Archbishop John Kemp (1426-1452) did what he could to reform these abuses, and effected some improvement (the nature of which is not clear) in the status of the Vicars, who had been badly treated by the Chapter in financial matters. Later in this century a chantry chaplain is found engaging in dishonest trade; priests fight; laymen assault one another in the minster during service. But mediæval morality in general must not be condemned, of course, for a few recorded crimes.
About 1450 the south-east corner of the central tower gave way, and so unsafe was the church that service had to be held in the Lady-kirk. In consequence of this disaster the Canons were obliged to rebuild not only the south and east sides of the tower, but also the east side of the south transept, and eventually part of the south side of the Choir; and it is evident that they would have rebuilt the two remaining sides of the tower, had they not been prevented by the Dissolution. The present rood screen and canopied stalls were put in toward the close of the fifteenth century. In 1502 the Lady-kirk (in which a chantry had been founded in 1392) was handed over by the Chapter to Archbishop Savage, who in turn transferred it to Fountains Abbey. Abbot Huby, intending to make it a colony of Cistercians, rebuilt the east end of it, and enclosed part of its graveyard with a fine stone wall having a strongly-marked base. Of this wall a great part remains in St. Mary-gate. A large doorway in it has been built up. The Lady-kirk itself has vanished long ago.
At this time was begun the greatest architectural enterprise that had been undertaken at Ripon since the twelfth century, namely, the rebuilding of the nave of the minster. The Transitional nave, it was said, had become ruinous through age and storms, but the real motive for its destruction was probably an ambition to enlarge the building. The enlargement of aisleless churches was usually begun by the addition of a single aisle, and that on the north side (since the south was usually the side of the graveyard); but at Ripon the south aisle was built first, perhaps because it was always intended that there should be two aisles—an arrangement which there were no cloisters here to prevent. The work was begun in 1502 or 1503. Delayed by a plague in 1506, it was almost complete, as Leland’s Itinerary shows,[21] when he visited the town about 1538, but the aisles had not yet been vaulted when the Dissolution came, and had wooden roofs until our own time. Irreparable as is the loss of Archbishop Roger’s nave, its successor must surely be placed among the great naves of the Perpendicular period—and it is the latest of them. The work was furthered by Archbishop Savage (1501-1507) and by Cardinal Archbishop Bainbridge (1508-1514), and two canons must especially be mentioned in connection with it, Andrew Newman, appointed Master of the Fabric in 1502, and Marmaduke Bradley, who was paymaster, and who was connected with the repairs after the failure of the central tower, and gave up to the fabric a large portion of his fees for residence. The last work done before the Reformation was probably the rebuilding of the three westernmost bays on the south side of the choir, which had been weakened doubtless by the accident to the central tower.
By this time the church contained nine chantries, namely, those of St. Andrew (founded 1234); of the Holy Trinity supra summum altare (1345); of St. John the Evangelist and St. John the Baptist (1364); of St. James (1407-8); of Our Lady ‘in the Church’ (1408); of St. Thomas of Canterbury (1418); of the Holy Trinity subtus altare (1466); of Our Lady ‘in the Lady-loft’; and of St. Wilfrid (? 1420). In some of these, other chantries had been merged. There were also four or five chantries in various chapels in the parish. The chantry-chaplains were not strictly on the staff, but helped on Sundays and festivals. As their chantries did not give them sufficient occupation, they sometimes held in addition such offices as that of Proctor of an absent canon, Curator of the Fabric, Sub-Precentor, Sub-Treasurer, or Chamberlain, the holder of this post being the chief financial officer of the community.
