Saints of North-East England, 600-1500

by Margaret Coombe (Editor), Anne E Mouron (Editor), Christiania Whitehead (Editor)

Overview

During the seventh and early eighth centuries a number of influential saints' cults were established within the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, most notably the cult of St Cuthbert served by the monks of Lindisfarne. Reacting to the Danish incursions of the ninth century, the Lindisfarne community gradually migrated south to Durham, where, in the early eleventh century, the relics of further Northumbrian saints were collected to join those of Cuthbert. Following the re-foundation of the Durham church as a Benedictine house in 1083, the community sought to legitimise itself by stressing its links with an ancient, saintly past. A century later, the cults of new hermit saints such as Godric of Finchale and Bartholomew of Farne, extensively modelled on St Cuthbert's example, were added to the north-eastern Durham familia. This volume takes an interdisciplinary approach to these north-eastern saints, offering a comprehensive snapshot of new scholarship within the field. The first section focuses on the most eminent saints and hagiographers of Anglo-Saxon Northumbria: Cuthbert, Wilfrid and Bede. The second section examines their utility for the twelfth-century, Anglo-Norman community at Durham, and surveys the cults which emerged alongside, including the early saint-bishops of Hexham Augustinian priory. The third section reviews the material culture which developed around these saints in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: their depiction in stained glass, their pilgrimages and processions, and the use of their banners in the Anglo-Scottish wars. A concluding essay re-evaluates the north-eastern cult of saints from post-Reformation perspectives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9782503567150
Publisher:	Brepols Publishers
Publication date:	12/22/2017
Series:	Medieval Church Studies , #39
Pages:	363
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.10(d)

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vii

Acknowledgements ix

List of Abbreviations xi

List of Contributors xv

Introduction Margaret Coombe Christiania Whitehead 1

Part 1 Anglo-Saxon Northumbria

Bede's Northern Saints Sarah Foot 19

The Saint in his Setting: The Physical Environment of Shrines in Northern Britain before 850 Alan T. Thacker 41

Cuthbert and Boisil: Irish Influence in Northumbria Sarah McCann 69

Exiles and the Exilic Experience in Stephen of Ripon's Vita Sancti Wilfridi Alice Hicklin 89

St Cuthbert and the South: A North of England Saint and South of England Reformers in the Late Tenth and Early Eleventh Centuries Alison Hudson 111

Part 2 The Long Twelfth Century

Measuring Time and Topography in the Cult of Saint Cuthbert at Durham Dominic Marner 135

'Æðele Geferes': Northern Saints in a Durham Manuscript Helen Appleton 153

The Hexham Bishop-Saints: Cults, History, and Power David Rollason 177

Godric and the Wild Man: The Resonances of Asceticism in Reginald of Durham's Vita of Godric of Finchale Dominic Alexander 197

What a Performance: The Songs of St Godric of Finchale Margaret Coombe 219

Part 3 Visual and Material Culture

Banners of the Northern Saints Richard Sharpe 245

Sacred Journeys/Sacred Spaces: The Cult of St Cuthbert Allan Doig 305

Northern Saints and the Painted Glass of Durham Cathedral in the Later Middle Ages Lynda Rollason 327

Postscript

Contested Reputations: Attitudes to Some Northern Saints after the Reformation Margaret Harvey 347

Editorial Reviews

"The volume's editors Margaret Coombe, Anne Mouron, and Christiania Whitehead are to be praised for bringing together such a diversity of voices and perspectives on a well-studied but certainly not exhausted topic. [...]These essays not only exemplify the work still to be done on northern saints' cults, but also model approaches that could be used to interrogate the late medieval iterations of southern Anglo-Saxon saints' cults. It is a collection that opens doors, and it will be exciting to see the new studies on northern saints that follow from it." —Cynthia Turner Camp, The Medieval Review 18.10.09

From the Publisher