Lindisfarne Priory
| Lindisfarne Priory | |
|
Northumberland | |
|---|---|
 Lindisfarne Priory | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | NU126417 |
| Location: | 55°40’9"N, 1°48’3"W |
| History | |
| Dissolved: | 1537 |
| Information | |
| Condition: | Ruins |
| Owned by: | English Heritage |
Lindisfarne Priory stands in ruin on Lindisfarne, otherwise known as Holy Island, an island off the coast of northern Northumberland, joined to the mainland only at low tide. The priory ruins stand by the village of the island, by its south shore.
This was one of the earliest of monastic foundations in Great Britain, but was completely rebuilt in the Middle Ages in a robust Romanesque style reminiscent of Durham Cathedral, which remains stamped upon the remaining walls and arches.
The priory was dissolved at the Dissolution of the Monasteries and decayed from then. Its remains and the history they represent draw many visitors to the island. The site is today in the care of English Heritage.
History
Foundation to destruction
Lindisfarne's original monastery was founded by Irish monk St Aidan, who had been sent from Iona in the Inner Hebrides on a mission to Northumbria at the request of King Oswald. The priory was founded before the end of 634 and Aidan remained there until his death in 651.[1] The priory remained the only seat of a bishopric in Northumbria for nearly thirty years.[1] Finian (bishop 651–661) built a timber church "suitable for a bishop's seat".[2] St Bede however was critical of the fact that the church was not built of stone but only of hewn oak thatched with reeds. A later bishop, Eadbert removed the thatch and covered both walls and roof in lead.[3] An abbot, who could be the bishop, was elected by the brethren and led the community. St Bede comments on this:
And let no one be surprised that, though we have said above that in this island of Lindisfarne, small as it is, there is found the seat of a bishop, now we say also that it is the home of an abbot and monks; for it actually is so. For one and the same dwelling-place of the servants of God holds both; and indeed all are monks. Aidan, who was the first bishop of this place, was a monk and always lived according to monastic rule together with all his followers. Hence all the bishops of that place up to the present time exercise their episcopal functions in such a way that the abbot, who they themselves have chosen by the advice of the brethren, rules the monastery; and all the priests, deacons, singers and readers and other ecclesiastical grades, together with the bishop himself, keep the monastic rule in all things.[4]
Lindisfarne became the base for Christian evangelism in Northumbria and also sent a successful mission to Mercia. Monks from the Irish community of Iona settled on the island. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, later canonised and the focus of major cult, was a monk and later abbot of the monastery, and his miracles and life are recorded by the Venerable Bede. Cuthbert later became Bishop of Lindisfarne. An anonymous life of Cuthbert written at Lindisfarne is the oldest extant piece of English historical writing. From its reference to "Aldfrith, who now reigns peacefully" it must date to between 685 and 704.[5] Cuthbert was buried here, his remains later reinterred in Durham Cathedral (along with the relics of St Eadfrith of Lindisfarne). Eadberht of Lindisfarne, the next bishop (and saint) was buried in the place from which Cuthbert's body was exhumed earlier the same year when the priory was abandoned in the late 9th century.
Cuthbert's body was carried with the monks, eventually settling in Chester-le-Street before a final move to Durham. The saint's grave was preserved notwithstanding the stripping out of hagiolatrous material from the cathedral so that when it was opened in 1827 the grave yielded a number of remarkable artefacts dating back to Lindisfarne.
The Synod of Whitby in 663 struck at Lindisfarne's primacy in the northern church: allegiance switched southwards to Canterbury and thence to Rome and Lindisfarne ceased to be of such major importance.
In 735 the Province of York was created and Lindisfarne became the episcopal seat for a diocese serving the lands north of the River Coquet and south of the Firth of Forth, and much of the Kingdom of Strathclyde.[6]
On 8 June 793, Lindisfarne suffered a devastating raid by Vikings – their first significant attack in western Europe. The raid caused horror even in Europe. Alcuin, a York scholar working at the court of Charlemagne, wrote to the Northumbrian king and the Bishop of Lindisfarne:
| “ | Pagans have desecrated God’s sanctuary, shed the blood of saints around the altar, laid waste the house of our hope and trampled the bodies of saints like dung in the streets … What assurance can the churches of Britain have, if St Cuthbert and so great a company of saints do not defend their own?[7] | ” |
The raid caused the monks of Lindisfarne eventually to abandon the island, so that in 875 the decision was made to leave Lindisfarne for good, taking St Cuthbert's bones with them.
Refoundation and dissolution
After the Norman Conquest, around 1069, the monks of Durham returned briefly to Lindisfarne with St Cuthbert’s relics to escape the ‘harrying of the North’, but this triggered a re-esatblishment of monastic life on the island under the tutelage of Durham. The earliest surviving reference to a full-scale community of monks is in a document dated 1172. Pilgrims too came to Lindisfarne, to the shrine of St Cuthbert (whose ones remained nevertheless in Durham).
The number of monks in the abbey rose to about ten during the 13th century. The priory received extensive land grants around Northumberland to support its income and King David of Scotland and his successors granted land in Scotland too. Nevertheless, its prosperity was cut short by the border wars of the later Middle Ages: Scottish estates were lost and armies and reivers destroyed the farms of Northumberland and so greatly reduced the priory's income and its ability to maintain its grand buildings.
In 1537, as part of the Dissolution of the Monasteries under King Henry VIII, Lindisfarne Priory was closed. Its buildings remained, in part to be used as defences against any Scottish invasion. Indeed, in 1542–5 three earth-and-timber defences were built around the harbour to the east of the priory.
By the later 18th century the by now ruinous remains had become a popular tourist attraction for antiquarians and artists. Drawings and descriptions of the priory show that until about 1780 the church survived virtually intact. By the 1820s, however, the central tower and south aisle had collapsed. A local landowner, Mr Selby, acquired the site in the early 19th century, and consolidated the remains, but he was unable to prevent decay and the west front collapsed in the 1850s.
Today the priory is in the hands of English Heritage.
Parish church
The parish church, St Mary The Virgin, Holy Island, stands immediately to the north of the Priory. From the outside it looks like a Victorian Gothic church, but inside it can be seen to be older than the priory buildings: the chancel wall is Anglo-Saxon, with an Anglo-Saxon arch. Other stonework may be of a similar date, but many ages have contributed to the church, and it underwent a Victorian restoration (without which it might not have survived).
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Lindisfarne Priory) |
- Lindisfarne Priory - English Heritage
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Stenton 1987, p. 118.
- ↑ Stenton 1987, p. 119.
- ↑ Loyn 1962, p. 275 quoting Bede 1896, II, 16; III, 25
- ↑ Bede c. 730 in Colgrave 1940, pp. 207–9 cited by Blair 1977, pp. 133–4
- ↑ Colgrave 1940, p. 104 cited by Stenton 1987, p. 88
- ↑ Blair 1977, p. 145 (map).
- ↑ S Allott: Alcuin of York: His Life and Letters (1974), letter no. 26, 36–8