of his wife, Eleanor of Lancaster.

[119] In 1302 Pope Boniface VIII showed his gratitude to the Cistercians for their support in his conflict with Philip IV of France by allowing them relief from tithes on a wide range of lands they leased.

[192] The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535[62] and the Court of Augmentations accounts after the dissolution[193] continually use the terms firma (farm) and redditus (rent) for the revenues of Buildwas: although flexible in use, both indicate some form of rental or leasing agreement.

Sometimes barter was employed to secure supplies: in 1521 the abbot was forced to obtain eight beef cattle and forty cheeses by assigning all the timber in a wood called Swallotaylle to Robert Hood of Acton Pigott.

Burnell was potentially a valuable ally, a marcher lord, governor of important castles, influential in Shropshire and a trusted supporter of the House of Lancaster: unfortunately he died sine prole in 1420.

The evident souring of relations with local gentry and the low standards of monastic discipline heralded a major transformation of the Church and the countryside that came with the Dissolution of the Monasteries, achieved in stages between 1536 and 1540.

In 1232, for example, Henry III at Bridgnorth was persuaded to donate thirty oak trees from the nearby royal forest of Shirlett to the abbot specifically ad reparationem ecclesie sue, "towards the repair of his church.

Although a trained architect, John Coney could not resist sharpening the arches of the church, to conform to a preconception of the gothic, in his 1825 illustration for an important revision of William Dugdale's Monasticon,[226] although the actual building has only very blunt points, characteristic of late Romanesque architecture.

In 1839 Rev John Cox Bayliss, a railway engineer and draughtsman, presented the ruined church from the north west in an idyllic riverine scene[227] that revealed the remaining cloister walls had gone, probably decades earlier.

[228]For Mackenzie Walcott two decades later Eyton's exalted view of Buildwas had to supplemented with the practical value of tourism: These unrestored memorials of the infinite taste and genius of our forefathers, who built for eternity, are very precious as a school of instruction, and should be regarded as national monuments.

....The careful preservation of these remains from demolition and wanton injury, and the stoppage of the progress of further decay materially conduce to the attractions and interest of their neighbourhood, and the good name of those persons into whose hands their safe keeping has devolved.