Born at Hexham in Northumberland and educated in Durham he was a member of the royal household of King David I of Scotland before he became a monk of the recently established Yorkshire Cistercian monastery of Rievaulx. Held in high esteem by his community, he became, after a four-year spell at another house in Lincolnshire Abbot of Rievaulx, which by then had become the largest religious house in England. Aelred's sensitive temperament did much to soften the rigorous tone of Cistercian religious life, and attracted many to the Order. In 1163 he was chosen to preach on the occasion of the establishment of the shrine of St. Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey. He wrote a life of St. Edward, and other works including his most famous: his Treatise on Friendship. His last years were marked by a very painful illness which forced him to live apart from the community and he died at Rievaulx on January 12, 1167. He was never formally canonised, but his cult became popular especially in North Eastern England through the influence of his Order.