(A.D. 687.)
[Martyrologies of Bede, Usuardus, Ado, Rabanus Maurus; the Anglican,
Scottish, and Irish Martyrologies; the Benedictine and the Roman as
well. Authorities:--Bede's Life of S. Cuthbert, another by a monk of
Lindisfarne, written in the reign of Egfrid (d. 705). The following
life is extracted from Montalembert's "Monks of the West."]
Of the parentage of Cuthbert, nothing for certain is known. The Kelts
have claimed him as belonging to them, at least by birth. They made him
out to have been the son of an Irish princess, reduced to slavery, like
Bridget, the holy patroness of Ireland, but who fell, more miserably,
victim to the lust of her savage master. His Celtic origin would seem
to be more conclusively proved by his attitude towards S. Wilfrid, the
introducer of Roman uniformity into the north of England, than by the
tradition of the Anglo-Saxon monks of Durham. His name is certainly
Saxon, and not Keltic. But, to tell the truth, nothing is certainly
known either of his place of birth, or the rank of his family.
His first appearance in history is as a shepherd in Lauderdale, a
valley watered by a river which flows into the Tweed near Melrose.
It was then a district annexed to the kingdom of Northumbria, which
had just been delivered by the holy king Oswald from the yoke of the
Mercians and Britons. As he is soon afterwards to be seen travelling
on horseback, lance in hand, and accompanied by a squire, it is not to
be supposed that he was of poor extraction. At the same time, it was
not the flocks of his father which he kept, as did David in the plains
of Bethlehem; it is expressly noted that the flocks confided to his
care belonged to a master, or to several masters. His family must have
been in the rank of those vassals to whom the great Saxon lords gave
the care and superintendence of their flocks upon the vast extent of
pastures which, under the name of _folcland_ or common, was left to
their use, and where the cowherds and shepherds lived day and night in
the open air, as is still done by the shepherds of Hungary.
Popular imagination in the north of England, of which Cuthbert was
the hero before, as well as after, the Norman Conquest, had thus full
scope in respect to the obscure childhood of its favourite saint, and
delighted in weaving stories of his childish sports, representing
him as walking on his hands, and turning somersaults with his little
companions. A more authentic testimony, that of his contemporary,
Bede, informs us that our shepherd boy had not his equal among the
children of his age, for activity, dexterity, and boldness in the race
and fight. In all sports and athletic exercises he was the first to
challenge his companions, with the certainty of being the victor. The
description reads like that of a little Anglo-Saxon of our own day--a
scholar of Eton or Harrow. At the same time, a precocious piety showed
itself in him, even amid the exuberance of youth. One night, as he
said his prayers, while keeping the sheep of his master, he saw the
sky, which had been very dark, broken by a track of light, upon which
a cloud of angels descended from heaven, returning afterwards with a
resplendent soul, which they had gone to meet on earth. Next morning
he heard that Aidan, the holy bishop of Lindisfarne, the apostle of
the district, had died during the night. This vision determined his
monastic vocation.
Some time afterwards we find him at the gates of the monastery of
Melrose, the great Keltic establishment for novices in Northumbria.
He was then only fifteen, yet, nevertheless, he arrived on horseback,
lance in hand, attended by a squire, for he had already begun his
career in the battle-field, and learned in the face of the enemy
the first lessons of abstinence, which he now meant to practise in
the cloister. He was received by two great doctors of the Keltic
Church,--the abbot Eata, one of the twelve Northumbrians first chosen
by Aidan, and the prior Boswell, who conceived a special affection for
the new-comer, and undertook the charge of his monastic education. Five
centuries later, the copy of the Gospels in which the master and pupil
had read daily, was still kissed with veneration in the cathedral of
Durham.
The robust and energetic youth very soon showed the rarest aptitude
for monastic life, not only for cenobitical exercises, but, above all,
for the missionary work, which was the principal occupation of monks
in that country and period. He was not content merely to surpass all
the other monks in his devotion to the four principal occupations of
monastic life--study, prayer, vigil, and manual labour--but speedily
applied himself to the work of casting out from the hearts of the
surrounding population the last vestiges of pagan superstition. Not a
village was so distant, not a mountain side so steep, not a village
so poor, that it escaped his zeal. He sometimes passed weeks, and
even months, out of his monastery, preaching to and confessing the
rustic population of the mountains. The roads were very bad, or rather
there were no roads; only now and then was it possible to travel on
horseback; sometimes, when his course lay along the coast of the
district inhabited by the Picts, he would take the help of a boat. But
generally it was on foot that he had to penetrate into the glens and
distant valleys, crossing the heaths and vast table-lands, uncultivated
and uninhabited, where a few shepherd's huts, like that in which he
himself had passed his childhood, and which were in winter abandoned
even by the rude inhabitants, were thinly scattered. But neither the
intemperance of the seasons, nor hunger, nor thirst, arrested the
young and valiant missionary in his apostolic travels, to seek the
scattered population, half Celts, and half Anglo-Saxons, who, though
already Christian in name and by baptism, retained an obstinate
attachment to many of their ancient superstitions, and who were quickly
led back by any great calamity, such as one of the great pestilences
which were then so frequent, to the use of magic, amulets, and other
practices of idolatry. The details which have been preserved of the
wonders which often accompanied his wanderings, show that his labours
extended over all the hilly district between the two seas--from the
Solway to the Forth. They explain to us how the monks administered the
consolations and the teaching of religion, before the organization
of parishes, ordained by archbishop Theodore, had been everywhere
introduced or regulated. As soon as the arrival of one of these
apostolic missionaries in a somewhat central locality was known, all
the population of the neighbourhood hastened to hear him, endeavouring
with fervour and simplicity to put in practice the instruction they
received from him. Cuthbert, especially, was received among them with
affectionate confidence; his eloquence was so persuasive that it
brought the most rebellious to his feet, to hear their sins revealed to
them, and to accept the penance which he imposed upon them.
