Editing Stephen of Ripon (section)

==Life==

Very little is known about the life of Stephen of Ripon. The author of "The life of Saint Wilfrid" identifies himself as "Stephen, a priest". [[Bede]] mentions that Wilfrid brought a singing master from Kent, ''Ædde Stephanus'', to [[Ripon]] in 669 to teach chant, and traditionally he is thought to be the same person as the "Stephen" mentioned in the text. The written evidence suggest there are two candidates for the same person.{{sfn|Kirby1983|page=102}} If the two were the same, Stephen would have been at least twenty years old when he came north, placing him in his sixties or older at Wilfrid's death in 709. He was then recorded as being present at the anniversary of Wilfrid's death a year later. Thus the question of Stephen's age has made some historians{{efn|name=gof281}} wonder whether Stephen was in Wilfrid's entourage at all but were part of a later generation. The biographer Stephen had Ripon as his religious home and would have been able to consult all the individuals who knew Wilfrid as source material for "The life of Saint Wilfrid".{{sfn|Abels|1983|page=13}}{{sfn|Goffart|2012|pages=281-283}}