Lindisfarne, also called Holy Island, and the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, is a tidal island off the northeast coast of England, which constitutes the civil parish of Holy Island in Northumberland. Holy Island has a recorded history from the 6th century AD; it was an important centre of Celtic Christianity under Saints Aidan, Cuthbert, Eadfrith, and Eadberht of Lindisfarne. The island was originally home to a monastery, which was destroyed during the Viking invasions but re-established as a priory following the Norman Conquest of England. Other notable sites built on the island are St. Mary the Virgin parish church, Lindisfarne Castle, several lighthouses and other navigational markers, and a complex network of lime kilns. In the present day, the island is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and a hotspot for historical tourism and bird watching. As of February 2020, the island had three pubs, a hotel and a post office.
Cuthbert of Lindisfarne was an Anglo-Saxon saint of the early Northumbrian church in the Celtic tradition. He 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. Both during his life and after his death, he became a popular medieval saint of Northern England, with a cult centred on his tomb at Durham Cathedral. Cuthbert is regarded as the patron saint of Northumbria. His feast days are 20 March and 4 September.
The St Cuthbert Gospel, also known as the Stonyhurst Gospel or the St Cuthbert Gospel of St John, is an early 8th-century pocket gospel book, written in Latin. Its finely decorated leather binding is the earliest known Western bookbinding to survive, and both the 94 vellum folios and the binding are in outstanding condition for a book of this age. With a page size of only 138 by 92 millimetres, the St Cuthbert Gospel is one of the smallest surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The essentially undecorated text is the Gospel of John in Latin, written in a script that has been regarded as a model of elegant simplicity.
Aldfrith was king of Northumbria from 685 until his death. He is described by early writers such as Bede, Alcuin and Stephen of Ripon as a man of great learning. Some of his works and some letters written to him survive. His reign was relatively peaceful, marred only by disputes with Bishop Wilfrid, a major figure in the early Northumbrian church.
Ecgberht was an Anglo-Saxon monk of Northumbria. After studying at Lindisfarne and Rath Melsigi, he spent his life travelling among monasteries in northern Britain and around the Irish Sea. He was instrumental in the establishment of Wihtberht's mission to Frisia.
St Mary's Abbey, Melrose is a partly ruined monastery of the Cistercian order in Melrose, Roxburghshire, in the Scottish Borders. It was founded in 1136 by Cistercian monks at the request of King David I of Scotland and was the chief house of that order in the country until the Reformation. It was headed by the abbot or commendator of Melrose. Today the abbey is maintained by Historic Environment Scotland as a scheduled monument.
Wigbert, (Wihtberht) born in Wessex around 675, was an Anglo-Saxon Benedictine monk and a missionary and disciple of Boniface who travelled with the latter in Frisia and northern and central Germany to convert the local tribes to Christianity. His feast day is August 13.
Finan of Lindisfarne, also known as Saint Finan, was an Irish monk, trained at Iona Abbey in Scotland, who became the second bishop of Lindisfarne from 651 until 661.
Tuda of Lindisfarne, also known as Saint Tuda, was appointed to succeed Colman as Bishop of Lindisfarne. He served for less than a year. Although raised in Ireland, he was a staunch supporter of Roman practices, being tonsured in the Roman manner and celebrating Easter according to the Roman Computus. However, he was consecrated as bishop in Ireland.
Eata, also known as Eata of Lindisfarne, was Bishop of Hexham from 678 until 681, and of then Bishop of Lindisfarne from before 681 until 685. He then was translated back to Hexham where he served until his death in 685 or 686. He was the first native of Northumbria to occupy the bishopric of Lindisfarne.
Eadberht of Lindisfarne, also known as Saint Eadberht, was Bishop of Lindisfarne, England, from 688 until his death on 6 May 698.
Eadfrith of Lindisfarne, also known as Saint Eadfrith, was Bishop of Lindisfarne, probably from 698 onwards. By the twelfth century it was believed that Eadfrith succeeded Eadberht and nothing in the surviving records contradicts this belief. Lindisfarne was among the main religious sites of the kingdom of Northumbria in the early eighth century, the resting place of Saints Aidan and Cuthbert. He is venerated as a Saint in the Roman Catholic Church, and in the Eastern Orthodox Church, as also in the Anglican Communion.
Bosa was an Anglo-Saxon Bishop of York during the 7th and early 8th centuries. He was educated at Whitby Abbey, where he became a monk. Following Wilfrid's removal from York in 678 the diocese was divided into three, leaving a greatly reduced see of York, to which Bosa was appointed bishop. He was himself removed in 687 and replaced by Wilfrid, but in 691 Wilfrid was once more ejected and Bosa returned to the see. He died in about 705, and subsequently appears as a saint in an 8th-century liturgical calendar.
In the seventh century the pagan Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity mainly by missionaries sent from Rome. Irish missionaries from Iona, who were proponents of Celtic Christianity, were influential in the conversion of Northumbria, but after the Synod of Whitby in 664, the Anglo-Saxon church gave its allegiance to the Pope.
Saint Æthelwold of Farne was a late 7th-century hermit who lived on Inner Farne, off the coast of the English county of Northumberland.
There is archaeological evidence of insular monasticism as early as the mid 5th century, influenced by establishments in Gaul such as the monastery of Martin of Tours at Marmoutier, the abbey established by Honoratus at Lérins; the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel; and that of Germanus at Auxerre. Many Irish monks studied at Candida Casa near Whithorn in what is now Galloway in Scotland.
The Historia de Sancto Cuthberto is a historical compilation finished some time after 1031. It is an account of the history of the bishopric of St Cuthbert—based successively at Lindisfarne, Norham, Chester-le-Street and finally Durham—from the life of St Cuthbert himself onwards. The latest event documented is a grant by King Cnut, c. 1031. The work is a cartulary chronicle recording grants and losses of property as well as miracles of retribution, under a loose narrative of temporal progression. The text survives in three manuscripts, the earliest of which dates from around 1100. The original version of the text is not thought to be extant; rather, all surviving manuscripts are thought to be copies of an earlier but lost exemplar. The Historia is one of the sources for the histories produced at Durham in the early 12th century, particularly the Historia Regum and Symeon of Durham's Libellus de Exordio.
The Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Monkwearmouth–Jarrow, known simply as Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey, was a Benedictine double monastery in the Kingdom of Northumbria, England.
The Vita Sancti Cuthberti is a prose hagiography from early medieval Northumbria. It is probably the earliest extant saint's life from Anglo-Saxon England, and is an account of the life and miracles of Cuthbert, a Bernician hermit-monk who became bishop of Lindisfarne. Surviving in eight manuscripts from Continental Europe, it was not as well read in the Middle Ages as the prose version by Bede. It was however Bede's main source for his two dedicated works on Cuthbert, the "Metrical Life" and the "Prose Life".
Alfred, son of Westou was a medieval English priest and relic collector, active in Northumberland. He is now best known for allegedly stealing the remains of Bede and bringing them in secret to the shrine of St Cuthbert in Durham, although some modern scholars consider this unlikely. He is also documented as having translated the remains of Boisil of Melrose Abbey, as well as numerous northern English minor saints of the 7th and 8th centuries: the anchorites Balther and Bilfrid; Acca, Alchmund and Eata, bishops of Hexham; Oswin, king of Deira; and the abbesses Ebba and Æthelgitha. He served as the sacristan at Cuthbert's shrine under three bishops, and was renowned for his devotion to the saint.
