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St Cuthbert: Durham's Tutelarie Deitie

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2015

Abstract

The cult of St Cuthbert was central to the regional identity of north-eastern England with its inhabitants termed the haliwerfolc, or ‘people of the saint’ (Cuthbert). The saint became crucial to the liturgical practices and celebrations of Durham's clerical and secular communities as well as being a guarantor of martial victories; usually against the Scots. However, with the cult of saints an early victim of the Reformation launched by Henry VIII in the 1530s, the outlook for St Cuthbert's legacy became increasingly uncertain. Attachment to the saint's memory became inextricably entwined with Durham's pre-Reformation history as commemoration of the cult, rather than the saint, took on more significance. This article looks at how St Cuthbert's historians and other antiquaries regularly manipulated his legend to satisfy different purposes and circumstances; so that completely different perspectives on Cuthbert and his cult have emerged over the centuries since the Reformation. But, throughout the changing interpretations of St Cuthbert's story his significance in Durham remains unchallenged.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 2013

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References

Notes

1 See Bailey, Richard N., ‘Cuthbert's Relics: Some Neglected Evidence’, in Bonner, Gerald, Rollason, David and Stancliffe, Clare (eds), Cuthbert, His Cult and His Community to AD 1200 (Woodbridge 1989), p. 231fGoogle Scholar

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10 Rites of Durham, p. 23.

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30 These are in Durham University Library, DDR/EJ/CCD/1/2, and printed in Depositions and other ecclesiastical proceedings from the courts of Durham, ed. Raine, J. (SS 21, 1845), pp. 136205.Google Scholar See also, Kesselring, The Northern Rebellion, pp. 118–143.

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42 Rites of Durham, pp. 107–8, and cited as exemplifying the pomp and lavish spectacle of the procession, Nelson, Alan H., The Medieval English Stage, Corpus Christi Pageants and Plays (Chicago and London 1974), p. 34.Google Scholar See also, McKinnell, John, ‘The Sequence of the Sacrament at Durham’, North-Eastern History 8 (1998), esp. pp. 37.Google Scholar

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53 This is from the title page of Rud, Origin.

54 Rud, Origin, p. 3.

55 Rud, Origin, p. 3; and see Newton, North-East England, pp. 71–4.

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57 See, Harvey, Margaret, ‘The Northern Saints After the Reformation in the Writings of Christopher Watson (d.1580), Studies in Church History 49 (2011), pp. 258268,CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 259. Watson's ‘History’ is at BL, MS Cotton Vitellius C IX.

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63 Hegge, Legend, pp. 12–13.

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65 Hegge, Legend, p. 3.

66 Durham University Library, Add Ms 866, f.60v.

67 TNA: PRO, SP 16/162/32, 33.

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86 Harpsfield, N., Historia Anglicana ecclesiastica (Douai 1622), p. 105.Google Scholar Apparently there was also a ring which Harpsfield claimed to have kissed as a divine momento and which was later kept in Paris. My thanks to Dr Margaret Harvey for this information.

87 Rud, Origin, 28.

88 Hegge, Legend, 23.

89 DNB (Oxford)