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, AEthelwald, 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