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Ripley, George (ca. 1415-1490)

British alchemist born in Ripley, Yorkshire, England, where his kinsfolk appear to have been powerful and numerous. He entered the Roman Catholic Church, became an Augustinian monk, and was subsequently appointed Canon of Bridlington in his native Yorkshire, a priory which had been founded in the time of Henry I by Walter de Ghent.

Ripley's priestly office did not prevent him from traveling, and he studied physical science and alchemy in France, Germany, and Italy, even voyaging as far as the island of Rhodes, where he is said to have made a large quantity of gold for the knights of St. John of Jerusalem.

Afterward he went to Rome, where he was dignified by the Pope, the result being that when he returned to Bridlington, he found his friends there intensely jealous of him. It was reported that he even resigned his position and retired to a priory at Boston, in Lincolnshire, but this story is probably unfounded, the likelihood being that Ripley the alchemist was confused with George Ripley, a Carmelite friar, who lived at Boston in the thirteenth century and wrote a biography of St. Botolph.

Ripley died in England in 1490, but his fame did not die with him; his name continued to be familiar for many years after his death. He was among the first to popularize the alchemical writings attributed to Raymond Lully, which first became known in England about 1445. An interest in alchemy was increasing steadily among English scholars at this time—the more so because the law against multiplying gold had lately been repealed.

Ripley wrote a number of learned treatises himself, notably Medulla Alchimioe, The Treatise of Mercury and The Compound of Alchemie (first printed 1591), the latter work dedicated to King Edward IV. A collected edition of his writings was issued at Kassel Germany in 1649.