Читать книгу Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - Cecil Walter Charles Hallett - Страница 4

Table of Contents

There is evidence that the neighbourhood of Ripon was inhabited during, and perhaps before, the Roman occupation of Britain. Whether the place was a settlement of the Romans is uncertain; but it was assuredly in touch with their civilization, for several of their roads passed near it—notably Watling Street, on which, six miles to the east, was Isurium, the modern Aldborough; while imperial coins and other Roman objects have been dug up in Ripon itself. It is not known whether the Romans imparted to the local tribes of the Brigantes their own Christianity; but two centuries after the withdrawal of the legions the greater part of what is now Yorkshire was absorbed by the invading Angles into their kingdom of Deira, which had itself been united with the more northern kingdom of Bernicia to form the single realm of Northumbria. Deira, however, seems to have retained its own individuality. About the year 627 King Eadwine of Northumbria was converted to Christianity by Paulinus, and the majority of his Deiran subjects followed his example.

The Scottish Monastery.—It is in the middle of the seventh century that the recorded history of Ripon begins. Deira was then ruled by Prince Alchfrith of Northumbria under his father, King Oswiu, nephew of Eadwine, and Bede, writing not eighty years after the event, relates that the prince chose Ripon for the site of a monastery. The date may be fixed in or just before the year 657. This monastery was one of those numerous religious colonies which were the result not only of the new Christian fervour, but also of a reaction from war toward social life and industry. It did not represent the Roman Christianity of Augustine which Paulinus had introduced into Deira from Canterbury, but the Christianity which had come from Ireland through St. Columba’s missionary college at Iona, and which was now predominant throughout the north. The monks of Ripon were brought from Melrose Abbey on the Tweed. Like most monks of that early period, they probably followed no definite Rule. Their abbot was Eata, a pupil of St. Aidan, and previously Abbot of Melrose and Lindisfarne, while the guest-master was no less a person than Cuthbert, the legend of whose having entertained an angel unawares at Ripon added, no doubt, to the growing reputation of the house.

Its tranquillity, however, was not to last. The Roman party in the Northumbrian Church, though inconsiderable, was gaining force, and Alchfrith, deserting his former convictions, gave the new monastery, with an endowment of thirty or forty hides of land, as Bede relates, to one who had visited Rome, and who regarded the Irish (or, as it was called by that time, the Scottish) Church as schismatical.

The life of St. Wilfrid of Ripon—so full of adventure, misfortune, and lasting achievement—can only be related here in so far as it bears upon the story of this, his favourite monastery. It was in 661 that the transference from Eata to Wilfrid took place, and at once the Scottish monks, refusing to conform to Roman usages, left Ripon in a body. It is probable that Wilfrid imposed upon their successors the Benedictine Rule, which he had studied at Rome. The new Abbot was not yet in priest’s orders, but was presently ordained at Ripon by 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 side of the high altar in his own minster.

In 710 the anniversary of his death was kept at Ripon with great solemnity, and out of such commemorations, probably, arose the feast of his Depositio,[7] which was afterwards kept on every 12th of October. According to Eddius a remarkable phenomenon occurred on this occasion. In the evening the monastery was suddenly encircled with brilliant light, as of day, and whether this was a display of Northern Lights or not, it was regarded as a Divine testimony to the sanctity of Wilfrid. The story shows, at any rate, that he was already beginning to be regarded as a saint, and it was probably about this time that his name was coupled with St. Peter’s in the dedication of the Church. Miracles were worked at his tomb, and it became an object of pilgrimage; but little is known of the period immediately succeeding his death, save that the dwellers around Ripon (as a twelfth century writer, Eadmer, represents) first encouraged the cult of the saint, then became disgusted at the crowds it drew, and finally endeavoured to check it altogether. Wilfrid was succeeded in the abbacy by Tatberht, and history has recorded the names of three more abbots who followed each other toward the end of the eighth century, Botwine, Alberht, Sigred; and of one of uncertain date, Uilden or Wildeng.[8] In 791 a noble named Eardwulf, who had plotted against Ethelred, then King of Northumbria, was put to death (as it was thought) at the monastery gate by the king’s orders. The monks carried him ‘with Gregorian chantings’ to the precincts of the church, where they laid him out, but after midnight he was found within the building—a recovery which was regarded as miraculous.

