ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



The mention of the Ribble (Rippel) indicates generally the position of the 

 first of these regions granted to Wilfrid, in other words, to the see of York. 

 It was undoubtedly part of the later Lancashire, but what part is not so clear. 

 In quoting this passage, Leland (unless it was an interpolation in the copy of 

 Eddi's work which he followed) interjects after Rippel the explanation, ' id 

 est Hacmundernes,' ^^ thus identifying the district in question with the land 

 between the Ribble and the Cocker, which from the tenth century at latest 

 has borne the name of Amounderness." Canon Raine, who overlooked this 

 passage, was inclined to give a wider extension to the ' regio juxta Rippel ' 

 which would make it include the greater part of the present Lancashire, the 

 district extending from the Mersey as far north as the Cocker. In support of 

 this view he appealed to the list of the gifts to Wilfrid as given in a lost 

 twelfth-century life of the saint by Peter of Blois, also quoted by Leland. 

 This list, which differs from Eddi's both in addition and omission, runs as 

 follows : — ' Rible et Hasmundesham et Marchesiae et in regione Duninga.' '* 

 Canon Raine takes the earlier part of this to mean Amounderness, and the 

 ' terra inter Ripam et Mersham ' of Domesday Book, the country between the 

 Ribble and Mersey. He has, of course, to assume that the sentence is badly 

 dislocated, as well as corrupt in its forms. Peter of Blois' interpretation of an 

 ambiguous phrase written down five centuries before his time cannot carry 

 any weight of its own, but it is possible that the meaning put upon it in the 

 passage first cited from Leland is really too narrow, and that 'juxta Rippel' 

 covered the districts both south and north of that river. 



The first name in Eddi's list at least gives a starting point for identifica- 

 tion, but it is followed by three unknowns. If we bear in mind that the later 

 archdeaconry of Richmond, in the diocese of York, extended over the 

 Pennine Range to the western sea, and included, besides Amounderness, the 

 rest of the present north Lancashire and the southern halves of the present 

 counties of Cumberland and Westmorland, its northern boundary in this 

 direction being the Cumberland Derwent and the Eden watershed, it is 

 tempting to locate the unknown names among the royal gifts to Wilfrid in 

 this quarter, and so obtain a direct record of its annexation to the see of 

 York. This Canon Raine attempted to do. Gaedyne, indeed, he was 

 inclined to identify with Gilling (Bede's ' in Getlingum ') in Yorkshire, and 

 accounted for its appearing in this collocation on the theory that as it contained 

 the nearest monastery to the new western annexations, they may have been 

 placed under the charge of its abbot. The ' regio Dunutinga,' he thought, 

 might be the country watered by the Duddon (Duddondale, locally Dunner- 

 dale) and Caetlaevum Cartmel. But Cartmel cannot be identified with 

 Caetlaevum ; the other identifications, too, are equally unconvincing, and 

 after all there is perhaps no necessity to look for the whole of the places 

 mentioned in this quarter. Eddi's words are certainly more consistent with 

 the view that Wilfrid was enumerating royal gifts of land in different quarters 

 than with the supposition that he was describing a great addition to his 

 diocese." The latter may more probably be referred to in the mention of 

 the holy places from which the British clergy had been driven. 



" Leland, Collectanea, iii, 109. " Kemble, Cod. Dipl. No. 352. " Leland, Coll. iii, no. 



" As regards Gaedyne, Mr. Stevenson tells me that Gae may in Southern Northumbrian have produced 

 Tea, and points out that curiously enough there is a Yeadon in the West Riding of Yorkshire. 



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