Cuthbert prepared himself for preaching and the administration of
the Sacraments, by extraordinary penances and austerities. Stone
bathing-places, in which he passed the entire night in prayer, lying in
the frozen water, according to a custom common among the Keltic saints,
are still shown in several different places. When he was near the sea,
he went to the shore, unknown to any one, at night, and plunging into
the waves up to his neck, sang his vigils there. As soon as he came out
of the water he resumed his prayers on the sand of the beach. On one
occasion, one of his disciples, who had followed him secretly in order
to discover the aim of this nocturnal expedition, saw two otters come
up out of the water, which, while the saint prayed on his knees, lick
his frozen feet, and wipe them with their hair, until life and warmth
returned to the benumbed members. By one of those strange caprices of
human frivolity which disconcert the historian, this insignificant
incident is the only recollection which now remains in the memory of
the people. S. Cuthbert is known to the peasant of Northumberland and
of the Scottish borders only by the legend of those compassionate
otters.
He had been some years at Melrose, when the abbot Eata took him along
with him to join the community of Keltic monks established by king
Alchfrid at Ripon. Cuthbert held the office of steward, and in this
office showed the same zeal as in his missions. When travellers arrived
through the snow, famished and nearly fainting with cold, he himself
washed their feet and warmed them against his bosom, then hastened to
the oven to order bread to be made ready, if there was not enough.
Cuthbert returned with his countrymen to Melrose, resumed his life of
missionary preaching, and again met his friend and master, the prior
Boswell, at whose death, in the great pestilence of 664, Cuthbert
was elected abbot in his place. He had been himself attacked by the
disease; and all the monks prayed earnestly that his life might be
preserved to them. When he knew that the community had spent the night
in prayer for him, though he felt no better, he cried to himself, with
a double impulse of his habitual energy, "What am I doing in bed? It is
impossible that God should shut His ears to such men. Give me my staff
and my shoes." And getting up, he immediately began to walk, leaning
upon his staff. But this sudden cure left him subject to weakness,
which shortened his life.
However, he had not long to remain at Melrose. The triumph of Wilfrid
and the Roman ritual at the conference of Whitby, brought about a
revolution in the monastic metropolis of Northumbria, and in the mother
monastery of Melrose, at Lindisfarne. Bishop Colman had returned to
Iona, carrying with him the bones of S. Aidan, the first apostle of
the country, and followed by all the monks who would not consent to
sacrifice their Keltic tradition to Roman unity. It was of importance
to preserve the holy island, the special sanctuary of the country, for
the religious family of which its foundress had been a member. Abbot
Eata of Melrose undertook this difficult mission. He became abbot of
Lindisfarne, and was invested with a kind of episcopal supremacy. He
took with him the young Cuthbert, who was not yet thirty, but whom,
however, he held alone capable of filling the important office of prior
in the great insular community.
The struggle into which Eata and Cuthbert, in their own persons, had
entered against Wilfrid, on the subject of Roman rites, did not point
them out as the best men to introduce the novelties so passionately
defended and insisted upon by the new bishop of Northumbria.
Notwithstanding, everything goes to prove that the new abbot and prior
of Lindisfarne adopted without reserve the decisions of the assembly
of Whitby, and took serious pains to introduce them into the great
Keltic community. Cuthbert, in whom the physical energy of a robust
organization was united to an unconquerable gentleness, employed in
this task all the resources of his mind and heart. All the rebels
had not left with bishop Colman; some monks still remained, who held
obstinately by their ancient customs. Cuthbert reasoned with them
daily in the meetings of the chapter; his desire was to overcome their
objections by patience and moderation alone; he bore their reproaches
as long as that was possible, and when his endurance was at an end,
raised the sitting without changing countenance or tone, and resumed
next morning the course of the debate, without ever permitting himself
to be moved to anger, or allowing any thing to disturb the inestimable
gift of kindness and light-heartedness which he had received from God.
[Illustration: S. CUTHBERT reasoning with the monks.]
