Saint Cuthbert

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Cuthbert c.634–87, monk and bishop of Lindisfarne. Not only his personal achievements but also the incorruption of his body apparently for several centuries powerfully contributed to the popularity of his cult, so that he became, and remains, Northern England's most popular saint. His bones and unique secondary relics associated with him rest at Durham Cathedral.

Born of a fairly well-to-do Anglo-Saxon family, Cuthbert became a monk at Melrose in 651. With abbot Eata he moved to Ripon to start a monastery on estates given by Oswiu's son Alcfrith; Alcfrith, however, insisted on the adoption of Roman customs; the Melrose monks retired and were succeeded by Wilfrid. Cuthbert became prior of Melrose c.661; during the next few years he undertook missionary journeys for a week or a month at a time in the neigh-bourhood. After the Synod of Whitby (663/4) he adopted Roman customs and became prior at Lindisfarne, where by his patient persistence he gradually won over the monks to his own point of view. He lived as a hermit for a time on St. Cuthbert's Isle adjacent to Lindisfarne, and in 676, relinquishing the office of prior, he withdrew to Inner Farne, where Aidan used to spend Lent, in order to live in almost complete solitude. However, by 685, through visitors from Lindisfarne and elsewhere, his holiness and other qualities had become so famous that he was chosen by King Egfrith and Archbishop Theodore as bishop of Hexham. Almost immediately he exchanged this see with Eata for that of Lindisfarne. His zeal was expressed in preaching, teaching, and visiting his diocese; he was also reputed to have gifts of prophecy and of healing. His extraordinary charm and ability can be inferred from the Lives. He died on Inner Farne on 20 March 687, after only two years as a bishop and a painful last illness, and was buried at Lindisfarne. Eleven years afterwards, when his body was elevated to a shrine in the church, its incorruption was discovered.

After the Vikings destroyed Lindisfarne in 875, several members of its community travelled round Northern England and SW. Scotland with the shrine and relics, seeking a safe home for them. Places where they rested include Northam-on-Tweed, Ripon, and Chester-le-Street, where King Athelstan offered 96 lb. of silver, two gospel books, and a book of his Life to the shrine (now MS. Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 183). Their permanent home was Durham, reached in 995. A Saxon church was built over the shrine: Cuthbert's relics were translated into it in 999.

Under William of St. Carilef, Durham became a monastic see in 1083; the monks who formed its chapter were drawn from the revived monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow and were mainly Anglo-Saxon in race and outlook. Cuthbert's relics were translated to the new Norman Cathedral in 1104. Once again the body was examined and pronounced incorrupt even by observers originally sceptical. It remained in the shrine until this was dismantled at the Reformation; then the Commissioners, impressed by its extraordinarily lifelike condition, wrote back to London for special instructions. Eventually the relics were buried under their original site. There they remained until 1828 when they were re-examined: the bones were reburied, but the secondary relics such as cloths, vestments, and the contemporary coffin, portable altar, and pectoral cross are housed in the monastic buildings at Durham. Important manuscripts connected with Cuthbert include the Lindisfarne Gospels and the uncial Gospel of St. John of Stonyhurst College (Lancs.); now in the British Library. These near-contemporary works were associated with the shrine at an early date.

The cult of Cuthbert was well established in the late 7th century. An anonymous Life by a monk of Lindisfarne and another by Bede were both written soon after the translation of 698. Both were soon in demand on the Continent as well as in England: the abbot of Wearmouth, Cuthbert, sent Bede's Life to Lull, archbishop of Mainz. During the Danish invasions the cult had spread to Wessex and Kent. But the most important period for its development was 1000–1200. Miracle stories were collected, manuscripts of his Lives produced; especially important was MS. University College, Oxford, 165, which was the first fully illustrated Life of a saint to be produced in England. Another one of the late 12th century is at London. B.L. Yates Thompson MS. 26.

The translation of 1104 and the verification of incorruption gave an immense stimulus to the cult. The Durham community fostered it and lost no chance to gain temporal advantage from the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert, an extensive set of lands supposedly given to him during his life or dedicated to him after his death by kings and magnates. From Durham as its centre the cult spread over much of England and Scotland. No fewer than 135 churches are dedicated to Cuthbert in England, besides seventeen in Scotland. Most are in the six northern counties and the remainder as far afield as Cornwall, Somerset, and East Anglia. Calendars and martyrologies tell the same story. Cuthbert is in the Martyrology of Bede and early continental ones, and in the Calendar of Willibrord. In 819 a chapel in the crypt was dedicated to him at the consecration of Fulda. By the late 12th century Reginald of Durham claimed that the three most popular English saints were Cuthbert, Edmund, and Etheldreda. This was probably true, as each of the three is found in most medieval calendars and each had a story of incorruption (of which Cuthbert's is the best documented). Other notable examples of Cuthbert iconography in the later Middle Ages are the Cuthbert window in York Minster and the paintings on the backs of the stalls at Carlisle cathedral.

