Durham Cathedral

The cathedral was built beginning in 1093 to house St. Cuthbert's relics, carried from Lindisfarne during 120 years of wandering. It replaced a Saxon church built in 995 when the monks finally settled at Durham. The building is the finest Norman architecture in England, with revolutionary rib vaulting that influenced all subsequent Gothic construction.

The story begins on Lindisfarne, a tidal island off the Northumbrian coast, where Irish monks founded a monastery around 635. Cuthbert served there as prior and bishop before retreating to a hermit's cell on Inner Farne, where he died in 687. Eleven years later, his monks exhumed his body to move it to a more prominent shrine—and found it incorrupt, undecayed, as if newly dead. This was understood as proof of exceptional sanctity. The cult of St. Cuthbert began.

In 875, Viking raids forced the monks to flee. They could not leave Cuthbert's body to the invaders, so they carried it with them—along with other relics and treasures, including the Lindisfarne Gospels. For 120 years they wandered, settling for periods at Norham, then at Chester-le-Street (882-995), but never finding permanent safety.

In 995, renewed Viking threats prompted another flight. According to legend, the cart carrying Cuthbert's coffin became miraculously stuck as the monks passed a wooded peninsula above the River Wear. A monk named Eadmer received a vision: Cuthbert wished to rest at Dun Holm (the hill in the clearing). The cart's wheels became free. A small church was built.

In 1093, Bishop William of St. Calais demolished this church and began the great Norman cathedral that stands today. Construction proceeded rapidly; the choir was finished by 1096, the nave by around 1130. Cuthbert's body was moved into the new building in 1104. The Venerable Bede's bones were brought from Jarrow around 1022 and eventually moved to their own tomb in the Galilee Chapel in 1370.