Cuthbert of Lindisfarne

For more information on Saint Cuthbert, visit Britannica.com.

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.

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.

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.

For the Dungeons & Dragons deity, see Saint Cuthbert (Dungeons & Dragons).

Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne
Banner depicting St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, from Durham Cathedral
Bishop
Born	c. 634, Dunbar, Northumbria (now Scotland)
Died	20 March 687, Inner Farne, Northumberland
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church ; Anglican Communion ; Orthodox church
Major shrine	Durham Cathedral, County Durham
Feast	20 March; 4 September (Church in Wales)
Attributes	Bishop holding a second crowned head in his hands; sometimes accompanied by sea-birds and animals
Patronage	Northumbria

St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne (c. 634–20 March 687) was an Anglo-Saxon monk and bishop in the Kingdom of Northumbria which at that time included, in modern terms, north east England and south east Scotland as far as the Firth of Forth. Afterwards he became one of the most important medieval saints of England, with widespread recognition in the places he had been in Scotland. Cuthbert is regarded as the patron saint of Northumbria. His feast day is 20 March.

Contents 1 Life 1.1 Origins 1.2 Achievement of fame 1.3 Hermit's life 1.4 Election to the bishopric of Lindisfarne 2 Legacy 2.1 Relics 2.2 Namesakes 2.3 St Cuthbert and the haliwerfolc 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

Life

Origins

Cuthbert was of Northumbrian origin, probably from the neighbourhood of Dunbar at the mouth of the Firth of Forth in modern-day Scotland. While still a boy, employed as a shepherd, one night he had a vision of the soul of Aidan being carried to heaven by angels and thereupon went to the monastery of Old Melrose and became a monk (651). Soon afterwards, however, he became a soldier for several years.

Achievement of fame

Cuthbert at prayer in The Little Lives of the Saints, illustrated by Charles Robinson in 1904.

After his return to the monastery, his fame for piety, diligence, and obedience quickly grew. When Alchfrith, king of Deira, founded a new monastery at Ripon, Cuthbert became its praepositus hospitum or visitors' host.

Alchfrith, however, returned to Melrose. Illness struck the monastery in 664 and while Cuthbert recovered, the prior died and Cuthbert was made prior in his place.^[1][2] He spent much time among the people, ministering to their spiritual needs, carrying out missionary journeys, preaching, and performing miracles.

After the Synod of Whitby, Cuthbert seems to have accepted the Roman customs, and his old abbot, Eata, called on him to introduce them at Lindisfarne. This was an ungrateful task, but Cuthbert disarmed opposition with his loving and patient nature.

His asceticism was complemented by his charm and generosity to the poor, and his reputation for gifts of healing and insight led many people to consult him, gaining him the name of "Wonder Worker of Britain". He continued his missionary work, travelling the breadth of the country from Berwick to Galloway to carry out pastoral work and founding an oratory at Dull, Scotland complete with a large stone cross, and a little cell for himself, at a site which subsequently became a monastery then later the University of St Andrews.^[1] He is also said to have founded St Cuthbert's church in Edinburgh.^[3]

A close-up of the twelfth century painting of St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral

Hermit's life

In 676 he adopted the solitary life and retired to a cave. After a time he settled on one of the Farne Islands, south of Lindisfarne, and gave himself more and more to austerities. At first he would receive visitors and wash their feet, but later he confined himself to his cell and opened the window only to give his blessing. While on the Farne Islands, he instituted special laws to protect the Eider ducks and other seabirds nesting on the islands; these may have been the first bird protection laws anywhere in the world. Consequently, eider ducks are often called cuddy ducks (Cuthbert's ducks) in modern Northumbrian dialects.

