[6] The Saint’s return after his long exile is still commemorated at Ripon, early in August, on the first Saturday after Lammas Day, when a man dressed as a Saxon bishop and riding a grey horse is escorted through the streets.
[7] This liturgical term sometimes refers to the burial of a saint, sometimes, as here, to the death.
[8] There is also mention of an Abbot Tylberht, but he may be the same as Tatberht.
[9] I.e., ‘Elves-how’—‘the hill of fairies.’ Coins of Aella and other early kings have been found in the hill.
[10] At a later period the Chapter claimed also that ‘St. Wilfrid’s men’ need not pay tolls when travelling on business through the realm, and on one occasion they issued to a Ripon clerk a kind of passport.
[11] Frisia’s debt was remembered in the seventeenth century, when one of the Canons of Antwerp wrote an account of Ripon monastery for his countrymen.
[12] Until Walbran drew attention to this passage, the rebuilding was attributed to Thurstan.
[13] Especially at St. Wilfrid’s shrine.
[14] It has been suggested that this was the iron which in Saxon times had been used for the ordeal of fire.
[15] A Peculiar is a district taken out of its geographical surroundings for purposes of ecclesiastical jurisdiction (Sir W. Anson).