Cuthbert of Lindisfarne

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Fresco of Saint Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral

Cuthbert von Lindisfarne (* around 635 probably near Dunbar , Scotland , † March 20, 687 on the Farne Islands ) was a Northumbrian monk and bishop of Lindisfarne . He is said to have worked many miracles and is venerated as a saint .

Life

youth

Cuthbert was probably born near Dunbar on the south east coast of Scotland around 635. His mother is said to have been Sabina, the sister of the poet Cenn Fáelad mac Ailella .

According to Beda Venerabilis , he was a perfectly normal boy who competed with his peers. After an angel revealed to him how to heal his lame hip, he found faith. With a prayer he was able to soothe a storm and rescue monks from distress at sea. He was a shepherd when he saw the soul of Aidan of Lindisfarne being carried to heaven by angels. Deeply moved by this vision, he decided to renounce the world.

Spiritual career as a monk and prior in Melrose and Rippon

Cuthbert entered the Benedictine monastery of Melrose in 651 when Eata was abbot there and was raised by Irish monks . He was tutored by the Prior Boisil and surpassed the other monks in discipline, piety, zeal and erudition. He had great physical strength and was of a robust stature, although his hip disorder slightly handicapped him throughout his life. He was friendly and of a pleasant nature.

When King Ealhfrith of Deira founded a monastery in Ripon , Cuthbert followed his abbot Eata and became praepositus hospitum (prior) there. After Ealhfrith became a follower of the Roman rite , Eata and Cuthbert had to return to Melrose in 661 with the other followers of the Iro-Scottish rite .

In 664 a plague struck Britain . Cuthbert became seriously ill, but soon recovered while his teacher Boisil died. Cuthbert then took over the office of prior and proselytized on trips, some of which lasted several weeks, in the wider area of ​​the monastery, as many of the residents had fallen away from the faith.

Prior at Lindisfarne 664-676

Eata was named abbot of Lindisfarne by the monks in 664 after Colman left the monastery. Soon afterwards he also became Bishop of Lindisfarne and brought Cuthbert from Melrose Monastery to Lindisfarne Monastery as provost and teacher. Cuthbert bowed to the decisions of the Synod of Whitby and, with patience and indulgence, introduced the Roman rite into the formerly Irish-Scottish monastery. In later years he retired to solitude in a remote part of the monastery.

Hermit on Inner Farne 676–684

In 676 he withdrew from the monastery to one of the uninhabited Farne Islands , southeast of Lindisfarne. There he built a pit house as a hermitage and another building as a guest house. In the following years he lived there alone, provided with food by his monks. He later grew barley to support himself .

The reputation of his holiness spread throughout Northumbria and increasingly attracted pilgrims to the island. Therefore, he laid down rules for pilgrims to deal with the eider ducks and other seabirds that nest here. In doing so, he created the first nature conservation law in history. In his honor, the eider duck is also called St. Cuthbert's duck (in English cuddy duck).

In 684, Cuthbert left his hermitage, met with the abbess Elfleda, a sister of King Ecgfrith, and predicted the king's death.

Bishop of Hexham 684–685 and Lindisfarne 685–687

The Council of Twyford, presided over by King Ecgfrith and Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury, elected Cuthbert to succeed Bishop Trumbert as Bishop of Hexham in 684 . However, Cuthbert preferred Lindisfarne. So Cuthbert and Eata exchanged dioceses in 685 and Eata became bishop of Hexham for the second time, while Cuthbert was ordained bishop of Lindisfarne on March 26, 685 .

As a bishop, Cuthbert often traveled through his diocese, accompanied by young clergymen, preaching and visiting the congregations, but also repeatedly withdrew to his hermitage . A legend reports that the then priest Æthelwald accompanied Bishop Cuthbert von Lindisfarne on his travels around 686 and witnessed how Cuthbert Æthelwald's sister healed from a protracted and painful illness. An epidemic in his diocese claimed numerous lives; some communities were nearly depopulated.

In January 687 he returned to the Farne Islands , where he died two months later on March 20, 687 after a three-week illness ( emaciation and heavily bleeding ulcers on his feet) on the same day as his friend Herbert von Derwent Water . He was buried in the monastery church of Lindisfarne in a stone sarcophagus next to the altar .

wonder

Sankt Cuthbert is said to have worked numerous miracles during his lifetime:

  • Salvation from distress
  • Extinguishing fires
  • Sickness cures
  • precognition
  • Finding food when you are hungry
  • exorcism
  • Turning water into wine

Numerous sick people are said to have been healed at Cuthbert's grave.

Relic and veneration of saints

Bishop Eadberht allowed the monks to exhume his predecessor Cuthbert on April 20, 699 (11th day of burial) in order to transfer him to an above-ground sarcophagus next to the altar. According to legend, the corpse was found completely undecayed. Through this miracle, Cuthbert's fame rose across the country.

Miniature from a 12th century manuscript of Beda Venerabilis' Vita sancti Cudbercti .

