Lindisfarne William Cook

Travel

Notes from the Holy Island

William Cook on the Lindisfarne Gospels – and their ancient home

In Durham Cathedral, that magnificent monument to the robust majesty of Norman architecture, the Rev Charlie Allen, the Cathedral’s Canon Chancellor, is showing me the shrine of one of Britain’s greatest saints.

This tomb, a place of prayer for a thousand years, makes Durham Cathedral unique. ‘Its history as a centre of pilgrimage gives it a really distinctive flavour,’ Charlie tells me. ‘It’s shaped around hospitality to all those who come – so it’s a very inclusive place.’

Durham Cathedral was built to house the body of St Cuthbert, patron saint of Northumbria, that Anglo-Saxon kingdom which stretched from the Tees to the Tweed. The modern county of Northumberland is a fragment of its former territory.

Northumbria ceased to be a separate kingdom back in the tenth century, but it remains a potent presence for people in the north-east. And its most precious relic is the Lindisfarne Gospels, a transcription of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

This precious book is usually housed in London, at the British Library.

A page from the eighth-century Gospels

This autumn, it’s coming home, and religious and cultural institutions across the north-east are throwing a party to celebrate.

In our ungodly world of antisocial media, why is this archaic book so important to the people of the north-east?

The answer lies in Durham, at the shrine of St Cuthbert. His cult inspired the book. Normally, it’d be a struggle trying to find out much about anyone who lived so long ago. Thanks to the Venerable Bede (c 673-735 AD), Cuthbert’s biographer (and Britain’s first and foremost historian), who’s also buried in Durham Cathedral, we actually know quite a bit about him.

Cuthbert was born in 634 AD in Dunbar (now in Scotland, but then part of Northumbria). In 664 he became Prior of Lindisfarne Priory on Holy Island – that wonderful windswept patch of land just off the Northumbrian coast. He became Bishop of Lindisfarne and on his death in 687 was buried there, famed for his piety and healing powers.

His grave became a site of worship and, at the end of the seventh century, a subsequent Bishop of Lindisfarne, a monk called Eadfrith, set about creating a book of the Gospels in his honour.

Back then, making a copy of the Gospels was a colossal undertaking. Each and every word had to be handwritten on sheets of vellum, made from cowhide (the Lindisfarne Gospels required the skins of well over a hundred calves). Usually, producing such a book was a team effort, but Eadfrith did it all

himself, including the intricate illustrations. No wonder it took him 20 years.

The result was, and is, one of the most stunning artworks of the Anglo-Saxon era. Its diverse influences – Latin, Celtic and Germanic – reflect the sophistication and internationalism of the region. It’s the apotheosis of Northumbria’s so-called Golden Age, in the seventh and eight centuries, when this kingdom led the way in artistic and literary innovation.

This book refutes the myth with which so many of us grew up – that the centuries between the fall of Rome and the Norman Conquest were a cultural and intellectual wasteland. Much of the rich heritage of that era was destroyed (which is why it has been unfairly dismissed as the ‘Dark Ages’) but, against all odds, the Lindisfarne Gospels survived.

In 875, the Vikings invaded Lindisfarne, and Eadfrith’s book would have perished if the monks hadn’t fled to the mainland, taking Cuthbert’s body and the Lindisfarne Gospels with them.

For a hundred years or so, this sacred coffin and this sacred book found sanctuary at the Abbey of Chester-leStreet, near Durham, where an unknown monk added Old English subtitles to the Latin text (the first-ever translation of the Bible into English).

In 995, further Viking raids forced the monks to move Cuthbert’s coffin yet again, via Ripon, to its final resting place at Durham Cathedral.

Eadfrith’s book probably arrived in Durham at the same time, but what happened to it then remains a mystery.

There are no written references to it until 1605, when it somehow wound up in the Tower of London. A few years later, it was acquired by an English bibliophile called Sir Robert Cotton (1571-1631). After his death, his heir bequeathed it to the nation.

It subsequently formed part of the founding collection of the British Museum. When the British Library was founded, 50 years ago, the Lindisfarne Gospels became part of its collection.

Lots of people in the north-east would love to have this iconic book back in the land where it was made. I share their sentiments. In the British Library, it’s just one among many treasures. If it was in Durham or Lindisfarne, it would feel far more special.

For now, this priceless book is staying in London, but every seven years or so (a little longer this time, owing to COVID), it’s allowed to leave the British Library

Above: The Lindisfarne Gospels, probably produced in around 715-20 AD

Left: Lindisfarne Priory, built in the seventh century, is now a Grade I listed ruin

for a few months, so people outside London can see it.

In 2013, it came to Durham. This year, it’s coming to Newcastle, where it will form the centrepiece of a new exhibition at the city’s excellent Laing Art Gallery.

Naturally, you’re not allowed to leaf through it – visitors will see only two pages. Yet, given its significance in the evolution of the English language, the pages the Laing have chosen are particularly apt: the first chapter of John’s Gospel, starting, ‘In the beginning was the Word…’

I travelled on to Newcastle, to meet the Laing’s Chief Curator, Julie Milne, and to look round the galleries where this exhibition will be held. ‘It’s a work of incredible beauty and artistry,’ she tells me. ‘It was an act of devotion and spirituality.’

To get a deeper sense of the magic of the Lindisfarne Gospels, you need to go to Lindisfarne, where the book was written.

All too often, you go to one of these pilgrim sites in search of solitude and enlightenment and end up browsing in the gift shop or queueing to use the loo.

What a cynic I’ve become! Lindisfarne was amazing. Yes, it was crowded but, even on a busy day, the aura of the place was palpable. How thrilling to walk in Cuthbert’s footsteps, and visit the site where Eadfrith wrote the Lindisfarne Gospels, 1,300 years ago.

No one knows exactly where the Anglo-Saxon abbey stood – it was made of wood, and nothing survives. But it’s a fair bet that it’s beneath the Norman priory which replaced it. Abandoned after the dissolution of the monasteries, it’s now a ruin, but it’s still impressive and intensely atmospheric all the same.

I finished my own pilgrimage at St Mary the Virgin, Lindisfarne’s parish church, which stands beside the ruined priory. It’s actually older than the priory: it dates back to the 12th century at least, and some parts may be Anglo-Saxon.

Inside, I meet the vicar of Holy Island, the Reverend Canon Dr Sarah Hills. ‘It’s a massive privilege,’ she tells me, of her ministry on this island, where St Cuthbert lived and preached.

What a fitting ending to my trek around this rugged corner of the country. It still feels like a place apart, where the distant past feels so close.

The Lindisfarne Gospels are at Newcastle’s Laing Art Gallery, 17th September to 3rd December 2022