Fountains Abbey was founded in 1132; by 1135, its monks joined the Cistercian Order, founded in France in 1098. Under its rules they lived a rigorous daily life, were committed to long periods of silence, followed a diet barely above subsistence level, and wore the regulation habit of coarse undyed sheep's wool (underwear was forbidden), which earned them the name "White Monks."

By the middle of the 13th century it was one of England's richest religious houses and, as well as farming, was mining lead, working iron, quarrying stones and horse breeding. The Abbey's life was brought to an abrupt end in 1539 by Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries.