For our last meeting of 2007, Robin Jarratt from Wetherby Camera Club gave us a fascinating insight into the history of our local religious heritage calling his slide lecture ‘The Monastic Tradition of North Yorkshire’.

We learned that St. Augustine and the Roman army brought the Christian faith from the Middle East to England in around 45BC when the Angles, Saxons and Jutes were all pagans but any Celtic Christian groups that formed were driven over the border into Scotland. It wasn’t until 633AD that St. Aidan came from the island of Iona to form a new monastery in Northumberland with his successor St. Cuthbert; but once again, it was destroyed, this time by the Danes (Vikings) who murdered the priests. A further attempt was made at Lindisfarne on what became known as Holy Island.

Despite constant opposition, St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert had survived and went on to move south to found monasteries, priories, schools and hospitals at Lastingham (St. Chad’s Well), Whitby and Selby (Benedictine Abbeys), Kirkdale Minster towards Scarborough, Jervaulx, Rievaulx, Byland near Coxwold Village, Easby near Richmond, Ampleforth, the Augustinian Bolton Priory, York and Fountains Abbey, Ripon. It was at Fountains that St. Hilda and Abbott Wilfrid devised the Christian calendar, from the phases of the moon, now recognised throughout the world.

Abbots and Friars became doctors and resided throughout the community; many becoming so wealthy they were asked to attend Parliament! Cistercians, Benedictines, Gilbertines and Augustinians have all united in a faith that has withstood Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, enormous change and time itself - a faith that is more than worthy of Jarratt’s comprehensive talk, delivered with honesty, passion and humorous anecdotes along the way!

Kay Aldcroft LRPS

About Us  Committee  Programme  Galleries  Competitions  HPS Groups  Notices  Links