Ripon did not escape the violence of the Danes. It is thought that about the year 860 they burned the town and did some damage to the church, and the remarkable mound known as Ailcy Hill,[9] near the Canons’ Residence, and due east of the Cathedral, is probably a relic of some battle of this period. In the street-names too, all ending in ‘gate’ (which in the sense of ‘way’ is a Danish word), another trace may perhaps be found of their presence, as well as of the existence of a town at this early period. The town probably grew up around the monastery. It has been believed that a civic charter was granted by King Alfred in 886; but this is impossible, even if such charters were ever granted at this time, for Alfred had resigned all this part of England (which since about 839 had owned the overlordship of Wessex) to the Danes in 878.

One of the great events in Ripon history is the visit of Alfred’s grandson King Athelstan. Yorkshire had lately been a separate Danish kingdom, but it passed under the direct rule of Wessex in 926, and it was either in that year that Athelstan came, or in 937, when he defeated the Scots and other northern rebels at Brunanburh. It was to this king that the church afterwards referred the grant of its most important privileges. Among these was that of sanctuary, by which homicides, thieves, debtors, etc., could flee to Ripon and live there under the protection of St. Wilfrid for a specified time. The area within which they were protected extended one mile from the church in every direction, and the limit was marked by eight crosses, the base of one of which is still to be seen on the Sharow Road. The penalties for molesting refugees were afterwards graduated as follows:—between the limit and the graveyard wall, £18; within the graveyard, £36; within the choir (where the pursued sought the last possible refuge at the ‘grythstool,’ or chair of sanctuary), confiscation of goods and possible death. Those who took sanctuary were called ‘gyrthmen’ or ‘grythmen’ (from the Anglo-Saxon ‘gryth’ ‘peace’), and undertook, among other things, to carry the banners before the relics of St. Wilfrid in certain processions. They were under the spiritual charge of a ‘gryth-priest.’ The protection of the outer sanctuary can hardly have been extended to Ripon men, as theoretically the whole town could then have committed crimes with impunity, and practically the criminals would not have been safe from their fellow-townsmen. Ripon debtors did indeed enjoy protection here at Rogation-tide, but as a rule men of Ripon would seek sanctuary at Durham or Beverley. Athelstan is also said to have granted to the church a jurisdiction over its lands independent alike of the northern archbishop and of the king, with the right to inflict the ordeals of fire and water, and with exemption from taking oaths, from taxation, and from military service.[10] Of the two charters in which these grants are set forth, one is, indeed of the eleventh or twelfth, and the other of the thirteenth century, but Athelstan may at any rate have done something to give rise to the tradition, though it is impossible to tell exactly what. The story of his having given the manor to the see of York is doubtless misleading. The territorial sway of the Archbishop at Ripon must be of earlier origin, and it may even have arisen out of the grant of the monastery with its thirty or forty hides of land to Wilfrid and his retention of them after his elevation to the see of Northumbria.

The connection of the monastery with the Archbishop is illustrated in the reign of Athelstan’s brother Eadred, when Archbishop Wulfstan, by aiding a rebellion for the purpose of again setting up a Danish king at York, drew down the royal anger upon Ripon. In 948 (or 950, according to one authority) Eadred harried Northumbria, and then, says the Worcester Chronicle, “was that famed minster burned at Ripon, which St. Wilfrid built.” Wulfstan himself was deprived and imprisoned.

About two years later the half-ruined and deserted church was visited (the see of York being vacant) by Oda, Archbishop of Canterbury. There was a tradition in the sixteenth century that he rebuilt it, but his visit is also memorable for another tradition, namely, that he translated the bones of St. Wilfrid to Canterbury. Hence arose a fierce dispute between Canterbury and Ripon, each claiming that it possessed the body of the Saint. The claim of Canterbury, which is accepted to this day by the Church of Rome, is supported by the assertion of Oda himself, and by several subsequent chroniclers, one of whom, however, attributes the translation to St. Dunstan, while another goes so far as to concede that Oda left a portion of the bones behind. But Ripon always maintained that it possessed the whole, and that the relics removed had been those of Wilfrid II. (Archbishop of York, 718–732). According to the contemporary biographer of Oswald (Archbishop of York, 972–992) the bones of the Saint were at Ripon in the tenth century, and Oswald solemnly enshrined them—whence that feast of St. Wilfrid’s translation which was afterwards kept on the 24th of April; and a later chronicler speaks of “the body of the blessed Wilfrid” as being at Ripon in the reign of Stephen. The claim of Canterbury was forgotten for a time in the glories of St. Thomas à Becket, while that of Ripon became more or less established in the north. In 1224 Archbishop de Gray, who translated the alleged relics at Ripon to a more splendid shrine, declared that he had found the skeleton complete. In the fifteenth century Henry V. himself writes to Ripon of his reverence for “St. Wilfrid, buried in the said church.” In the sixteenth, Leland, while recording a common opinion that Oda rebuilt the minster, makes no mention of any removal of the relics. The controversy will perhaps never be decided definitely, but it is interesting in view of the cult of St. Wilfrid at Ripon in the middle ages.