Place-names such as Kirkcudbright (Galloway), Cotherstone (N. Yorkshire), and Cubert (Cornwall) recall his name, as do various geographical features of the Inner Farne, where he died. This was used as a hermitage by Durham monks. Appropriately all the Farne Islands, once believed to be specially under Cuthbert's protection, are now a sanctuary for birds, seals, and other wild life under the care of the National Trust. Feast: 20 March: translation 4 September.

Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.

• Bede, H.E., iv. 27–32
• W. Jaager (ed.), Bedas Metrische Vita sancti Cuthberti (1935)
• B. Colgrave, Two Lives of St. Cuthbert (text and translation) (1940)
• Bede's Prose Life also in J. F. Webb and D. H. Farmer, The Age of Bede (1983)
• Symeon of Durham, Opera (ed.T. Arnold) (R.S., 1882–5)
• Reginald of Durham, De admirandis virtutibus B. Cuthberti (S.S., 1835)
• Sir E. Craster, ‘The Miracles of St. Cuthbert at Farne’, Anal. Boll., lxx (1952), 5–19 (English translation in Arch. Aeliana, xxix (1951), 93–107). The most comprehensive studies are C. F. Battiscombe (ed.), The Relics of St. Cuthbert (1956) and G. Bonner and others, St. Cuthbert, his cult and his community (1989).
•  For particular aspects see H. H. E. Craster, ‘The Patrimony of St. Cuthbert’, E.H.R., lxix (1954), 177–99
• A. Hamilton Thompson, ‘Churches dedicated to St. Cuthbert’, Trans. Arch. and Archaeol. Soc. of Durham and Northumberland (1936), 151 ff.
• B. Colgrave, ‘Post-Bedan Miracles and Translations of St. Cuthbert’ in The Early English Culture of North-West Europe (ed.C. Fox and B. Dickins, 1950). For Cuthbert's iconography M. Baker, ‘Medieval Illustrations of Bede's Life of St. Cuthbert’, Jnl. of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, xli (1978), 16–49,
• See also D. Rollason, ‘Le corps incorruptible de Saint Cuthbert’ in E. Bozoky & A. M. Helvetius, Les reliques: objets, cultes, symboles (1999)

Cuthbert, St (d. 687). Probably of aristocratic Anglo-Saxon origin, and born in Northumbria c.5, Cuthbert was prompted by a vision of the soul of Aidan to enter the monastery at Melrose. With Abbot Eata, he entered Alchfrith of Deira's new monastery at Ripon (late 650s), but returned after refusing to accept Roman practices. Cuthbert became prior in 664 and undertook teaching tours in Northumbria. After the Synod of Whitby (664), Eata removed to Lindisfarne. Cuthbert followed and became prior, but had some difficulties managing the monks. He retreated to Farne Island (c.676) but was, reluctantly, made bishop of part of Northumbria under Archbishop Theodore (685). His seat was at Lindisfarne. He retired in 686 and died in 687, on Farne. In 698, in promotion of his cult, his remains, buried at Lindisfarne, were exhumed and enshrined, in which process they were found to be incorrupt, and for which the Lindisfarne Gospels may have been produced. Scandinavian pressure having caused the community to move, his coffin reached Durham in 995, where a new shrine was established in 1104. The 698 decorated coffin survives, in fragments, now displayed with his pectoral cross and some Anglo-Saxon gifts to his shrine in the cathedral.

Cuthbert, Saint (kŭth'bərt), c.A.D. 635-A.D. 687, Celtic monk, bishop at Lindisfarne (685-86). He spent some time in the monastery at Ripon. When St. Wilfrid introduced the Roman computation of Easter there, he left, but later he accepted the change. Cuthbert preached for some years in his native Scotland, especially to the Picts of Galloway. He became prior at Lindisfarne (see Holy Island) but after some years resigned (676) to live in solitary retreat on Farne Island. With great reluctance, he accepted (685) the bishopric of Bernicia at Lindisfarne, retiring to Farne for his last weeks. His relics were taken to Durham later. Feast: Mar. 20.

Bibliography

See B. Colgrave, Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert (1940, repr. 1969).

Gender: Masculine
Usage: English
Pronounced: KUTH-burt  

Derived from the Old English elements cuæ "famous" and beorht "bright". Saint Cuthbert was a hermit who became the bishop of Lindisfarne, an island off the coast of England. He was known as performer of healing miracles.

Frequency: (945)
(number of times this surname appears in a sample database of 88.7 million names, representing one third of the 1997 US population)

English: from the Middle English personal name Cudbert, Old English Cuðbeorht, composed of the elements cūð ‘famous’, ‘well known’ + beorht ‘bright’, ‘famous’. The name was borne by a 7th-century saint, bishop of Hexham and later of Lindisfarne, and remained popular because of his cult throughout the Middle Ages, especially in northern England and the lowlands of Scotland.

See the Key to the Dictionary or consult the General Introduction for further explanation.