[Illustration: DEATH OF S. CUTHBERT.
March 20.]
But his great desire was the strict observance of the rule when once
established; and his historian boasts, as one of his most remarkable
victories, the obligation he imposed for ever upon the monks of
Lindisfarne of wearing a simple and uniform dress, in undyed wool, and
thus giving up the passionate liking of the Anglo-Saxons for varied and
brilliant colours.
During the twelve years which he passed at Lindisfarne, the life of
Cuthbert was identical with that which he had led at Melrose. Within
doors this life was spent in the severe practice of all the austerities
of the cloister, in manual labour, united to the punctual celebration
of divine worship, and such fervour in prayer that he often slept only
one night in the three or four, passing the others in prayer, and in
singing the service alone while walking round the aisle to keep himself
awake. Outside, the same zeal for preaching, the same solicitude for
the salvation and well-being, temporal as well as spiritual, of the
Northumbrian people, was apparent in him. He carried to them the Word
of Life; he soothed their sufferings, by curing miraculously a crowd of
diseases which were beyond the power of the physicians. But the valiant
missionary specially assailed the diseases of the soul, and made use
of all the tenderness and all the ardour of his own spirit to reach
them. When he celebrated mass before the assembled crowd, his visible
emotion, his inspired looks, his trembling voice, all contributed to
penetrate and overpower the multitude. The Anglo-Saxon Christians, who
came in crowds to open their hearts to him in the confessional, were
still more profoundly impressed. Though he was a bold and inflexible
judge of impenitent vice, he felt and expressed the tenderest
compassion for the contrite sinner. He was the first to weep over the
sins which he pardoned in the name of God; and he himself fulfilled the
penances which he imposed as the conditions of absolution, thus gaining
by his humility the hearts which he longed to convert and cure.
But neither the life of a cenobite, nor the labours of a missionary
could satisfy the aspirations of his soul after perfection. When he was
not quite forty, after holding his priorship at Lindisfarne for twelve
years, he resolved to leave monastic life, and to live as a hermit in a
sterile and desert island, visible from Lindisfarne, which lay in the
centre of the Archipelago, south of the holy isle, and almost opposite
the fortified capital of the Northumbrian kings at Bamborough. No one
dared to live on this island, which was called Farne, in consequence of
its being supposed to be the haunt of demons. Cuthbert took possession
of it as a soldier of Christ, victorious over the tyranny of evil, and
built there a palace worthy of himself, hollowing out of the living
rock a cell from which he could see nothing but the sky, that he might
not be disturbed in his contemplations. The hide of an ox suspended
before the entrance of his cavern, and which he turned according to
the direction of the wind, afforded him a poor defence against the
intemperance of that wild climate. His holy historian tells us that he
exercised sway over the elements and brute creation as a true monarch
of the land which he had conquered for Christ, and with that sovereign
empire over nature which sin alone has taken from us. He lived on the
produce of a little field of barley sown and cultivated by his own
hands, but so small that the inhabitants of the coast reported among
themselves that he was fed by angels with bread made in Paradise.
[Illustration: S. CUTHBERT. In His Hermit's Cell.
March 20.]
The legends of Northumbria linger lovingly upon the solitary sojourn
of their great national and popular saint in this basaltic isle. They
attribute to him the extraordinary gentleness and familiarity of a
particular species of aquatic birds which came when called, allowed
themselves to be taken, stroked, caressed, and whose down was of
remarkable softness. In ancient times they swarmed about this rock,
and they are still to be found there, though much diminished in number
since curious visitors have come to steal their nests and shoot the
birds. These sea fowl are found nowhere else in the British Isles, and
are called the _Birds of S. Cuthbert_. It was he, according to the
narrative of a monk of the thirteenth century, who inspired them with a
hereditary trust in man by taking them as companions of his solitude,
and guaranteeing to them that they should never be disturbed in their
homes.
It is he, too, according to the fishers of the surrounding islands,
who makes certain little shells of the genus _Entrochus_, which are
only to be found on this coast, and which have received the name of S.
Cuthbert's Beads. They believe that he is still to be seen by night
seated on a rock, and using another as an anvil for his work.
The pious anchorite, however, in condemning himself to the trials of
solitude, had no intention of withdrawing from the cares of fraternal
charity. He continued to receive frequent visits, in the first place
from his neighbours and brethren at Lindisfarne, and in addition from
all who came to consult him upon the state of their souls, as well as
to seek consolation from him in adversity. The number of these pilgrims
of sorrow was countless. They came not only from the neighbouring
shores, but from the most distant provinces. Throughout all England the
rumour spread, that on a desert rock of the Northumbrian coast there
lived a solitary who was the friend of God, and skilled in the healing
of human suffering. In this expectation no one was deceived; no man
carried back from the sea-beaten island the same burden of suffering,
temptation, or remorse which he had taken there. Cuthbert had
consolation for all troubles, light for all the sorrowful mysteries of
life, counsel for all its perils, a helping hand to all the hopeless,
a heart open to all who suffered. He could draw from all terrestrial
anguish a proof of the joys of heaven, deduce the certainty of those
joys from the terrible evanescence of both good and evil in this world,
and light up again in sick souls the fire of charity--the only defence,
he said, against those ambushes of the old enemy which always take our
hearts captive when they are emptied of divine and brotherly love.
