Durham Cathedral is a cathedral located in Durham, England, and is the seat of the Bishop of Durham, the fourth-ranked bishop in the Church of England hierarchy. The present Norman era cathedral was built in 1093 to replace the city’s previous ‘White Church’. The cathedral is also home to the Shrine of St Cuthbert and has 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, the pre-Dissolution monastic accounts and three copies of Magna Carta. Durham Cathedral’s walls formed part of Durham Castle, the chief seat of the Bishop of Durham, from 1080 until 1836, when the Bishop of Durham held the powers of an Earl Palatine in order to protect the Anglo-Scottish border. There are daily Church of England services at the cathedral, and the Durham Cathedral Choir sings daily except Mondays and holidays, receiving 727,367 visitors in 2019.
The See of Durham takes its origins from the Diocese of Lindisfarne, founded by Saint Aidan at the behest of Oswald of Northumbria in about 635, which was 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, which became the City of Durham, due to the highly defensible position and the protection of the Earl of Northumbria. Initially, a very 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 three years later in 998 by a stone building also known as the White Church, which in 1018 was complete except for its tower.
Durham soon became a site of pilgrimage, encouraged by the growing cult of Saint Cuthbert. King Canute was one of the early pilgrims, and granted many privileges and estates to the Durham monks. 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, the first Prince-Bishop appointed by King William the Conqueror in 1080. Stone for the new buildings was cut from the cliffs below the walls and moved up using winches. The primary reason for the cathedral was to house the bodies of St. Cuthbert and the Venerable Bede. Since that time many major additions and reconstructions of parts of the building have been made, but the greater part of the structure remains the original Norman structure.
Construction of the cathedral began in 1093, and the choir was completed by 1096. The Chapter House was ready enough to be used as Bishop William of St. Calais’ 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. 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 Galilee Chapel also holds the remains of the Venerable Bede. In 1228 Richard le Poore was translated to Durham and employed the architect Richard Farnham to design the Chapel of the Nine Altars. In 1250, the original roof of the cathedral was replaced by a vault which is still in place. The towers also date from the early 13th century, but the central tower was damaged by lightning in the 15th century and replaced in two stages, the master masons being Thomas Barton and John Bell.
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, a great landowner 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. Saint Cuthbert’s tomb is covered by a simple slab. However, an unknown monk wrote in 1593: “The shrine was estimated to be one of the most sumptuous in all England, so great were the offerings and jewells bestowed upon it, and endless the miracles that were…”.
Posted by millicand@rocketmail.com on 2022-09-26 05:16:02