Bishop Eadfrith supported the cult of St. Cuthbert and had a hagiography created by an anonymous author between 699 and 705 . Around 720 he caused Beda Venerabilis to revise the book on The Life of the Holy Father Cuthbert and to write a poetry and an expanded prose version based on eyewitness accounts . Around 730, Bishop Æthelwald had an artistically carved stone cross erected in honor of St. Cuthbert , on which his own name was carved.

Bishop Eardulf decided in 875 to leave Lindisfarne for fear of Danish Vikings . The monks placed the head of St. Oswald and the bones of St. Aidan with the remains of St. Cuthbert in a simple wooden coffin. The monks also took the relics of the holy bishops Eadberht , Eadfrith and Æthelwald with them. The escape from the pillaging Vikings led them back and forth across the country for seven years. Eardulf wanted to bring the relics to Ireland in safety with some monks in the year 882. Legend has it that a storm came up, the water washed into the boat turned to blood, and adverse winds drove the boat back to shore in what was understood as a heavenly sign sent by Cuthbert. After the Christian Dane Guthfrith I became king of Jorvik , the situation eased and Eardulf and his monks settled in Cuncacestre ( Chester-le-Street ) and built the new seat of the bishops of Lindisfarne there.

Some time later, Scots looted Lindisfarne Monastery. St. Cuthbert is said to have caused the entire enemy army to sink into a crevice .

Leaf from the Stonyhurst Gospel : Joh. 6,35–39a

Bishop Aldhun moved Cuthbert's bones from Chester to Durham in 995 and consecrated a stone church in 998 as the resting place of St. Cuthbert. In 1104 Cuthbert's tomb was reopened and his body was reburied in the new Norman cathedral . When the coffin was opened, a small bound Gospel of John was found , now known as the Stonyhurst Gospel . The Code has been in the possession of the British Library since 2011 , which bought it at auction for $ 15.1 million. The coffin also served to accommodate the head of St. Oswald, which is added to Cuthbert on some representations. The magnificent shrine in which Cuthbert now rested became an attraction for numerous pilgrims. The treasures that were donated to the monastery are recorded in several registers that are still preserved today. In addition to valuables made of precious stones and gold, there are strange things like the claw of a griffin , several griffin eggs, wood from the tree under which Abraham met the three angels, a piece of the staff of Moses and many pieces of clothing from other saints.

In 1540, Henry VIII expropriated Durham Abbey and the treasures confiscated. The shrine of St. Cuthbert was broken into; the body was found still intact, clad in its chasuble. He was later buried in Durham Cathedral, behind the altar under a marble slab, where he still rests today. When the grave was reopened in 1826/1827, only a skeleton with rotted clothing was found; some relics were removed. James Raine exposed the allegedly incorrupt body of the saint as a pious forgery.

Cuthbert is one of the most important saints of the Anglo-Saxon Church.

  • Catholic Memorial Day: March 20
in England, Rouen, Scotland, Scandinavia: transfer of the bones: September 4th
  • Anglican Memorial Day: March 20 or September 4
  • Attributes: otter or swan, pillar of fire
  • "Miracle Workers of Britain"
  • National saint of the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic Churches
  • " Patron Saint of Northumbria"
  • Patron of the seafarers

swell

The central sources are an anonymous biography of Cuthbert (written around 700 by a monk in Lindisfarne), two biographies (after 705 and before 721) by Beda Venerabilis and passages in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum .

  • Bertram Colgrave (Ed.): Two lives of St Cuthbert: a life by an anonymous monk of Lindisfarne and Bede's prose life. Cambridge 1940.

literature

Web links

Commons : Cuthbert von Lindisfarne  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Remarks

  1. ^ Beda Venerabilis: Vita sancti Cudbercti. Cape. I-IV.
  2. ↑ a b c Beda Venerabilis: Vita sancti Cudbercti. Cape. VI-IX.
  3. ↑ Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. Book 3, chap. XXVI.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j History of the Church of Durham.
  5. ↑ a b Beda Venerabilis: Vita sancti Cudbercti. Cape. XVI-XIX.
  6. ↑ a b Beda Venerabilis: Vita sancti Cudbercti. Cape. XXIV.
  7. ↑ a b c Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. Book 4.
  8. ^ Beda Venerabilis: Vita sancti Cudbercti. Cape. XXX-XXXIII.
  9. ↑ a b Beda Venerabilis: Vita sancti Cudbercti. Cape. XXXIV-XL.
  10. ↑ Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. Book 5.
  11. ^ History of the Church of Durham. Chapter XII.
  12. ↑ Historia regum Anglorum et Dacorum.
  13. ↑ Stephen Bann: The clothing of Clio. Cambridge 1984, 2.
predecessor Office successor
Trumbert Bishop of Hexham
684–685 		St. Eata
St. Eata Bishop of Lindisfarne
685–687 		St. Eadberht
personal data
SURNAME Cuthbert of Lindisfarne
ALTERNATIVE NAMES St. Cuthbert; Saint Cuthbert; Cuthbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Northumbrian monk and Bishop of Lindisfarne
DATE OF BIRTH at 635
PLACE OF BIRTH unsure: Dunbar , Scotland
DATE OF DEATH March 20, 687
Place of death Farne Islands