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Thesis--Bonn. / "Die ganze Arbeit wird unter dem Haupttitel im Verlage von P. Hanstein, Bonn, erscheinen." Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. viii-ix).

Thesis--Bonn. / "Die ganze Arbeit wird unter dem Haupttitel im Verlage von P. Hanstein, Bonn, erscheinen." Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. viii-ix).

The social fact of movement is a significant underlying feature of early medieval Northumbria, as it is for other regions and other periods. The eighth-century Anglo- Latin hagiographical tradition that centres on Bede (673-735) is not known for its articulacy concerning travel, and what is expressed might well be overlooked for its brevity. This thesis explores the relationship between allegories and symbolism, and the underlying travel-culture in prose histories and hagiographies produced in Northumbria in the early eighth century. It demonstrates the wide extent to which travel was meaningful. The range of connotations applied to movement and travel motifs demonstrate a multi-layered conceptualization of mobility, which is significant beyond the study of travel itself. In three sections, the thesis deals first with the mobility inherent in early medieval monasticism and the related concepts that influence scholarly expectations concerning this travel. The ideas of stabilitas and peregrinatio are explored in their textual contexts. Together they highlight that monastic authors were concerned with the impact of movement on discipline and order within monastic communities. However, early medieval monasticism also provided opportunities for travel and benefitted from that movement. Mobility itself could be praised as a labour for God. The second section deals with how travel was narrated. The narrative role of sea, land, and long-distance transport provide a range of stimuli for the inclusion and exclusion of travel details. Whilst figurative allegory plays its part in explaining both the presence and absence of sea travel, other, more mundane meanings are applied to land transport. Through narratives, those who were unable to travel great distances were given the opportunity to experience mobility and places outside of their homes. The third section builds on this idea of the experience of movement, teasing out areas where a textual embodiment of travel was significant, and those where the contrasting textual experience of travel is illustrative of narrative techniques and expectations. This section also looks at the hagiographical evidence for wider experiences of mobility, outside of the travel of the hagiographical subjects themselves. It demonstrates the transformation of the devotional landscape at Lindisfarne and its meaning for the social reality of movement. This wide-ranging exploration of the theme of mobility encourages the development of scholarship into movement, and into the connections between travel and other aspects of society.

In the late eleventh century, the episcopal Church of St Cuthbert at Durham was one of the most powerful institutions in the North of England. Its power was derived from its possession of extensive landed estates which had been acquired since the late seventh century. Whereas the other ecclesiastical corporations of early Northumbria had succumbed to the successive waves of Scandinavian invasions, the Church of St Cuthbert had established a significant franchise and had augmented its landholding. The leaders of the Church were willing to lend their support to any secular ruler who would guarantee the safety of its possessions. The first Norman appointee to the bishopric, Walcher, was in a precarious position relying heavily upon the local Northumbrian aristocracy for his administration. Factionalism within Walcher's regime brought about the Bishop's murder at Gateshead in 1080. This incident forced William I to reconsider his policy in the North-East of England and he appointed William of St Calais to the bishopric and Robert de Mowbray to the earldom of Northumbria. Bishop William launched an attack on the position of the members of the pre-Conquest Congregatio sancti Cuthberti by introducing a Convent of Benedictine monks to Durham in 1083. A re-examination of the early twelfth-century chronicle of Symeon, who was precentor at Durham, challenges the widely held view that there was a complete change in the personnel serving St Cuthbert's shrine in 1083. It is argued that a significant number of the Congregation entered the Convent thus maintaining a strong local presence at the shrine. The Benedictine Convent served as the cathedral chapter and its relationship with its nominal Abbot, the Bishop, is surveyed for the period, 1083 to 1153. During the pontificate of William of St Calais, the Convent enjoyed a privileged status within the see. However, the elevation of Rannulf Flambard to the bishopric marked the beginning of conflict between the two institutions. The monks sought a definition. of their franchise and this prompted them to confect a series of forged foundation charters which multiplied during the pontificate of Hugh du Puiset. The establishment of a French baronage within the Patrimony of St Cuthbert strengthened the Norman presence in the region, although a number of native families maintained their position. The surviving evidence suggests that the feudal structure of Durham was largely the work of Bishop Rannulf. Finally, the relationship between the Church of St Cuthbert and Scotland has been considered and it is argued that, in this period, the Bishop of Durham did not take an active role in the defence of the North of England. The Convent received grants of land from the Scots kings, most notably the church of Coldingham. As it had done between its foundation and the late eleventh century, the Church of St Cuthbert survived weathering the Norman Conquest and thereby ensuring that the cult of St Cuthbert at Durham prospered. By the end of the twelfth century it was rivalled only by that of Thomas Becket.

St Cuthbert's literary cult was conceived in the late seventh and early eighth century with the production of three vitae, most importantly Bede's prose Vita sancti Cuthberti. Over the ensuing centuries, the cult stimulated the production of a great wealth of hagiographic material: this thesis analyses the key Cuthbertine works that were written by his Church during a turbulent but also prosperous time, between the ninth century and the end of the twelfth. Each chapter takes as a specific focus one of these texts, using it as a basis for exploring a number of themes pertaining to the cult of St Cuthbert, wider developments in the cult of the saints, and the changing and variable uses of hagiographic and historical writing. The first chapter takes the Historia de sancto Cuthberto as an example of a text combining property records with miracles, and written episodically over a period spanning more than a century, establishing the thesis'€™ triumvirate of themes: the fluidity of texts and of the representation of saints, and the enduring power of the Cuthbertine Church. Chapter Two explores the multifaceted identity that the Cuthbertine Church sought to convey for itself in Symeon of Durham’s Libellus de exordio. The third and fourth chapters focus on two highly flexible and manipulated texts, Capitula de miraculis sancti Cuthberti and Brevis relatio de sancto Cuthberto, which appear in manuscripts together, and often amalgamated: they are used to examine how a saint's image could be changed, and to question our often static notion of a text'€™s identity. The final chapter takes Reginald's Libellus de admirandis beati Cuthberti virtutibus to compare the miracle profiles of all the Cuthbertine texts, contextualising them with formative studies in the cult of saints such as the work of Sigal (1985) and Vauchez (1981). The thesis ends by suggesting that Cuthbert's cult was still thriving at the end of the twelfth century, and continued to do so, in the semi-independent socio-political and cultural sphere of northern England and southern Scotland. The discussions in these chapters are supplemented by four appendices: a table giving detailed synopses and a thematic breakdown of Reginald's Libellus, and a table categorising and comparing the miracles that appear in all these Cuthbertine works provide the basis for exploring Cuthbert'€™s changing miraculous persona; a map charting the locations pertinent to Reginald's Libellus shows the vibrant geographical extent of Cuthbert'™s cult; a table of manuscripts illustrates the various permutations into which these texts may be worked.