To make his solitude more accessible to these visitors, and above all
to his brethren from Lindisfarne, he had built some distance from the
cave which was his dwelling, at a place where boats could land their
passengers, a kind of _parlour_ and refectory for the use of his
guests. There he himself met, conversed, and ate with them, especially
when, as he has himself told, the monks came to celebrate with him such
a great feast as Christmas. At such moments he went freely into all
their conversations and discussions, interrupting himself from time
to time to remind them of the necessity of watchfulness and prayer.
The monks answered him, "Nothing is more true; but we have so many
days of vigil, of fasts and prayers. Let us at least to-day rejoice in
the Lord." The Venerable Bede, who has preserved to us the precious
memory of this exchange of brotherly familiarity has not disdained to
tell us also of the reproaches addressed by Cuthbert to his brothers
for not eating a fat goose which he had hung on the partition-wall of
his guest's refectory, in order that they might thoroughly fortify
themselves before they embarked upon the stormy sea to return to their
monastery.
This tender charity and courteous activity were united in him to
treasures of humility. He would not allow any one to suspect him of
ranking the life of an anchorite above that of a member of a community.
"It must not be supposed," he said, "because I prefer to live out
of reach of every secular care, that my life is superior to that of
others. The life of good cenobites, who obey their abbot in everything,
and whose time is divided between prayer, work, and fasting is much to
be admired. I know many among them whose souls are more pure, and their
graces more exalted than mine; especially, and in the first rank my
dear old Boswell, who received and trained me at Melrose in my youth."
Thus passed, in that dear solitude, and among these friendly
surroundings, eight pleasant years, the sweetest of his life, and
precisely those during which all Northumberland was convulsed by the
struggle between Wilfrid and the new king Egfrid.
Then came the day upon which the king of the Northumbrians, accompanied
by his principal nobles, and almost all the community of Lindisfarne,
landed upon the rock of Fame, to beg, kneeling, and with tears, that
Cuthbert would accept the episcopal dignity to which he had just been
promoted in the synod of Twyford, presided over by archbishop Theodore.
He yielded only after a long resistance, himself weeping when he did
so. It was, however, permitted to him to delay his consecration for
six months, till Easter, which left him still a winter in his dear
solitude, before he went to York, where he was consecrated by the
primate Theodore, assisted by six bishops. He would not, however,
accept the diocese of Hexham, to which he had been first appointed, but
persuaded his friend Eata, the bishop and abbot of Lindisfarne, to
give up to him the monastic bishopric, where he had already lived so
long.
The diocese of Lindisfarne spread far to the west, much beyond
Hexham. The Britons of Cumbria who had come to be tributaries of the
Northumbrian kings, were thus included in it. King Egfrid's deed of
gift, in which he gives the district of Cartmell, with all the Britons
who dwell in it, to bishop Cuthbert, still exists. The Roman city of
Carlisle, transformed into an Anglo-Saxon fortress, was also under his
sway, with all the surrounding monasteries.
His new dignity made no difference in his character, nor even in his
mode of life. He retained his old habits as a cenobite, and even as a
hermit. In the midst of his episcopal pomp he remained always the monk
and missionary of old. His whole episcopate, indeed, seems to bear the
character of a mission indefinitely prolonged. He went over his vast
diocese, to administer confirmation to converts, traversing a crowd
more attentive and respectful than ever, lavishing upon it all kinds
of benefits, alms, clothing, sermons, miraculous cures--penetrating as
of old into hamlets and distant corners, climbing the hills and downs,
sleeping under a tent, and sometimes indeed finding no other shelter
than in the huts of branches, brought from the nearest wood to the
desert, in which he had made the torrent of his eloquence and charity
to gush forth.
Here also we find illustrations, as at all previous periods of his
life, of the most delightful feature of his good and holy soul. In
the obscure missionary of Melrose, in the already celebrated prior
of Lindisfarne, and still more, if that is possible, in the powerful
and venerated bishop, the same heart, overflowing with tenderness and
compassion is always to be found. The supernatural power given to him
to cure the most cruel diseases was wonderful. But in his frequent
and friendly intercourse with the great Anglo-Saxon earls, the
_ealdormen_, as well as with the mixed populations of Britons, Picts,
Scots, and English, whom he gathered under his crosier, the principal
feature in the numerous and detailed narratives which remain to us, and
which gives to them a beauty as of youth, always attractive, is his
intense and active sympathy for those human sorrows which in all ages
are the same, always so keen, and capable of so little consolation.
