Durham Cathedral, also known as the Cathedral Church of Christ, Blessed Mary the Virgin and St Cuthbert of Durham, is a cathedral in Durham, England, and the seat of the Bishop of Durham. It was built in the Norman era starting in 1093, replacing the city’s previous White Church. The cathedral is home to relics including Saint Cuthbert’s, Saint Oswald’s head, and the Venerable Bede’s remains. The Durham Dean and Chapter Library contains sets of early printed books, some of the most complete in England, along with pre-Dissolution monastic accounts and three copies of Magna Carta.
The See of Durham originated from the Diocese of Lindisfarne, founded by Saint Aidan in about 635, which was later translated to York in 664. Among the many saints who originated at Lindisfarne Priory, the greatest was Saint Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne from 685 until his death in 687, who is central to the development of Durham Cathedral. After repeated Viking raids, the monks fled from Lindisfarne in 875, carrying Saint Cuthbert’s relics with them. The diocese of Lindisfarne remained itinerant until 882, when the monks resettled at Chester-le-Street, and then at Durham in 995. Legend has it that the monks followed two milk maids who were searching for a dun-colored cow and found themselves on a peninsula formed by a loop in the River Wear, where Cuthbert’s coffin became immovable, and the new shrine was built.
Initially, a simple temporary structure was built from local timber to house the relics of Saint Cuthbert. The shrine was then transferred to a sturdier, probably still wooden, building known as the White Church. This church was itself replaced by a stone building known as the White Church, which was complete except for its tower in 1018. Durham soon became a site of pilgrimage, encouraged by the growing cult of Saint Cuthbert, and the defensible position, flow of money from pilgrims, and power embodied in the church at Durham all encouraged the formation of a town around the cathedral, which established the core of the city.
The present cathedral was designed and built under William de St-Calais, who in 1080 was appointed as the first Prince-Bishop by King William the Conqueror. In 1083, he founded the Benedictine Priory of St. Cuthbert at Durham and replaced the secular canons (and their wives and children) who had been in charge of the church and shrine of St Cuthbert there with monks from the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow. The extensive lands of the church were divided between his own bishopric and the new Priory. Bishop William of St. Calais demolished the old Saxon church, and on 11 August 1093, together with Prior Turgot of Durham, he laid the foundation stone of the great new cathedral.
Construction of the cathedral began in 1093, at the eastern end. The choir was completed by 1096, and at the death of Bishop William of St. Calais on 2 January 1096, the Chapter House was ready enough to be used as his burial place. In 1104 the remains of St. Cuthbert were translated with great ceremony to the new shrine in the new cathedral. Work proceeded on the nave, the walls of which were finished by 1128, and the high vault by 1135. The chapter house was built between 1133 and 1140 (partially demolished in the 18th century). Three bishops, William of St. Carilef, Ranulf Flambard and Hugh de Puiset, are all buried in the now rebuilt chapter house.
In the 1170s Hugh de Puiset added the Galilee Chapel at the west end of the cathedral. The five-aisled building occupies the position of a porch and functioned as a Lady chapel with the great west door being blocked during the Medieval period by an altar to the Virgin Mary. The door is now blocked by the tomb of Bishop Thomas Langley. The Chapel of the Nine Altars was added in the 13th century, and the original roof of the cathedral was replaced by a vault in 1250, which is still in place. The towers also date from the early 13th century, but the central tower was damaged by lightning and replaced in two stages in the 15th century.
The Bishop of Durham was the temporal lord of the palatinate, often referred to as a Prince-bishop. The bishop competed for power with the Prior of Durham Monastery, who held his own courts for his free tenants. The Shrine of Saint Cuthbert was located in the eastern apsidal end of the cathedral, and the location of the inner wall of the apse is marked on the pavement.
Durham Cathedral is a site of daily Church of England services and the Durham Cathedral Choir sings daily except Mondays and holidays. In 1986, the cathedral and Durham Castle were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and in 2019, it received 727,367 visitors.
Posted by millicand@rocketmail.com on 2022-10-10 15:52:11