Copy Book Archive

Cvthbertvs Henry VIII’s experts declared that saints were nothing special, but St Cuthbert had a surprise for them.
1537
King Henry VIII 1509-1547
Music: John Garth

Photo by John Hamilton, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: public domain. Source

About this picture …

The grave of St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral. St Cuthbert the Wonderworker was a monk and Bishop of Lindisfarne (‘Holy Island’) in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria, and died in 687.

Cvthbertvs
In the Reformation, King Henry VIII’s University men told him research had shown that praying for miracles at the shrine of a saint was superstitious nonsense. So he let them smash the shrines, break open the coffins with a sledgehammer, and recover any nice jewellery before the human remains were incinerated.

IN 1537, Henry VIII’s experts Dr Ley, Dr Henley and Dr Blythman travelled to Durham Cathedral to superintend another demolition: the shrine of St Cuthbert.

When the goldsmith – someone had to assay the jewellery – broke open Cuthbert’s coffin, he saw to his astonishment that Cuthbert looked to have been buried only a matter of days. His face showed a fortnight’s growth of beard, his limbs were supple, and his priestly garments were soft and fresh. Yet all had lain there for nearly nine centuries.*

Dr Henley down below was calling impatiently for the bones (and Cuthbert’s sapphire-crowned ring) to be tossed out, but Ley cut him short. ‘If you will not believe me’ said Ley, a little shaken, ‘come up and see him yourself!’ The poor goldsmith noticed he had wounded one of the saint’s legs, and wept.*

After some delay, Bishop Tunstall secured permission to reinter the body in the same spot, marked today by a marble slab inscribed with a single word: Cvthbertvs.*

‘There’ being the coffin, made in 698. The coffin itself had travelled extensively: from Lindisfarne in 875, it went to Chester-le-Street, then Ripon a century later, and finally Durham in about 1020. During this period, it was opened countless times; one Chester monk used comb the saint’s hair.

Apparently, a bruise showed. A contemporary, Archdeacon Harpsfield, tells us that a blow “fell upon the body of the Saint itself, and wounded the leg, and of the wound the flesh soon gave a manifest sign.”

There remains some controversy over whether Tunstall actually did so. The grave was reopened on May 17th, 1827, and all parties agree that it was so clean that nothing had ever decayed there. The Protestant view is that despite the eyewitness testimony the story above is false, and Cuthbert was never incorrupt, his dry bones being reburied by Tunstall. The alternative is that Tunstall did not replace Cuthbert’s incorrupt body in the shrine after all, and that to this day it lies in some unknown spot. Back in the old shrine, some bones (including the remains of several children) together with various relics taken from the original grave were buried under a headstone, name-side down, marked Richardus Heswell monachus.

Précis

In 1337, the systematic plunder of saints’ shrines in the Reformation reached St Cuthbert at Durham. However, on this occasion there were no dusty bones, but a whole body untouched by 850 years of burial. Henry VIII’s officials were unsure what action to take, so the Bishop of Durham decided to reinter rather than destroy the precious remains. (56 / 60 words)

Source

Based on The History of St Cuthbert by Charles Eyre (1887).

Suggested Music

Cello Concerto in B flat major, Op. 1 No. 4

2. Andante affettuoso

John Garth (1721-1810)

Performed by Richard Tunnicliffe, with the Avison Ensemble conducted by Pavlo Beznosiuk.

Media not showing? Let me know!

Related Posts

for Cvthbertvs

Lives of the Saints

Cuthbert and Hildemer’s Wife

Cuthbert’s friend comes asking for a priest to attend his dying wife — so long as it isn’t Cuthbert.

Lives of the Saints

Cuthbert and the Barley Reivers

Bede is reminded of another great Christian saint when St Cuthbert shoos some troublesome crows from his barley crop.

Lives of the Saints

Cuthbert and the Sorrowful Ravens

The Northumbrian monk was touched by two thieving birds who repented of their misdeeds.

Lives of the Saints

Cuthbert and the Dun Cow

The magnificent cathedral at Durham owes its existence to a missing cow.

Lives of the Saints (186)
All Stories (1522)
Worksheets (14)
Word Games (5)