Agilbert, the Frankish Bishop of Wessex. In 664 he took the action for which he is especially remembered in English history. Appearing at the Synod of Whitby, he prevailed upon King Oswiu to throw in his lot with the Roman party, and was thus the means indirectly of preventing the isolation of the England of that time from the Church and civilization of the Continent. Almost immediately afterwards Abbot Wilfrid became Bishop of Northumbria, and this tenure of the two offices by the same person was perhaps the origin of the subsequent connection of Ripon with the Archbishops of York.[1] Wilfrid insisted on going to be consecrated by Agilbert, who was now Bishop of Paris, and so long did he remain abroad that on his return in 666 he found another bishop, Chad (afterwards St. Chad of Lichfield), in possession of the see. He therefore retired to Ripon for three years, during which, however, he visited Mercia and also Kent, where he met Aedde, or Eddius, who became his chaplain and biographer.

The Saxon Monastery.—In 669 Wilfrid was restored to his see by Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, and soon afterwards began to build at Ripon. The Scottish monastery, which was probably of wood, is thought to have occupied a site between Priest Lane, Stonebridgegate,[2] and a nameless road which connects them. Wilfrid now abandoned it, and erected upon a new site a more imposing monastery of stone.[3] The practice of building in stone seems to have become uncommon in Britain after the departure of the Romans, and Wilfrid is thought to have employed foreign workmen, perhaps Italians.[4] His church is described by Eddius, himself now a Ripon monk, as “of smoothed stone from base to summit, and supported on various columns and (?) arcades (porticibus),” and was doubtless of that Italian type which had become identified in Britain with the Roman party in the Church, as opposed to the Scottish mission. The Scottish type of church consisted of a small aisle-less nave and square chancel: the Italian type generally had aisles, and the altar was usually raised upon a platform, beneath which was a crypt called confessio. A little later than 670 A.D. Wilfrid’s new minster was solemnly dedicated by him in honour of St. Peter, in the presence of a great concourse of clergy and nobles, headed by the King of Northumbria, Ecgfrith, the successor of Oswiu. The endowments seem to have included at this time certain lands round Ripon which had belonged to the British Church before the coming of the Angles, and to have been now increased by grants—some as far distant as Lancashire—made by the great men present at the ceremony. Wilfrid himself gave a splendid copy of the Gospels, written in gold upon purple vellum, the beginning perhaps of a library.[5] The feasting was kept up for three days—indeed, no monastery could have had for its church a more striking dedication. And for the next seven years Ripon must have shared the importance of the Abbot-Bishop, whose state rivalled that of the king. By persuading the queen to become a nun, however, he presently lost the royal favour; while the great size of the diocese, which extended at last from the Forth to the Wash, prevented the achievement of complete success in his episcopal work.

As yet the see of Canterbury was the sole archbishopric, and in 678 Archbishop Theodore—already known as an organizer of the episcopate—was invited to the court of Northumbria. With Ecgfrith’s approval, but without consulting Wilfrid, he divided the diocese into the three sees of Hexham, York, and Lindsey, answering respectively to the tribal divisions Bernicia, Deira, and the land of the Lindiswaras (Lincolnshire). Wise though this action was, it was naturally resented by Wilfrid, who appealed to the Pope—the first appeal of the kind ever made by an Englishman—and set out himself for Rome. He was destined not to return till 680, and even then to be kept out of his bishopric till 686. Ripon was now in the new diocese of York, but in 681 Theodore constituted yet another diocese, of which he made Ripon the cathedral town.

Of Eadhead, First Bishop of Ripon (681-686), little is known. Originally a priest at the court of Oswiu, he had accompanied the intruded bishop, Chad, when the latter sought consecration at Canterbury during Wilfrid’s absence for consecration in Gaul. Eadhead had afterwards been appointed by Theodore to the see of Lindsey, and was translated thence to Ripon when Lindsey was recovered by the Mercians.

His tenure of his new office lasted for five years only, for in 686 Aldfrith, the successor of Ecgfrith, restored Wilfrid—not indeed to his original bishopric of Northumbria, but to a see which combined the lately-formed dioceses of Ripon and York[6]. Eadhead accordingly retired, and there were no more Bishops of Ripon for twelve centuries.

To Wilfrid was restored not only his bishopric, but also his monastery of Ripon, which he retained in peace for the next five years. At the end of that time a long dispute arose with Aldfrith, who was veering back to the diocesan partition of Theodore, and Wilfrid, deprived of his see for the third time, crossed over into Mercia. In 703 a synod was held at Austerfield, the King and Berhtwald, Archbishop of Canterbury, being present, when Wilfrid was actually asked to promise that he would cease to act as bishop, that he would accept the partition of Theodore, and that he would retire to Ripon and not leave the monastery without the king’s permission.

Though he was now a man of seventy, he set out once more for Rome, and this time as before the Pope decided in his favour. Returning to Ripon in 705, he attempted to conciliate Aldfrith’s successor Eadwulf, but in vain. In the same year, however, Eadwulf was succeeded by Osred, and presently another synod was held, this time at Nidd, seven miles south of Ripon, when it was decided, in the presence of Osred and the now relenting Berhtwald, that Wilfrid should have the monastery and see of Hexham (resigning York) and the monastery of Ripon, thus restored to him for the second time.

In 709 he received a call to Mercia, which had already twice received him in his adversity, and in which he had accepted the bishopric of Leicester. Immediately before his departure he was at Ripon, where he kept his treasure, and having a presentiment that he would never return, he bequeathed a portion of his wealth to the monastery, appointed Tatberht to succeed him as Abbot, and took an affecting farewell of the whole community. Arriving at his monastery of Oundle, in Northamptonshire, he was seized with illness, and died there on October 12 in the seventy-sixth year of his age. The body was placed on a car and carried in solemn procession to Ripon, where it was buried on the south