1 - The Origins of Historical Writing in the Community of St Cuthbert to c.750

Summary

The earliest surviving examples of writing about past events within St Cuthbert's community are represented by a small number of hagiographical texts that recount the life and early miracles of St Cuthbert. All were produced within a generation of his death in 687, and all available within the community by c.730, one having been written on Lindisfarne c.700 and three further texts written by Bede but sent to the community before the mid-730s. The production and circulation of these texts demonstrate the importance of historical narrative to the formulation of saints’ cults and communities around them during the early medieval period. More importantly, these texts provided St Cuthbert's community with an essential foundation-narrative, and in turn, a basic raison d’être (i.e. the care of their saints’ relics and the expansion of his community) which set the tone for the character of historical writing for the duration of Middle Ages.

As observed in Symeon's introductory preface quoted at the beginning of this book, the twelfth-century Benedictine priory at Durham traced its origins back to a much more ancient foundation. In 635, King Oswald of Northumbria (634–42) installed St Aidan, a monk of Iona, as the first Bishop of Lindisfarne and the abbot of a monastic community. A tidal island, Lindisfarne provided monastic seclusion while maintaining close links to the Northumbrian royal stronghold at nearby Bamburgh. As argued by Thacker, Lindisfarne provided the ‘pastoral centre of the royal estate’. Although the precise details of its landholdings and economic foundations are uncertain, it is clear from Bede's narrative that the seventh-century church at Lindisfarne implemented a fervent campaign of baptism, preaching, church-building and property accumulation. Following Aidan's example, successive bishops also served as abbots of the adjoining monastic community. Both Bede and Symeon insisted on devotion to what Bede termed the ‘discipline of the Rule’ (‘disciplinae regularis’) and what Symeon described as ‘monastic institution’ (‘monachia institutione’) at Lindisfarne, arguing that monasticism had been a central characteristic of the community from the outset.

A personal commitment to the monastic ideal in part explains the esteem in which Cuthbert was held following his arrival into the community in 664. According to the anonymous Vita and Bede's prose account, Cuthbert's skills in preaching, healing and his fierce asceticism led to his appointments first as prior of Lindisfarne, and then bishop of the see from 685–6.