The more familiar the details of these meetings between the heart of a
saint and true priest, and the simple and impetuous hearts of the first
English Christians, the more attractive do they become, and we cannot
resist the inclination of presenting to our readers some incidents
which shew at once the liveliness of domestic affections among those
newly-baptized barbarians and their filial and familiar confidence in
their master. One of the ealdormen of king Egfrid arrived one day in
breathless haste at Lindisfarne, overwhelmed with grief, his wife, a
woman as pious and generous as himself, having been seized with a fit
of violent madness. But he was ashamed to disclose the nature of the
attack, it seemed to him a sort of chastisement from heaven, disgracing
a creature hitherto so chaste and honoured; all that he said was that
she was approaching death; and he begged that a priest might be given
him to carry to her the viaticum, and that when she died he might be
permitted to bury her in the holy isle. Cuthbert heard his story, and
said to him with much emotion, "This is my business; no one but myself
can go with you." As they rode on their way together, the husband wept,
and Cuthbert, looking at him and seeing the cheeks of the rough warrior
wet with tears, divined the whole; and during all the rest of the
journey consoled and encouraged him, explaining to him that madness was
not a punishment of crime, but a trial which God inflicted sometimes
upon the innocent. "Besides," he added, "when we arrive we shall find
her cured; she will come to meet us, and will help me to dismount from
my horse, taking, according to her custom, the reins in her hand." And
so the event proved; for, says that historian, the demon did not dare
to await the coming of the Holy Ghost, of which the man of God was
full. The noble lady, delivered from her bondage, rose as if from a
profound sleep, and stood on the threshold to greet the holy friend of
the house, seizing the reins of his horse, and joyfully announcing her
sudden cure.
On another occasion, a certain count Henma, from whom he sought
hospitality during one of his pastoral journeys, received him on his
knees, thanking him for his visit, but at the same time telling him
that his wife was at the point of death, and he himself in despair.
"However," said the count, "I firmly believe that were you to give her
your blessing, she would be restored to health, or at least delivered
by a speedy death from her long and cruel sufferings." The saint
immediately sent one of his priests, without entering into the sick
room himself, to sprinkle her with water which he had blessed. The
patient was at once relieved; and herself came to act as cupbearer to
the prelate, offering him, in the name of all her family, that cup of
wine which, under the name of the _loving cup_, has continued since the
time of the Anglo-Saxons to form a part of all solemn public banquets.
A contagious disease at another time broke out in one part of his
diocese, to which Cuthbert immediately betook himself. After having
visited and consoled all the remaining inhabitants of one village, he
turned to the priest who accompanied him, and asked, "Is there still
any one sick in this poor place, whom I can bless before I depart?"
"Then," says the priest, who has preserved this story to us, "I showed
him in the distance a poor woman bathed in tears, one of whose sons
was already dead, and who held the other in her arms, just about to
render his last breath. The bishop rushed to her, and taking the dying
child from its mother's arms, kissed it first, then blessed it, and
restored it to the mother, saying to her, as the Son of God said to the
widow of Nain, 'Woman, weep not; have no more fear or sorrow; your son
is saved, and no more victims to this pestilence shall perish here.'"
No saint of his time or country had more frequent or affectionate
intercourse than Cuthbert with the nuns, whose numbers and influence
were daily increasing among the Anglo-Saxons, and especially in
Northumberland. The greater part of them lived together in the great
monasteries, such as Whitby and Coldingham, but some, especially
those who were widows or of advanced age, lived in their own houses
or with their relatives. Such was a woman devoted to the service of
God, who had watched over Cuthbert's childhood (for he seems to have
been early left an orphan), while he kept his sheep on the hills near
Melrose, from the eighth year of his age until his entrance into the
convent at the age of fifteen. He was tenderly grateful to her for her
maternal care, and when he became a missionary, took advantage of every
occasion furnished to him by his apostolic journeys to visit her whom
he called his mother, in the village where she lived. On one occasion,
when he was with her, a fire broke out in the village, and the flames,
increased by a violent wind, threatened all the neighbouring roofs.
"Fear nothing, dear mother," the young missionary said to her; "this
fire will do you no harm;" and he began to pray. Suddenly the wind
changed; the village was saved, and with it the thatched roof which
sheltered the old age of her who had protected his infancy.
From the cottage of his foster-mother he went to the palaces of
queens. The noble queen of Northumberland, Etheldreda, the saint and
virgin, had a great friendship for Cuthbert. She overwhelmed him and
his monastery with gifts from her possessions, and wishing, besides,
to offer him a personal token of her close affection, she embroidered
for him, with her hands (for she embroidered beautifully), a stole
and maniple covered with gold and precious stones. She chose to give
him such a present that he might wear this memorial of her only in
the presence of God, whom they both served, and accordingly would be
obliged to keep her always in mind at the holy sacrifice.
