CHAPTER 8: Alhfrith gives him the monastery at Ripon [c. 660]
CHAPTER 8
Alhfrith gives him the monastery at Ripon [c. 660]
THEIR love for each other increased daily. As a proof of this Alhfrith gave the saintly confessor Wilfrid about ten hides1 of land at Stanforda2 and then shortly afterwards, for his own soul’s good, he gave him the monastery at Ripon and thirty hides of land to go with it. Wilfrid was appointed abbot. This great opportunity for worldly aggrandizement – given by the Lord through the prayers of St Peter – Wilfrid used as a means of almsgiving: Widow and orphan, the poor and those beset with any kind of infirmity, all benefited from his charity. You can tell from this that only lack of means had previously restricted his generosity. Behold with awe, my dear brethren, the benefit God bestowed on the king who ‘found a goodly pearl and straightway bought it’. And the king was not alone in his love for Abbot Wilfrid; everyone, nobles and commons alike, looked on him as a prophet of God – which indeed he was.