=King Athelstan=. Yorkshire had lately been a separate Danish
kingdom, but it passed under the direct rule of Wessex in 926, and it
was either in that year that Athelstan came, or in 937, when he defeated
the Scots and other northern rebels at Brunanburh. It was to this king
that the church afterwards referred the grant of its most important
privileges. Among these was that of =sanctuary=, by which homicides,
thieves, debtors, etc., could flee to Ripon and live there under the
protection of St. Wilfrid for a specified time. The area within which
they were protected extended one mile from the church in every
direction, and the limit was marked by eight crosses, the base of one of
which is still to be seen on the Sharow Road. The penalties for
molesting refugees were afterwards graduated as follows:--between the
limit and the graveyard wall, L18; within the graveyard, L36; within the
choir (where the pursued sought the last possible refuge at the
'grythstool,' or chair of sanctuary), confiscation of goods and possible
death. Those who took sanctuary were called 'gyrthmen' or 'grythmen'
(from the Anglo-Saxon 'gryth' 'peace'), and undertook, among other
things, to carry the banners before the relics of St. Wilfrid in certain
processions. They were under the spiritual charge of a 'gryth-priest.'
The protection of the outer sanctuary can hardly have been extended to
Ripon men, as theoretically the whole town could then have committed
crimes with impunity, and practically the criminals would not have been
safe from their fellow-townsmen. Ripon debtors did indeed enjoy
protection here at Rogation-tide, but as a rule men of Ripon would seek
sanctuary at Durham or Beverley. Athelstan is also said to have granted
to the church a jurisdiction over its lands independent alike of the
northern archbishop and of the king, with the right to inflict the
ordeals of fire and water, and with exemption from taking oaths, from
taxation, and from military service.[10] Of the two charters in which
these grants are set forth, one is, indeed of the eleventh or twelfth,
and the other of the thirteenth century, but Athelstan may at any rate
have done something to give rise to the tradition, though it is
impossible to tell exactly what. The story of his having given the manor
to the see of York is doubtless misleading. The territorial sway of the
Archbishop at Ripon must be of earlier origin, and it may even have
arisen out of the grant of the monaste