Ripon Cathedral Research Articles

Ripon Cathedral: New discoveries and archaeological recording at the north-east corner

Essential conservation repair works carried out in 2015 provided an opportunity for archaeological investigation of the origins and development of the north-east corner of Ripon Cathedral. The archaeological research and recording has provided an important and useful record of an area previously unrecorded. New discoveries include the identification of phases of repair and renewal not recorded in the surviving archives, including reuse of building stone, and the discovery that the battlemented parapet with arrow loops in the north-east corner had no practical defensive function. Experimental archaeology revealed that the battlemented parapet is an example of passive defence, designed to overawe an enemy rather than to be used as a practical defensive feature.

Reading Prior to Translating: A Possible Latin Exemplar for Nicholas Love's Myrrour of the Blessed Lyf of Jesu Christ

THIS note is intended to draw attention to a possible Latin exemplar for Nicholas Love’s English translation of the pseudo-Bonaventuran Meditationes Vitae Christi, the Myrrour of the Blessed Lyf of Jesu Christ. Ripon Cathedral MS 6 (hereafter R) is a small, single columned manuscript, measuring only 155 × 112 mm, comprising of 122 folios, and containing the Latin text of the Meditationes.1 While analysis, or indeed description, of this manuscript is largely missing from scholarship on both the Meditationes and the Myrrour,2 two pieces of textual apparatus may evidence that R is a manuscript of significant textual and historical importance to scholars of the English pseudo-Bonaventuran tradition. First, a large ‘ex libris’ note at the bottom of the first page of the Latin text (f.3 r), reads: ‘liber montis gracie’. This mark seems to locate R in the same charterhouse in which Love is assumed to have composed the Myrrour.3 Secondly, a colophon on f. 121v, suggests a dating of around 1400 for the completion of R at Freiston, a cell of Crowland Abbey: ‘scripta in freston circa festum annunciacionis beate Marie Virginis Anno Domini 14’. While a letter kept with the manuscript, dated 22 November 1882, by one Henry Wilson4 does speculate on a link between this copy of the Latin Meditationes and Love’s English text, Julian Luxford has recently suggested that ‘judging from the style of script used for the Mount Grace ‘ex libris’ beneath the text block … it changed hands early in its life’,5 suggesting that the movement of R from Freiston to Mount Grace is contemporary with the beginning of Love’s priorate of the Yorkshire charterhouse. As such, it seems reasonable to assume that this manuscript would have been present at the Mount Grace house during the period in which Love was making his translation and may have been his exemplar.

Two Pynson Editions of the Life of St Katherine of Alexandria

This note begins by discussing the make-up of a known fragmentary Life of St Katherine printed by Richard Pynson probably c. 1505 (STC 4813.6), showing by comparison with a recently edited manuscript version of the text that mistakes were very likely made during the production process, leading to the surviving leaves being discarded as printer’s waste. Discussion then turns to a newly discovered printing of the same saint’s life, again by Pynson, preserved fragmentarily in the binding of a book in Ripon Cathedral Library. The structure of this version is deduced by comparison with the same manuscript text, while an analysis of its type-ornaments (compared with those in other books printed by Pynson at this time) demonstrates that it was almost certainly printed later than the known fragment, perhaps c. 1509-11.

A high status burial from Ripon Cathedral, North Yorkshire, England: differential diagnosis of a chest deformity

AbstractExcavations beneath the crossing at Ripon Cathedral in North Yorkshire recently revealed a burial radiocarbon dated to the late 15th century AD. The burial was that of a young adult female; the location of the grave suggests a person of relatively high status. The very well preserved skeleton revealed abnormal changes to the bones of the thoracic cavity including anterior bowing of the sternum, flattening of the spinous processes of thoracic vertebrae three to nine against the processes below each one, and changes to the ribs that suggested anterior displacement of the rib cage. The skeletal changes are described and differential diagnoses presented. Treatment to an underlying chest deformity, ‘pectus carinatum’, is thought to be the underlying cause of the skeletal changes; this study may lend direct insight into the concepts of body image in the Medieval period. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Settlement and Monasticism at Ripon, North Yorkshire, From the 7th to 11th Centuries A.D.

Archaeological investigations of a number of small sites, combined with information provided by antiquarian writers, indicate the existence of a number of churches and/or cemeteries in the vicinity of Ripon Cathedral. In two cases these demonstrably originate in the 8th century or earlier, and in the other, less well documented instances an early origin seems likely. It is suggested that these sites are early ecclesiastical nuclei associated with the known 7th.-century monastery at Ripon, and a tentative reconstruction of the original monastic enclosure is proposed on the basis of archaeological, antiquarian and cartographic evidence.

Postscript: on the Original Nave Of Ripon Cathedral

Postscript: on the Original Nave Of Ripon Cathedral

A Carved Stone in Ripon Cathedral

A Carved Stone in Ripon Cathedral

On the Original Nave of Ripon Cathedral

(1972). On the Original Nave of Ripon Cathedral. Journal of the British Archaeological Association: Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 39-45.

AN UNRECORDED CAXTON AT RIPON CATHEDRAL

AN UNRECORDED CAXTON AT RIPON CATHEDRAL Get access JEAN E. MORTIMER JEAN E. MORTIMER Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Library, Volume s5-VIII, Issue 1, March 1953, Pages 37–42, https://doi.org/10.1093/library/s5-VIII.1.37 Published: 01 March 1953

Ripon Cathedral

Ripon Cathedral

Two Fourteenth-Century Gauntlets From Ripon Cathedral

The two gauntlets which were exhibited to the Society by kind permission of the Archdeacon of Richmond, on 26th November 1941, form part of the funeral achievement of Sir Edward Blackett (died 1718), hanging above his monument in the north transept of Ripon Cathedral. The achievement consists of a close-helmet of the sixteenth century with a wooden funeral crest of a falcon (for Blackett); a tabard; a cruciform sword in its scabbard, of the heraldic pattern of the early eighteenth century; and two iron gauntlets. The wooden escutcheon and pair of spurs which must once have completed the group are now missing.

Music at Ripon Cathedral

Music at Ripon Cathedral

Ripon Cathedral

Ripon Cathedral

On an Effigy of One Of the Markenfield Family in Ripon Cathedral

(1864). On an Effigy of One Of the Markenfield Family in Ripon Cathedral. Journal of the British Archaeological Association: Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 285-296.

Early communion in Ripon Cathedral

Early communion in Ripon Cathedral