The account of the enshrinement of the relics by Oswald has been thought to imply that it was he who rebuilt the monastery, and that he filled it again with monks. Whether it was rebuilt by Oda or Oswald, the body of St. Cuthbert rested here in 995 on its way from Chester-le-Street to Durham. From this point onwards, however, no more is heard of monks at Ripon, and it may be interesting to recall here the part which this monastery had played in the history of the Church. Its first abbot, Eata, had become Bishop of Hexham and of Lindisfarne. It had been for a time the home of St. Cuthbert. Under Wilfrid, Ceolfrith, one of its monks, had become Abbot of Wearmouth, and another, Æthelwald, had carried on Cuthbert’s work in the Farne Islands. In accepting and treasuring the staff of St. Columba, the Ripon of Wilfrid had forgotten something of its hostility to the Scottish mission. Through Wilfrid, Ripon had been connected with the founding of other monasteries, Hexham, Selsey, Lichfield, Oundle. Through his labours, again, and those of St. Willibrord, another of its monks, it had become known as a great centre of missionary work. Wilfrid had strengthened Christianity in Mercia and Kent, and may claim to have introduced it into Sussex and the Isle of Wight. Abroad he had carried the Gospel to the Frisians, and his work among them was splendidly completed by Willibrord, who became Archbishop of Utrecht.[11]

The College of Secular Canons.—From 995 to the Conquest, the history of Ripon is almost a blank. During that time the monastery, by a reversal of the more usual process, became converted into a college of secular canons, but nothing is known of the manner in which the change was effected. The last Saxon Archbishop of York, Ealdred, who crowned both Harold and the Conqueror, is said to have founded prebends—perhaps giving lands out of his manor, and the Canons of Ripon duly appear in Domesday Book (1085–6). In 1070 the Conqueror, to whom the north had given much difficulty, ordered the Vale of York to be harried. Ripon suffered severely, and in Domesday Book the surrounding lands are recorded as “waste.” The minster probably shared in the general wreck.

What happened to it in the succeeding period is not definitely known. It may have been entirely rebuilt, as most great Saxon churches were after the Conquest, or it may have been rebuilt partially, or merely enlarged. That something was done is proved by the existence south of the choir of some Norman work which has been attributed to the first Norman Archbishop, Thomas of Bayeux (1070–1100), or to Archbishop Thurstan (1114–1141).

Rev. J. Beanland, Photo.]

EARLY APSIDAL CHAPEL WITH LATER CHAPEL SUPERIMPOSED.

The former died at Ripon. Indeed, the Archbishops had been in the habit of residing here since the end of the tenth century, and they duly appear in Domesday Book as lords of the manor, of which the canons’ land is apparently treated as a part. It is worthy of note that Domesday Book records also the ‘soc’ jurisdiction and freedom from taxation which are mentioned in the ‘Athelstan’ charters. The exemption also from the king’s officers which is set forth in the same charters, was proved in 1106, when an attempted invasion of the liberties of the Church by the Sheriff of York was successfully resisted by Archbishop Gerard before arbitrators appointed by Henry I. This king also exempted the lands of Ripon from castle-building, and granted to the Canons and the Archbishop a fair at the feast of St. Wilfrid’s translation (April 24th). In the next century fairs were also claimed for the feast of his Depositio (October 12th), and for the feasts of St. Michael and of the Finding of the Holy Cross.

Archbishop Thomas II. (1109–1114) founded the Hospital of St. John the Baptist, and another Hospital, that of St. Mary Magdalen, of which the chapel remains, was founded by his successor, Archbishop Thurstan (1114–1141). Both these Hospitals were affiliated to the Church, and the masterships were in the gift of the Archbishop. St. John’s afforded shelter to poor travellers who came in through the forest which then adjoined the town. When the forest was cleared, the endowment provided exhibitions for a few poor boys, who lived here while they pursued their studies in “grammar” (perhaps at the Grammar School), with a view to becoming clerks. The two hospitals, and a third which was founded later, were placed at three of the principal entrances to the town, with the express intention, perhaps, of assisting the pilgrims who resorted to the shrine of St. Wilfrid.

