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His tenure of his new office lasted for five years only, for in 686 Aldfrith, the successor of Ecgfrith, restored Wilfrid not indeed to his original bishopric of Northumbria, but to a see which combined the lately-formed dioceses of Ripon and York . Eadhead accordingly retired, and there were no more Bishops of Ripon for twelve centuries.
Under the peaceful reigns of Ecgfrith's successors, Aldfrith and Ceolwulf, their kingdom became the literary centre of Western Europe. No schools were more famous than those of Jarrow and York. The whole learning of the age seemed to be summed up in a Northumbrian scholar.
To Wilfrid was restored not only his bishopric, but also his monastery of Ripon, which he retained in peace for the next five years. At the end of that time a long dispute arose with Aldfrith, who was veering back to the diocesan partition of Theodore, and Wilfrid, deprived of his see for the third time, crossed over into Mercia.
On the death of Aldfrith, the new King, Edwulf, banished Wilfrid once more, ordering him to leave the kingdom within six days; but the friends of Aldfrith's young son, whom Edwulf had dispossessed, obtained the ascendancy, and Wilfrid was re-instated in his Abbeys of Hexham and Ripon.
He went southwards and dwelt in Sussex, where his genius for hard work found scope in a mission to the Saxons of the south lands, and where he built and founded more churches and monasteries. Readers of "Rewards and Fairies" will have made acquaintance with Wilfrid in his Sussex wanderings and hardships. On his recall to the North by King Aldfrith, he returned to Hexham.
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