Election to the bishopric of Lindisfarne

In 684, Cuthbert was elected bishop of Lindisfarne, at a synod at Twyford (believed to be present-day Alnmouth)^[4], but was reluctant to leave his retirement and take up his charge; it was only after a visit from a large group, including king Ecgfrith, that he agreed to return and take up the duties of bishop. He was consecrated at York by Archbishop Theodore and six bishops, on 26 March 685. After Christmas, 686, however, he returned to his cell on Inner Farne Island (two miles from Bamburgh, Northumberland), which was where he eventually died on 20 March 687 AD. He was buried at Lindisfarne, and his remains later transferred to Durham Cathedral.

Legacy

Relics

Cuthbert in The Little Lives of the Saints, illustrated by Charles Robinson in 1904.

Legend had it that when Cuthbert's burial casket was opened eleven years after his death, his body was found to have been perfectly preserved (see Incorruptibility).^[5] This apparent miracle led to the steady growth of Cuthbert's posthumous cultus, to the point where he became the most popular saint of Northern England. Numerous miracles were attributed to his intercession and to intercessory prayer near his remains. The noted 8th century author Bede wrote both a verse and a prose life of St Cuthbert around 720. He has been described as "perhaps the most popular saint in England prior to the death of Thomas Becket in 1170."^[6]

In 875 the Danes took the monastery of Lindisfarne and the monks fled, carrying with them St Cuthbert's body around various places including Melrose.^[2] After seven years' wandering it found a resting-place at Chester-le-Street until 995, when another Danish invasion led to its removal to Ripon. Then the saint intimated, as it was believed, that he wished to remain in Durham. A new stone church—the so-called 'White Church'—was built, the predecessor of the present grand Cathedral.

A piece of public artwork in brass called the Journey, showing the coffin of Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne being carried by 6 monks, eventually to Durham.

In 1104 Cuthbert's tomb was opened again and his relics translated to a new shrine behind the altar of the recently completed Cathedral. When the casket was opened, a small book of the gospels, measuring only three-and-a-half by five inches, now known as the Stonyhurst Gospel, was found. It was also discovered that his vestment was made of Byzantine "Nature Goddess" silk, indicating the extent of the silk trade at this time.^[7] His shrine was destroyed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries, but, unusually, his relics survived and are still interred at the site (although they were also disinterred in the 19th century, when his wooden coffin and various relics were removed). When the coffin was last inspected on 17 May 1827, a Saxon square cross of gold, embellished with garnets, in the characteristic splayed shape, used later as the heraldic emblem of St Cuthbert in the arms of Durham and Newcastle universities, was found.

Namesakes

The Cross of St Cuthbert features as the principal charge on the coat of arms of the University of Durham, granted in 1843, blazoned Argent, a Cross of St Cuthbert Gules, on a canton Azure, a chevron Or, between three lions rampant of the first ('A red Cross of St Cuthbert on a silver shield with three little silver fighting lions around a gold chevron on a blue square in the top left-hand corner'). The Cross also features in the arms of many of its constituent colleges. The University of Newcastle upon Tyne, formerly King's College in the University of Durham, features St Cuthbert's Cross on its arms, originally granted in 1937, too. The Newcastle University arms are blazoned Azure, a Cross of St Cuthbert Argent, and on a chief of the last a lion passant guardant Gules. ('A silver Cross of St Cuthbert on a blue shield, with a red lion walking and looking towards you on the silver top third portion of the shield.')

St Cuthbert's Society, a college of Durham University, is named after him and is located only a short walk from the coffin of the saint at Durham Cathedral. The Society celebrates St Cuthbert's Day on or around each 20 March with a magnificent feast. "Cuth's Day", the annual college day, is celebrated in the Epiphany term with music, entertainment, festivities and drinking.

St Cuthbert is also the namesake of St Cuthbert's College in Epsom, New Zealand, which celebrates St Cuthbert's Day on 20 March as a day of school celebration. The school's houses are named after important locations in the life of the Saint: Dunblane (Yellow), Elgin (Green), Iona (Purple), Kelso (Blue), Lindisfarne (White) and Melrose (Red). St Cuthberts High School, a Roman Catholic school in Newcastle upon Tyne is names after the saint. St Cuthbert's day was at one time celebrated with Mass, and the school prayers still include reference to their patron Saint (always ending with the invocation "St Cuthbert, pray for us"). The school badge features a bishop's crook in reference to St Cuthbert's time as a bishop, as well as ducks, reflecting his love of the animals.

