33 Facts About Cuthbert

Cuthbert was a monk, bishop and hermit, associated with the monasteries of Melrose and Lindisfarne in the Kingdom of Northumbria, today in north-eastern England and south-eastern Scotland.

Cuthbert grew up in or around Lauderdale, near Old Melrose Abbey, a daughter-house of Lindisfarne, today in Scotland.

Cuthbert decided to become a monk after seeing a vision on the night in 651 that Aidan, the founder of Lindisfarne, died, but he seems to have experienced some period of military service beforehand.

Cuthbert was made guest-master at the new monastery at Ripon, soon after 655, but had to return with Eata of Hexham to Melrose when Wilfrid was given the monastery instead.

Cuthbert was born in Dunbar, then in Anglo-Saxon Northumbria, and now in East Lothian, Scotland, in the mid-630s, some ten years after the conversion of King Edwin of Northumbria to Christianity in 627, which was slowly followed by that of the rest of his people.

Edwin had been baptised by Paulinus of York, a Roman who had come with the Gregorian mission from Rome, but his successor Oswald invited Irish monks from Iona to found the monastery at Lindisfarne where Cuthbert was to spend much of his life.

Cuthbert appears to have undergone military service, but at some point he joined the very new monastery at Melrose, under the prior Boisil.

When Wilfrid was made abbot of the monastery, Eata and Cuthbert returned to Melrose.

Illness struck the monastery in 664 and while Cuthbert recovered, the prior died and Cuthbert was made prior in his place.

Cuthbert spent much time among the people, ministering to their spiritual needs, carrying out missionary journeys, preaching, and performing miracles.

Cuthbert's 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".

Cuthbert 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.

Cuthbert is said to have founded St Cuthbert's Church in Edinburgh.

Cuthbert retired in 676, moved by the desire for a more contemplative life.

Shortly afterwards, Cuthbert moved to Inner Farne island, two miles from Bamburgh, off the coast of Northumberland, where he gave himself up to a life of great austerity.

In 684, Cuthbert was elected Bishop of Hexham at a synod at Twyford, 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, but instead as Bishop of Lindisfarne, swapping with Eata, who went to Hexham in Cuthbert's place.

Cuthbert was buried at Lindisfarne the same day, and after long journeys escaping the Danes his remains chose, as was thought, to settle at Durham, causing the foundation of the city and Durham Cathedral.

The St Cuthbert Gospel is among the objects later recovered from St Cuthbert's coffin, which is an important artefact.

Thereafter, the royal house of Wessex, who became the kings of England, made a point of devotion to Cuthbert, which gave a useful political message, as they came from opposite ends of the English nation.

Cuthbert was "a figure of reconciliation and a rallying point for the reformed identity of Northumbria and England" after the absorption of the Danish populations into Anglo-Saxon society, as Michelle Brown puts it.

In 995, the "community of Cuthbert" founded and settled at Durham, guided by what they thought was the will of the saint, as the wagon carrying his coffin back to Chester-le-Street after a temporary flight from a Danish invasion became stuck hard on the road.

The inhabitants of the Palatinate became known as the haliwerfolc, which roughly translates as "people of the saint", and Cuthbert gained a reputation as fiercely protective of his domain.

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 corporal cloth of the saint and raise it on a spear point near the battlefield as a banner.

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.

Cuthbert's cult appealed to the converted Danes, who now made up much of the population of Kingdom of York, and was adopted by the Normans when they took over England.

Cuthbert's shrine at Durham Cathedral was a major pilgrimage site throughout the Middle Ages, until stripped by Henry VIII's commissioners in the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

In 1104 Cuthbert's tomb was opened again and his relics translated to a new shrine behind the altar of the recently completed Cathedral.

Cuthbert's shrine was destroyed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries, but, unusually, his relics survived and are still interred at the site, although they were disinterred in the 19th century, when his wooden coffin and various relics were removed.

St Cuthbert's coffin, as reconstructed by Ernst Kitzinger and others, remains at the cathedral and is an important rare survival of Anglo-Saxon carving on wood.

The flag of County Durham since 2013 features the Cross of St Cuthbert, counterchanged in the county colours of blue and gold.

St Cuthbert's Day is celebrated with Mass, and the school prayers include reference to their patron saint.

In Cumbria, the civil parish and hamlet of Holme St Cuthbert are named after him, as is the parish church.

St Cuthbert's Way is a long-distance walking route, one of Scotland's Great Trails.