Ripon as the Liberty of Ripon and it was during this time that a grand Collegiate Church was built on top of the ruins of Wilfrid's building. Eventually developed in the Gothic style, the project owed much to the work of Roger de Pont L'Evêque and Walter de Gray, two Archbishops of York during the Plantagenet era. During the 12th century Ripon built up a booming wool trade, attracting Italian trade merchants, especially Florentines, who bought and exported large quantities. Ripon's proximity to Fountains Abbey, where the Cistercians had a long tradition of sheep farming and owned much grazing land, was
Cistercian nuns Cistercian nuns Cistercian nuns are female members of the Cistercian Order, a religious order belonging to the Roman Catholic branch of the Catholic Church. The first Cistercian monastery for women, Le Tart Abbey, was established at Tart-l'Abbaye in the Diocese of Langres (now Dijon), in the year 1125, by nuns from the Benedictine monastery of Juilly, and with the co-operation of Saint Stephen Harding, abbot of Cîteaux. At Juilly, a dependence of Molesme Abbey, Humbeline, the sister of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, lived and died. The Cistercian nuns of Le Tart founded successively Ferraque (1140) in the Diocese of Noyon,