St. Cuthbert's Co-operative Society opened its first shop in Edinburgh in 1859, and expanded to become one of the largest Co-ops before amalgamating with the Dalziel Society of Motherwell in 1981 and being renamed Scotmid. Its dairy used horse drawn delivery floats until 1985, and between 1944 and 1959 employed as a milkman one Sean Connery, who later went on to fame as the most famous James Bond.

Many churches are named for Cuthbert. An Orthodox Community in Chesterfield, England has taken St Cuthbert as their patron.^[8]

Crinoid columnals extracted from limestone quarried on Lindisfarne, or found washed up along the foreshore, which were threaded into necklaces or rosaries, became known as St Cuthbert's beads.

In Northumberland the Eider Duck is known as the Cuddy Duck, after St Cuthbert who protected them on the Farne Islands. They still breed in their thousands off the Northumberland Coast.^[9]

St Cuthbert and the haliwerfolc

During the medieval period, St Cuthbert became politically important in defining the identity of the people living in the semi-autonomous region known as the Palatinate of Durham. Within this area the Bishop of Durham had almost as much power as the king of England himself, and the saint became a powerful symbol of the autonomy the region enjoyed. The inhabitants of the Palatinate became known as the haliwerfolc, which roughly translates as "people of the saint", and Cuthbert gained a reputation as being fiercely protective of his domain.^[10] For example, there is a story that at the Battle of Neville's Cross in 1346, the Prior of the Abbey at Durham received a vision of Cuthbert, ordering him to take the corporax cloth of the saint and raise it on a spear point near the battlefield as a banner. Doing this, the Prior and his monks found themselves protected "by the mediation of holy St Cuthbert and the presence of the said holy Relic."^[11] Whether the story of the vision is true or not, the banner of St Cuthbert was regularly carried in battle against the Scots until the Reformation, and it serves as a good example of how St Cuthbert was regarded as a protector of his people.

See also

• St. Cuthbert's coffin
• The Incorruptibles

References

• Saint Cuthbert in Orthodoxy
• A Brief Life and History of St.Cuthbert by John Butcher, Melrose Historical Society
• Bede's Life of Cuthbert

1. ^ ^{a b} St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne
2. ^ ^{a b} Melrose Abbey, Medieval Abbey at Melrose, Scotland
3. ^ St Cuthbert's Website – Edinburgh church.
4. ^ The Gentleman's Magazine, volume XXXVIII, 1852 page 500 from Google Book Search
5. ^ St Cuthbert, Catholic Encyclopedia
6. ^ Dominic Marner, St. Cuthbert: His Life and Cult in Medieval Durham (2000), page 9.
7. ^ Dr G.R. Jones, Anglo-saxon England and the Wider World
8. ^ St Cuthbert's Orthodox Community website
9. ^ BBC - Radio 4 - The Living World: The Eider Duck
10. ^ G.T. Lapsley, The County Palatinate of Durham (1900)
11. ^ The Rites of Durham, being a Description or Brief Declaration of All the Ancient Monuments, Rites and Customs belonging or being within the Monastical Church of Durham before the Suppression, written 1593, ed. J. T. Fowler (Surtees Society 107, 1902)

External links

• Prosopography of Anglo Saxon England entry for Cuthbert

Roman Catholic Church titles
Preceded by Saint Eata	Bishop of Lindisfarne 685 - 687	Succeeded by Saint Eadberht

Persondata
NAME	Cuthbert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Bishop of Lindisfarne; Saint
DATE OF BIRTH
PLACE OF BIRTH
DATE OF DEATH	20 March, 687
PLACE OF DEATH

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)