york00orns

S. JOHN OF BEVERLEY. 8S
wood, in connection with which he founded a monastery.
This Httle sanctuary was on the site of "an
earlier settlement marked by ' four stones,' from which
we infer that it was the British Pedwarllech and
( rreek Pdoiiaria, chief city of Parisoi, as it still is of
the East Riding. From Pedwarllech we have Beveriac,
Beverley." His good works in this part of the
diocese, and doubtless in others also, were furthered
by the help of Christian laity. Bede tells us of his
dedicating a church on the territory of an earl named
Puch, two miles from Beverley; and of another
which was founded by Earl Addi in the same neighbourhood—indications,
slight, but not without significance,
of the growth of a parochial system. Lands
at
North Burton, Walkington, and other places, were
given to his monastery, and the first stones laid, so to
speak, of a great and magnificent ecclesiastical foundation.
In his declining years he exchanged the
cares and labours of the episcopate for the retirement
of the house he had founded in Deira-wood. In 718
he resigned his see in favour of Wilfrid, second of the
name, whom he nominated as his successor. Wilfrid had
been one of his pupils, and had been for some time
" the I'ice-dominus or al'bas of the monastery at York,
the bishop himself being the doinmus or abbas." John
passed three peaceful years in the quiet retreat of his
monastery at Beverlac, where he ended a pure and
holy life on the 7th May, 721. He was canonised in
1037 by Pope Benedict IX.
Wilfrid II. sat in the chair of York from 718 until
732. He was a munificent bishop, but is not otherwise
remarkable except for having sanctioned a charge