Bede, also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable, was an English monk at the monastery of St. Peter and its companion monastery of St. Paul in the Kingdom of Northumbria of the Angles.
Lindisfarne, also called Holy Island, 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 of Lindisfarne, Cuthbert, Eadfrith of Lindisfarne and Eadberht of Lindisfarne. After the Viking invasions and the Norman conquest of England, a priory was reestablished. A small castle was built on the island in 1550.
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.
Stephen of Ripon was the author of the eighth-century hagiographic text Vita Sancti Wilfrithi. Other names once traditionally attributed to him are Eddius Stephanus or Æddi Stephanus, but these names are no longer preferred or accepted by historians today; modern usage tends to favor "Stephen".
Symeonof Durham was an English chronicler and a monk of Durham Priory.
The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, written by the Venerable Bede in about AD 731, is a history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict between the pre-Schism Roman Rite and Celtic Christianity. It was originally composed in Latin, and is considered one of the most important original references on Anglo-Saxon history and has played a key role in the development of an English national identity. It is believed to have been completed in 731 when Bede was approximately 59 years old.
Reginald of Durham was a Benedictine monk and hagiologist, a member of the Durham Priory and associated with the Coldingham Priory.
The Dun Cow is a common motif in English folklore. "Dun" is a dull shade of brownish grey.
Bellingham is a village and civil parish in Northumberland, to the north-west of Newcastle upon Tyne and is situated on the Hareshaw Burn at its confluence with the River North Tyne.
Wulfstan the Cantor, also known as Wulfstan of Winchester, was an Anglo-Saxon monk of the Old Minster, Winchester. He was also a writer, musician, composer and scribe. Wulfstan is most famous for his hagiographic work Vita S. Aethelwoldi.
Saint Boisil was a monk of Melrose Abbey, an offshoot of Lindisfarne, then in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria, but now in Scotland, where he must have been one of the first generation of monks. He probably moved to the new foundation of Melrose when it was started, probably some time in the late 640s.
St Cuthbert's Cave, known locally as Cuddy's Cave or Cove, can refer to one of two natural sandstone caves in Northumberland that have been traditionally associated with Saint Cuthbert, the seventh century Anglo-Saxon monk, bishop and hermit.
The Libellus de exordio atque procursu istius, hoc est Dunhelmensis, ecclesie, in short Libellus de exordio, is a historical work of marked literary character composed and compiled in the early 12th-century and traditionally attributed to Symeon of Durham. It relates the history of bishopric and church of Durham and its predecessors at Lindisfarne and Chester-le-Street (Cunecacestre). It is sometimes also known as the Historia Dunelmensis ecclesiae.
The Vita Sancti Wilfrithi or Life of St Wilfrid is an early 8th-century hagiographic text recounting the life of the Northumbrian bishop, Wilfrid. Although a hagiography, it has few miracles, while its main concerns are with the politics of the Northumbrian church and the history of the monasteries of Ripon and Hexham. It is one of a collection of historical sources from the late 7th- and early 8th-centuries, along with the anonymous Vita Sancti Cuthberti, the works of Bede and Adomnán's Vita Sancti Columbae, that detail the Christianisation of Great Britain and make the period the best documented period in English history before the age of Alfred the Great.
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 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".
Clare Stancliffe is a historian and medievalist. She teaches Ecclesiastical History in the Departments of History and of Theology & Religion at Durham University. She is known for developing the idea of the "colors of martyrdom" in early Irish Christianity.
Durham, also known as De situ Dunelmi, Carmen de situ Dunelmi or De situ Dunelmi et de sanctorum reliquiis quae ibidem continentur carmen compositum, is an anonymous late Old English short poem about the English city of Durham and its relics, which might commemorate the translation of Cuthbert's relics to Durham Cathedral in 1104. Known from the late 12th-century manuscript, Cambridge, University Library, Ff. 1. 27, and generally considered to date from the first decade of the 12th century, Durham has been described both as "the last extant poem written in traditional alliterative Old English metrical verse" and as being placed "so conveniently on the customary divide between Old and Middle English that the line can be drawn right down the middle of the poem." Some scholars, however, consider that the poem might have been written as early as the mid-11th century.
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.
The Church of St Cuthbert is a grade I listed building in Bellingham, Northumberland, owned by the Church of England. Parts of the church date to the 13th century and it survived the raids of the border reivers which burnt down many structures in the village. The structure consists of a nave, chancel and a large south chapel. The chancel is noted for having a remarkable roof consisting of strips of Lakeland slate. The graveyard contains the "Lang Pack", a tomb associated with a nearby country house robbery legend.
