Everything about St Cuthbert totally explained
» For the Dungeons & Dragons deity, see Saint Cuthbert (Dungeons & Dragons)
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'd been in Scotland.
Cuthbert is regarded as the
patron saint of
Northumbria and a patron of England.. His feast day is
March 20.
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'd 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
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, adopted
Roman usages, and in
661 those monks who followed the
Celtic tradition returned to Melrose. Illness struck the monastery in 664 and while Cuthbert recovered, the
prior died and Cuthbert was made prior in his place. 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.
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'd 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 nowadays
Alnmouth), 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. He was buried at Lindisfarne.
Legacy
Relics
Legend had it that when Cuthbert's burial casket was opened a couple of years after his death his body was found to have been perfectly preserved (see
Incorruptibility). 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."
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. 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).
Namesakes
St Cuthbert's Society, a
college-level body at the
University of Durham is named after him. The only
undergraduate society in the world, it's located only a short walk from the coffin of the saint at Durham Cathedral. The Society celebrates St Cuthbert's Day on or around March 20 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 March 20 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. 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
James Bond. Many churches are named for Cuthbert. An Orthodox Community in
Chesterfield, England has taken St. Cuthbert as their patron.
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.
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. For example, there's 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." 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.
Further Information
Get more info on 'St Cuthbert'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://cuthbert_of_lindisfarne.totallyexplained.com">Cuthbert of Lindisfarne Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