On the eve of the Reformation the discipline of the staff was again very unsatisfactory, chiefly through the influence of the Treasurer, Canon Christopher Dragley, who employed the vestry clerks on his private business, disposed of chantries prematurely, and encouraged the Vicars, who were now living dispersed, to be insubordinate. It was the custom for choir and clergy to adjourn after Prime to the Chapter-house, where the martyrology for the day was read and notices were given out. Here, too, once a week sat the Chapter Court. But Dragley was able to hinder all this by keeping the door locked. From 1533 to 1539 he was Treasurer, Canon Residentiary, and President of the Chapter, and the general laxity was largely due to this concentration of authority in the hands of one bad man through non-residence. The case of Dragley drew several decrees from Archbishop Edward Lee (1531-1544):—that no vicar should be appointed without the consent of a majority in Chapter; that the Chapter seal must be kept by three people; that one canon must no longer form a quorum (as hitherto) in the Chapter Court, and as a question had arisen whether the powers of the Chapter were not entirely vested in the canons-resident,[22] it was laid down that the latter were indeed competent to dispose of certain chantries and other offices, and to exercise the Chapter’s spiritual jurisdiction, but that in most other matters the whole body must be consulted. As most of them were always absent, this means, perhaps, that they were represented in Chapter by their proctors. There is an instance in 1546 of the Vicars, chantry priests, and deacons being allowed to take part in a Chapter meeting.
An attack on relics was begun in 1538, and it was probably about this date that the shrine of St. Wilfrid was destroyed. In 1539 came the suppression of Fountains Abbey, the abbot who surrendered it being no other than Marmaduke Bradley. He had been Abbot since 1536, holding his canonry at Ripon at the same time, and after the suppression of the Abbey, he became once more a power at Ripon. As sole residentiary in 1544, 1545, and 1546, he appears to have used his influence well, and played a prominent part in the last architectural operations before the Dissolution. The old system of sanctuary, suited only to times when the State was weak, seems to have died out about this period. In 1545 came an Act for the dissolution of chantries and hospitals. As ‘Supreme Head of the Church’ Henry VIII. renewed the visitatorial authority of the Archbishops, and both he and Edward VI. confirmed the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Chapter. But the end was imminent. In 1547 the College was dissolved,[23] and its revenues were annexed to the Duchy of Lancaster. There had been attached to the church for centuries a Grammar School, for which the Chapter had claimed a monopoly of education within the Parish and Liberty, forbidding in 1468 the establishment of any other school without their special licence. This ancient seminary was apparently dissolved, and a new grammar school independent of the church was founded by Edward VI., whose benefaction was completed by Mary, the endowment being provided from the revenues of four of the late chantries. There had also been a Song-school, but it was perhaps merely a room in which boys of the Grammar School were trained to be choristers. Out of the confiscated revenues one or more clergy were paid to minister to the parish, but under Mary the old state of things was in some measure brought back. There was once more a Chamberlain, whose accounts show much the same items as do those of his mediæval predecessors, and the old religion was restored; indeed, there were six altars in the church.
Under Elizabeth there was a return to the arrangement of Edward, the clergy (now as many as five in number) being denominated vicars. Archbishop Sandys (1577-1588), Lord Burleigh, Richard Hooker, Moses Fowler (afterwards the first Dean), and others tried to bring about the establishment of a theological college in the Bedern, and an increase of the endowments of the church, but in vain. The town must have lost all favour in 1569, by taking part in the Rising in the North. It was visited by the rebel earls of Northumberland and Westmorland, many of the townsmen and local gentry joining them, and for the last time the minster witnessed the celebration of the Mass. On the collapse of the rebellion, a number of those who had taken up arms were hanged at Ripon in sight of their homes, and the church suffered much damage from the Queen’s soldiery, who stripped the lead from the roof. Like the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536, this Rising was a protest against the Reformation, and the records of Archbishop Young (1561-1568), and of the Court of High Commission (1580), show that the people of Ripon still clung to the old religion. The pillage of Henry and Edward had no doubt destroyed most of the ornaments of the church, but some still remained or had been renewed under Mary, and the clergy displayed a marked reluctance in removing them; ‘Images,’ even when removed, were concealed in private houses. One vicar named Thomas Blackburne had continued the old practice of holding churchings in the Lady-chapel, and was ordered publicly to renounce this error, as well as that of having left “that olde, abhominable, and supersticious vawte called the Wilfride’s nedle[24] and the alter therein” undefaced. One townsman is punished for having taken part in the Mass during the late Rising. The clergy generally were unclerical in dress and lax in their performance of the reformed services, which the parishioners showed a corresponding unwillingness to attend, while the old fasts and festivals were not wholly given up.
RIPON MINSTER ANTERIOR TO 1660.