=The Saxon Monastery.=--In 669 Wilfrid was restored to his see by Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, and soon afterwards began to build at Ripon. The Scottish monastery, which was probably of wood, is thought to have occupied a site between Priest Lane, Stonebridgegate,[2] and a nameless road which connects them. Wilfrid now abandoned it, and erected upon a new site a more imposing monastery of stone.[3] The practice of building in stone seems to have become uncommon in Britain after the departure of the Romans, and Wilfrid is thought to have employed foreign workmen, perhaps Italians.[4] His church is described by Eddius, himself now a Ripon monk, as "of smoothed stone from base to summit, and supported on various columns and (?) arcades (_porticibus_)," and was doubtless of that Italian type which had become identified in Britain with the Roman party in the Church, as opposed to the Scottish mission. The Scottish type of church consisted of a small aisle-less nave and square chancel: the Italian type generally had aisles, and the altar was usually raised upon a platform, beneath which was a crypt called _confessio_. A little later than 670 A.D. Wilfrid's new minster was solemnly dedicated by him in honour of St. Peter, in the presence of a great concourse of clergy and nobles, headed by the King of Northumbria, Ecgfrith, the successor of Oswiu. The endowments seem to have included at this time certain lands round Ripon which had belonged to the British Church before the coming of the Angles, and to have been now increased by grants--some as far distant as Lancashire--made by the great men present at the ceremony. Wilfrid himself gave a splendid copy of the Gospels, written in gold upon purple vellum, the beginning perhaps of a library.[5] The feasting was kept up for three days--indeed, no monastery could have had for its church a more striking dedication. And for the next seven years Ripon must have shared the importance of the Abbot-Bishop, whose state rivalled that of the king. By persuading the queen to become a nun, however, he presently lost the royal favour; while the great size of the diocese, which extended at last from the Forth to the Wash, prevented the achievement of complete success in his episcopal work.