Cuthbert was on still more intimate terms with the holy princesses,
who, placed at the head of great communities of nuns, and sometimes
even of monks, exercised so powerful an influence upon the Anglo-Saxon
race, and particularly on Northumbria. While he was still at Melrose,
the increasing fame of his sanctity and eloquence brought him often
into the presence of the sister of king Oswy, who then reigned over
the two Northumbrian kingdoms. This princess, Ebba, was abbess of the
double monastery of Coldingham, the farthest north of all the religious
establishments of Northumbria. Cuthbert was the guest for several days
of the royal abbess, but he did not intermit on this occasion his pious
exercises, nor, above all, his austerities and long prayers by night on
the sea-shore.
To the end of his life he maintained a very intimate and constant
friendship with another abbess of the blood-royal of Northumbria,
Elfleda, niece of S. Oswald, and of king Oswy, who, though still quite
young, exercised an influence much greater than that of Ebba upon the
men and the events of her time. She had the liveliest affection for
the prior of Lindisfarne, and at the same time an absolute confidence
in his sanctity. When she was assailed by an alarming illness, which
fell into paralysis, and found no remedy from physicians, she cried,
"Ah! had I but something which belonged to my dear Cuthbert, I am sure
I should be cured." A short time after, her friend sent her a linen
girdle, which she hastened to put on, and in three days she was healed.
Shortly before his death, and during his last pastoral visitation,
Cuthbert went to see Elfleda in the neighbourhood of the great
monastery of Whitby, to consecrate a church which she had built there,
and to converse with her for the last time. They dined together, and
during the meal, seeing his knife drop from his trembling hand in
the abstraction of supernatural thoughts, she had a last opportunity
of admiring his prophetic intuition, and his constant care for
the salvation of souls. The fatigue of the holy bishop, who said,
laughingly, "I cannot eat all day long, you must give me a little
rest"--the eagerness and pious curiosity of the young abbess, anxious
to know and do everything, who rushes up breathless during the ceremony
of the dedication to ask from the bishop a memento for a monk whose
death she had just heard of--all these details form a picture complete
in its simplicity, upon which the charmed mind can repose amid the
savage habits and wild vicissitudes of the struggle, then more violent
than ever, between the Northumbrians and the Picts, the Saxons and the
Kelts.
But the last of all his visits was for another abbess less illustrious
and less powerful than the two princesses of the blood, but also of
high birth, and not less dear to his heart, if we may judge by the mark
of affection which he gave her on his death-bed. This was Verca, abbess
of one of that long line of monasteries which traced the shores of the
Northern Sea. Her convent was on the mouth of the Tyne, the river which
divided the two Northumbrian kingdoms. She gave Cuthbert a magnificent
reception; but the bishop was ill, and after the mid-day meal, which
was usual in all the Benedictine monasteries, he became thirsty. Wine
and beer were offered to him, yet he would take nothing but water,
but this water, after it had touched his lips, seemed to the monks of
Tynemouth, who drank the remainder, the best wine they had ever tasted.
Cuthbert, who retained nothing of the robust health of his youth,
already suffered from the first attacks of the disease which carried
him off. His pious friend was no doubt struck by his feebleness, for
she offered him, as the last pledge of spiritual union, a piece of very
fine linen to be his shroud. Two short years of the episcopate had
sufficed to consume his strength.
After celebrating the feast of Christmas, in 686, with the monks of
Lindisfarne, the presentiment of approaching death determined him to
abdicate, and to return to his isle of Farne, there to prepare for
the last struggle. He lived but two months, in the dear and pleasant
solitude which was his supreme joy, tempering its sweetness by
redoubled austerities. When his monks came to visit him in his isle,
which storms often made inaccessible for weeks together, they found him
thin, tremulous, and almost exhausted. One of them, who has given us a
narrative of the end of his life, revived him a little by giving him
warm wine to drink, then seating himself by the side of the worn-out
bishop upon his bed of stone, to sustain him, received from his beloved
lips the last confidences and last exhortations of the venerated
master. The visits of his monks were very sweet to him, and he lavished
upon them to the last moment proofs of his paternal tenderness and of
his minute care for their spiritual and temporal well-being. His last
illness was long and painful. He fixed beforehand the place of his
burial, near the oratory which he had hollowed in the rock, and at the
foot of a cross which he had himself planted. "I would fain repose,"
said he, "in this spot, where I have fought my little battle for the
Lord, where I desire to finish my course, and from whence I hope that
my merciful Judge will call me to the crown of righteousness. You will
bury me, wrapped in the linen which I have kept for my shroud, out of
love for the abbess Verca, the friend of God, who gave it to me."
He ended his holy life preaching peace, humility, and the love of
that unity which he thought he had succeeded in establishing in the
great Anglo-Keltic sanctuary, the new abbot of which, Herefrid, begged
of him a last message as a legacy to his community. "Be unanimous
in your counsels," the dying bishop said to him in his faint voice;
"live in good accord with the other servants of Christ; despise none
of the faithful who ask your hospitality; treat them with friendly
familiarity, not esteeming yourself better than others, who have the
same faith, and often the same life. But have no communion with those
who withdraw from the unity of Catholic peace, either by the illegal
celebration of Easter, or by practical ill-doing. Remember always, if
you must make a choice, that I infinitely prefer that you should leave
this place, carrying my bones with you, rather than that you should
remain here bent under the yoke of wicked heresy. Learn, and observe
with diligence, the Catholic decrees of the fathers, and also the rules
of monastic life which God has deigned to give you by my hands. I know
that many have despised me in my life, but after my death you will see
that my doctrine has not been despicable."