Thurstan added one more canon to the staff by founding the prebend of Sharow. He may also be called the founder of Fountains Abbey, which was built on land assigned by him out of his domain of Ripon.

In the troubles of the reign of Stephen, Ripon took no small share. When the Scots descended into Yorkshire, nominally to aid the Empress Maud, Thurstan sent against them all the levies which an archbishop, as a feudal baron, could muster, including doubtless the men of his manor of Ripon, and the victory which they won near Northallerton in 1138 is known as the Battle of the Standard, from the banners of the three mother-churches—Ripon, York, and Beverley—which waved over the English army. Ripon was soon to experience the anarchy which prevailed toward the end of the war. In 1140 Alan, Earl of Richmond, entrenched himself on a neighbouring hill and grievously oppressed the town and its inhabitants. Led by him, the large landholders in the neighbourhood broke open the storehouses and granaries of the archbishop, and in 1143 Earl Alan himself burst into the church with an armed band and attacked Archbishop William Fitzherbert (afterwards St. William of York), who was standing by St. Wilfrid’s shrine. The Archbishop’s offence may have been that he was the king’s nephew. At any rate he was detested by the Cistercians, who were strongly represented here by Fountains Abbey, and Ripon seems to have sided with them, for in 1148, when Archbishop William was temporarily deprived of his office, it was to Ripon that his supplanter, Archbishop Murdac, retired when he durst not enter York. Stephen confirmed to the College all the privileges granted by his predecessors.

Building of the Present Church.—The reign of Henry II. is marked by another rebuilding of the church. William was succeeded in 1154 (the year of the king’s accession) by Archbishop Roger de Pont l’Evêque (1154–1181). This prelate is known in politics for his opposition to Thomas à Becket, and in art for his prominent share in the development of our national architecture. There is perhaps no more important example of the transition from the Norman to the Early English style than his work at Ripon. With the exception of the crypt under the present crossing, and of some Norman work south of the present choir, he rebuilt the whole church, and history has recorded the wording of a deed in which he gives “£1000 of the old coinage for the building of the basilica … which we have begun afresh.”[12] Roger’s church was a cruciform building, and its nave had no aisles. A great portion of his work remains—the two transepts, half of the central tower, and portions of the nave and choir. The plan (see below, p. 67) was typical of the early history of the place and of its subsequent conversion from a monastery into a college of secular canons; for the aisleless cruciform arrangement in churches was developed from a combination of the Scottish type with the Roman or basilican, and the absence of aisles was, or rather had been at a slightly earlier period, the recognized mark of a secular as opposed to a monastic church. In giving aisles to the choir Roger’s plan was singular, for it was not usual for a choir to have aisles when the nave had none. Except by the addition of nave-aisles, the dimensions of his plan (as Walbran remarked) have not been materially exceeded; and Ripon is an example of the size to which churches of canons often attained, in spite of the fact that their plan was generally that of a mere parish church.

The next archbishop, Geoffrey Plantagenet, was often in disagreement with his brothers, Richard I. and John, but the manor of Ripon is said to have been the only portion of his temporalities of which the latter king did not deprive him.

After Geoffrey’s death the see was vacant for nine years until 1216, the year of the accession of Henry III., when it was given to Archbishop Walter de Gray (1216–1255). In the same year ‘spiritual fraternity’ was formally concluded between Ripon and Fountains; and a somewhat similar arrangement was made a little later with Southwell, which since Henry I. had shared with Ripon and Beverley the dignity of a mother-church or pro-cathedral in the diocese of York. In 1224, at the request of the Canons, Archbishop de Gray translated the relics of St. Wilfrid (if such they were) to a new shrine, enshrining the head separately in such a way that it was exposed to view. He also granted an indulgence of thirty days to all who should make pilgrimage to the saint’s new resting-place. This second translation never became a feast, but it doubtless stimulated the cult of St. Wilfrid afresh, and probably brought considerable profit to the Church.

A few years later, at any rate, an important alteration was made in the fabric, by the building of the present west front with its two flanking towers, and the tall wooden and lead-covered spires which once crowned the latter and the central tower were probably erected at this period.

In 1230, the Archbishop founded a seventh prebend—that of Stanwick; and in 1241 sanctioned the addition of the parish of Nidd to the common property of the College.