Ripon, in common with other cathedral cities, possesses this charm, and after many vicissitudes presents us with a magnificent cathedral. To revert to the commencement of the city's history, it is supposed to have derived its name from the Latin "Ripa," owing to its situation upon the bank of the river Ure. The earliest authentic record gives it under the name of Inhrypun, in connection with the establishment of a monastery in 660 by Eata, who was then Abbot of Melrose. It was subsequently given by Alfred, King of Northumbria, to Wilfrid, who had been raised to the archbishopric of York. He was afterwards canonised as a saint. Under Wilfrid's administration and influence the town very much increased its wealth and importance. Through the division of the bishopric in the year 678 Ripon became a see.
A great calamity overtook the city in the ninth century. The Danes burnt and plundered it, causing such devastation that it was almost wiped out. From its ruins, however, it recovered so quickly as to be incorporated as a royal borough by Alfred the Great. This happened by the year 886. In the suppression of the insurrections of the Northumbrian Danes it suffered severely through the terrible laying waste of the land which Edred found necessary to subdue them.
Little time was left for the city to regain its former prosperity, when the surrounding country was again laid waste, in 1069, by William the Conqueror after defeating the Northumbrian rebels. This monarch's vengeance so completely demolished the town that it still remained in ruins and the land uncultivated at the time of the Norman survey. The monastery, destroyed by Edred, was rebuilt by Oswald and his successors, who were archbishops of York. It was endowed and made collegiate by Archbishop Aldred somewhere about the time of the Conquest. The city was now enjoying comparative peace, and was regaining lost prestige when it again became a mere wreck. Under Robert Bruce, in the reign of Edward II., the Scots compelled the inhabitants to surrender everything of value they had, and burnt the town. This period of devastation lasted from 1319 till 1323.
By the exertions of the Archbishop of York, ably assisted with donations from the local gentry, the city rapidly recovered by the time a terrible plague compelled Henry IV. to leave London and take up his residence here. The court of necessity followed him.
This royal sojourn did the city immense good, and again it derived benefit some two centuries after by the presence of the Lord President of York in 1617. He had been obliged by a similar plague to remove his court hither.
Ten years later another royal visitor came, namely, James I., who rested a night here on his route from Scotland to London. On this memorable occasion he was presented with a pair of Ripon spurs. From early times till the sixteenth century Ripon was a recognised centre for the manufacture of woollen caps. On the decline of this industry the city acquired such a fame for the manufacture of spurs that it became quite a current phrase to say "as true steel as Ripon rowels." Ben Jonson and Davenant make references in their verses to Ripon spurs. This industry, together with those of manufacturing buttons and various kinds of hardware, flourished till quite recently, when mechanical industries supplanted them.
In 1633 Charles I. also paid the city a visit. During the Civil War the parliamentary troops, under Sir Thomas Mauleverer, took possession of Ripon. After mutilating many of the monuments and ornaments of the church, they were eventually driven out of the town in 1643 by the Royalists, under Sir John Mallory of Studley, a township comprised under Ripon. In recounting the political fortunes of the city little has been said about its chief attraction, the Cathedral, not because it has played no important factor in the welfare of the city, but because it has been considered better to give, apart, the chief characteristics of its architecture.