7 - THE LORDS SPIRITUAL

Summary

Our singular trust restith in your gracieux lordship, as reason is

The prevailing impression made by the late medieval monks of Durham upon the minds of contemporaries and posterity alike was that of zealous and painstaking defenders of the traditional rights, liberties and possessions of the cathedral church of Durham. In their prayers, their writings and their litigation they were at continuous pains to demonstrate the uniqueness of their own position, the distinctiveness of their convent's history and the large measure of immunity from external interference which was – so they believed – their inalienable right. The prior and chapter looked backwards to a veritable if legendary golden age during which the community of Saint Cuthbert led by the bishops of Lindisfarne had conducted its affairs in harmony and independence. How attractive, in fifteenth-century conditions, to learn from Bede of a halcyon period when the bishops themselves had been monks and only entered Northumbrian monasteries as benevolent and beneficent guests. Such idyllic conditions, as the late medieval chapter was well aware, had been shattered beyond repair, first by the invasions of the Northmen and, secondly, by the post-Conquest separation of the bishop and titular abbot from his monks. Of the thirty bishops of Durham between the ‘reformation’ of 1083 and the Dissolution, very few had any native connection with the diocese, and only three (Robert Stichill, Robert of Holy Island and Richard Kellaw) were monks of Saint Cuthbert.