This effort was the last. He lost the power of speech, received the
last sacraments in silence, and died raising his eyes and arms to
heaven, at the hour when it was usual to sing matins, in the night of
the 20th of March, 687. One of his attendants immediately mounted to
the summit of the rock, where the lighthouse is now placed, and gave to
the monks of Lindisfarne, by waving a lighted torch, the signal agreed
upon to announce the death of the greatest saint who has given glory
to that famous isle. He was but fifty, and had worn the monastic habit
for thirty-five years.
Among many friends, he had one who was at once his oldest and most
beloved, a priest called Herbert, who lived as an anchorite in an
island of Lake Derwentwater. Every year Herbert came from his peaceful
lake to visit his friend in the other island, beaten and undermined
continually by the great waves of the Northern Sea; and upon that wild
rock, to the accompaniment of winds and waves, they passed several days
together, in a tender solitude and intimacy, talking of the life to
come. When Cuthbert, then a bishop, came for the last time to Carlisle,
Herbert seized the opportunity, and hastened to refresh himself at that
fountain of eternal benefits which flowed for him from the holy and
tender heart of his friend. "My brother," the bishop said to him, "thou
must ask me now all that thou wantest to know, for we shall never meet
again in this world." At these words Herbert fell at his feet in tears.
"I conjure thee," he cried, "do not leave me on this earth behind thee;
remember my faithful friendship, and pray God that, after having served
Him together in this world, we may pass into His glory together."
Cuthbert threw himself on his knees at his friend's side, and after
praying for some minutes, said to him, "Rise, my brother, and weep no
more; God has granted to us that which we have both asked from Him."
And, in fact, though they never saw each other again here below, they
died on the same day and at the same hour; the one in his isle bathed
by the peaceful waters of a solitary lake, the other upon his granite
rock, fringed by the ocean foam; and their souls, says Bede, reunited
by that blessed death, were carried together by the angels into the
eternal kingdom. This coincidence deeply touched the Christians of
Northumbria, and was long engraven in their memory. Seven centuries
later, in 1374, the bishop of Carlisle appointed that a mass should
be said on the anniversary of the two saints, in the island where the
Cumbrian anchorite died, and granted an indulgence of forty days to all
who crossed the water to pray there in honour of the two friends.
After many translations, the body of S. Cuthbert found repose in Durham
cathedral, where it rested in a magnificent shrine till the reign of
Henry VIII., when the royal commissioners visited the cathedral with
the purpose of demolishing all shrines. The following is a condensed
account of this horrible profanation, given by a writer of the period,
or shortly after[67]:--
[67] "A description or briefe declaration of all ye auntient monuments,
&c., written in 1593," but this seems to have been written originally
in Latin somewhat earlier. It has been several times republished,
lastly by Sanderson, in 1767.
"The sacred shrine of holy S. Cuthbert was defaced at the visitation
held at Durham, by Dr. Lee, Dr. Henly, and Mr. Blithman. They found
many valuable jewels. After the spoil of his ornaments, they approached
near to his body, expecting nothing but dust and ashes; but perceiving
the chest he lay in strongly bound with iron, the goldsmith, with a
smith's great forge hammer, broke it open, when they found him lying
whole, uncorrupt, with his face bare, and his beard as of a fortnight's
growth, and all the vestments about him, as he was accustomed to say
mass. When the goldsmith perceived he had broken one of his legs in
breaking open the chest, he was sore troubled at it, and cried, 'Alas!
I have broken one of his legs'; which Dr. Henly hearing, called to
him, and bade him cast down his bones. The other answered, he could
not get them asunder, for the sinews and skin held them so that they
would not separate. Then Dr. Lee stept up to see if it were so, and
turning about, spake in Latin to Dr. Henly that he was entire, though
Dr. Henly, not believing his words, called again to have his bones
cast down. Dr. Lee answered, 'If you will not believe me, come up
yourself and see him.' Then Dr. Henly stept up to him, and handled him,
and found he lay whole; then he commanded them to take him down, and
so it happened, that not only his body was whole and uncorrupted, but
the vestments wherein his body lay, and wherein he was accustomed to
say mass, were fresh, safe, and not consumed. Whereupon the visitors
commanded him to be carried into the revestry, till the king's pleasure
concerning him was further known; and upon the receipt thereof, the
prior and monks buried him in the ground under the place where his
shrine was exalted."
