The Old English Durham and the cult of Cuthbert

The Old English Durham is a short poem in praise of the final resting place of Saint Cuthbert, the great seventh-century Anglo-Saxon hermit saint. The present essay argues that the poem asserts the primacy of Durham as cult centre, over the previous centres of Lindisfarne and Chester-le-Street, by depicting the city as a space exceptionally suited to Cuthbert and blessed by his presence. The Durham poet presents a selective and idealized description of the city of Durham that uses a hybrid of natural and built space to echo the representation of Cuthbert’s homes on Farne and Lindisfarne in the hagiographic tradition. The result is a fusion of the eremitic space of the hermitage and the coenobitic space of the monastery, both types of the City of God, which creates a sense of continuity from the spaces that Cuthbert occupied in life and demonstrates the fitness of Durham Cathedral as a resting place for the saint