Yorkshire was not only a centre of prayer and pilgrimage but also one of medieval England’s intellectual powerhouses - Dr Michael Carter

It’s Yorkshire Day and many across the county will celebrate living in ‘God’s Own Country’. Today, the phrase evokes the drama of its windswept moors, the beauty of its fertile dales, the rugged coastline, the historic market towns and vibrant cities that make Yorkshire unique. In the Middle Ages, however, it would have had a rather more literal meaning.

Yorkshire was a place where heaven seemed especially close and where people encountered the divine. That encounter was mediated through the saints: men and women renowned for their holiness and believed to enjoy an especially close relationship with God.

The ‘holy company of heaven’ included many who called Yorkshire home: St Hilda, princess and abbess; St Wilfrid, the local boy made good; and St William of York, the Minster’s great saint. Alongside these famous figures were lesser-known holy men and women, such the Blessed Richard Rolle of Hampole, a mystic whose writings helped make Yorkshire not only a centre of prayer and pilgrimage but also one of medieval England’s intellectual powerhouses.

These saints helped shape the Yorkshire we know today — especially its monasteries. Though ruined since the time of Henry VIII, the abbeys and priories that ornament the Yorkshire landscape retain an extraordinary power to stir both the imagination and the spirit. Many once housed the relics of saints. Nowhere was this truer than Rievaulx Abbey.

Founded in the 12th century by austere, white-clad Cistercian monks, Rievaulx became home to no fewer than five men revered as saints and visionaries. Among them was St William, the monastery’s first abbot. A monk of Rievaulx described him as ‘blessed’ and ‘shining like the morning light’. His feast day falls on August 2, and the remains of his shrine can still be seen today. A small lead shoe discovered nearby may have been left as a votive offering by someone seeking the saint’s intercession for a foot complaint.

William’s close friend Waldef, later abbot of Melrose, experienced heavenly visions while sitting in Rievaulx’s cloister, a place medieval monks understood as a foretaste of paradise itself. His feast day is celebrated on August 3. Best known of all, however, is St Aelred. Originally from Hexham, he served as abbot for 20 years and was so loved by his community that they simply called him ‘our Aelred’. His feast day is still observed on January 12, the anniversary of his death in 1167. The magnificent east end of Rievaulx Abbey provided a fitting setting for his shrine and relics. Aelred was also one of the great spiritual writers of the Middle Ages, and his book on friendship continues to find readers today. Some have found in its pages evidence of an emotional attachment to other men and for that reason Aelred has become something of a patron for LGBTQ Christians.

Almost nine centuries have passed since these men left their mark on the religious life of the North. Yet people still come to Rievaulx in a spirit of pilgrimage. Others, of all faiths and none, visit to marvel at its soaring ruins, admire the ingenuity of the monks who built them, or simply contemplate a landscape little changed since the 12th century.

My own fascination with Yorkshire’s monasteries began during childhood visits in the 1970s. Over the decades, I have come to appreciate these sacred places—and the lives lived within them—as more than monuments to a vanished past but as places where generations have sought solace, meaning, friendship and hope. On Yorkshire Day, as the county celebrates its remarkable heritage, pause to hear the voices of the saints that resonate through the ‘bare ruined choirs’ of its monastic remains.