Saints, Sovereigns and Scholars: Northumbria in the Middle Ages

The Kingdom of Northumbria (located north of the River Humber) was the foremost centre of intellectual and cultural excellence in Western Europe during the 7th and 8th centuries. Oswald, king of Northumbria, had invited Aidan, an Irish missionary, to establish a monastery on Holy Island, or Lindisfarne, in 635, thereby introducing Irish Christianity to England. Cuthbert, a successor to Aidan as Abbot of Lindisfarne, was popularly acclaimed a saint soon after his death in 687, and Bede (d. 735), renowned monastic scholar at the vibrant twin monasteries of Saints Peter and Paul at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow wrote no less than three biographies of Cuthbert. Late 9th-century Viking raids dislocated this culturally vibrant world, but north-eastern England, dominated by the city of Durham, home to St Cuthbert’s relics from 995, remained a cultural hub throughout the Middle Ages. The Norman kings cultivated a sequence of powerful Prince Bishops as allies against Scottish invasion, and Durham became a magnet for craftsmen, pilgrims, ecclesiastics and sovereigns. Durham Castle, founded by William the Conqueror, boasts an early Romanesque chapel, and the cathedral, begun 1093, under Bishop William St Carileph, was indebted to prestigious models like Old St Peter’s, Rome and furnished with stunning sculpture, wall paintings, metalwork, and illuminated manuscripts, many of which survived the Reformation. This study day will revel in the abundant material culture of medieval Northumbria from 7th – 12th centuries!

 This Lecture is held at the Art Workers' Guild in Queen Square London.

TIMETABLE FOR THE DAY

10.30-11.00 Welcome refreshments

11:00-12:00 – Lecture 1

12:00- 12.30 Refreshments

12:30-13:30 – Lecture 2

13:30-14:30 – Lunch

14:30-15:30 Lecture 3