Harpsfield, who flourished at the time, and who was a most faithful
and zealous Catholic, gives a similar account; he, however, does not
say that the leg bone was broken, but that the flesh was wounded; and
that the body was entire except that "the prominent part of the nose,
I know not why, was wanting." And he adds that, "a grave was made in
the ground, in that very spot previously occupied by his precious
shrine, and there the body was deposited. And not only his body, but
even the vestments in which it was clothed, were perfectly entire,
and free from all taint and decay. There was upon his finger a ring
of gold, ornamented with a sapphire, which I myself once saw and
handled and kissed. There were present, among others, when this sacred
body was exposed to daylight, Doctor Whithead, the president of the
monastery, Dr. Sparke, Dr. Tod, and William Wilam, the keeper of the
sacred shrine. And thus it is abundantly manifest, that the body of S.
Cuthbert remained inviolate and uncontaminated eight hundred and forty
years."
In May, 1827, the place which these and other authorities had indicated
as that where the body of S. Cuthbert was buried, was very carefully
examined, and the coffin and a body were exhumed. The Anglo-Saxon
sculpture, and everything about and within this coffin, left no doubt
that what was discovered was the ancient coffin, the vestments, and
relics which had accompanied the body of S. Cuthbert. But the body by
no means agreed with the minute accounts of S. Cuthbert. There was
evidence that it had not been uncorrupt when buried, and there was no
trace of any injury done to the leg-bone. Hence it is difficult not to
conclude that the garments and shrine were those of Cuthbert, but that
the body was _not his_, but was one which had been substituted for it.
And when we remember that the incorrupt body was left in the vestry
under the charge of the prior and monks till the king's pleasure could
be ascertained as to what was to be done with it, there can be little
doubt that they who so highly valued this sacred treasure substituted
for it another body, which they laid in the pontifical vestments of
Cuthbert, which was buried as his in his coffin. Where the prior and
monks concealed the holy relics, if this conjecture prove true, it is
impossible to state. That there is ground for this conjecture may be
concluded from the existence of a tradition to this effect, and it is
said that the true place of the interment of the saint is only known to
three members of the Benedictine Order, who, as each one dies, choose
a successor. Another line of tradition is said to descend through the
Vicars Apostolic, now Roman Catholic bishops of the district. This is
the belief to which reference is made in Marmion.
The supposed place of interment indicated by the secular tradition,
(under the stairs of the bell-tower), has been carefully examined.
No remains were found, and it is evident that the ground had never
been disturbed since the construction of the tower.[68] There can be
no question as to the genuineness of all the articles found in the
tomb, for they exactly agree with accounts of the things contained in
the shrine, described by pre-reformation writers; but the genuineness
of the body is more than questionable. Mr. Raine, who was present at
the investigation, and has written an account of it, "S. Cuthbert;
with an Account of the State in which his Remains were found upon the
Opening of his Tomb in Durham Cathedral, in the year 1827," Durham
1828, endeavours to establish their identity by repudiating as absurd
the account of the contemporary writers who assert that the body was
uncorrupt, and of the breaking of the leg-bone, though he accepts all
their other statements.
[68] This secular tradition was preserved in the following
words:--"Subter gradus saxeos (secundum et tertium) climacis
ascendentis et ducentis erga turrim campanarum in templo cathedrali
civitatis Dunelmensis, prope horologium grande quod locatur in angulo
australi fani ejusdem, sepultus jacet thesaurus pretiosus, (corpus S.
Cuthberti.)" The earliest notice of such a tradition is in Serenus
Cressy, (1688), Church History, p. 902. The next in two MSS. in
Downside College by F. Mannock (1740), who states that he had heard it
from F. Casse (1730.) Both these statements pointed to the removal of
the body in the time of Henry VIII. The next notice of it is in 1828,
when F. Gregory Robinson wrote to Lingard, (see Lingard's Remarks, p.
50), but in this account the removal was described as taking place
in Mary's time. The secresy was partly broken when, in 1800, the
sketch of the cathedral which exists in the archives of the Northern
(R.C.) Province was allowed to be seen. Lingard's tradition (Anglo
Saxon Church, ii. p. 80), about the exchange of S. Cuthbert's body
for another skeleton is unknown to the Benedictines, who assert that
they possess the secret. It is said that the Benedictine tradition
concerning the site does not agree with the secular. What started
the diggings in 1867, under the stairs, was that a hereditary Roman
Catholic of Gateshead became a Protestant, and gave up a small piece
of paper on which was written the above secular tradition, "_subter
gradus, &c._" His father or grandfather had been servant to a Vicar
Apostolic, after whose death he had some of his clothes, among which
was a waistcoat, inside which the above was secured. It was ascertained
that this was not a hoax, and the late Dean Waddington invited some of
the fathers from Ushaw over, and the head of the English Benedictines
to see the diggings. It was supposed that the "precious treasure"
was something else, perhaps the Black Rood of Scotland, containing a
portion of the true cross, and that the words above in parenthesis,
(corpus Sti. Cuthberti) are a gloss. However they dug, but found
nothing but concrete and rock.