Saint Cuthbert's Gospel-British Library buys for £9 million

"Seven years St Cuthbert’s corpse they bore."

St Cuthbert arrives in Durham - Journey A bronze sculpture showing six monks carrying St Cuthbert's coffin from Lindisfarne to Durham Cathedral.

St. Cuthbert (c. 634 – 687) was an Anglo-Saxon saint of the early Northumbrian church in the Celtic tradition.¹ He was buried on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne off the coast of NE England. Eleven years after his death his coffin was opened and his body found uncorrupted.²

The St. Cuthbert Gospel, also known as the Stonyhurst Gospel or the St Cuthbert Gospel of St John, is an early 8th-century pocket gospel book, written in Latin. It was placed in St. Cuthbert’s coffin. Its finely decorated leather binding is the earliest known Western bookbinding to survive.

Vikings raids upon the Holy Island of Lindisfarne forced the monks of Lindisfarne to flee their island with the body of Saint Cuthbert and seek refuge on the mainland in 875. For seven years the monks carried the coffin with them to various places in modern Scotland and Northumbria before settling it in the still existing St Cuthbert's church which is now a world heritage site. ³

How when the rude Dane burn’d their pile
The monks fled forth from Holy Isle :
O’er northern mountain, marsh, and moor,
From sea to sea, from shore to shore,
Seven years St Cuthbert’s corpse they bore.

Sir Walter Scott

The St Cuthbert Gospel is the oldest European book to survive fully intact.

The St Cuthbert Gospel was found inside the coffin and removed in 1104 when the burial was once again moved within the cathedral.⁴ It is thought that after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in England by Henry VIII between 1536 and 1541, the book passed to collectors. It was eventually given to Stonyhurst College, the Jesuit school in Lancashire. It is a miraculously well-preserved 7th century manuscript that is the oldest European book to survive fully intact and therefore one of the world’s most important books.

£9 million purchase price secured through largest fundraising campaign in the British Library’s history

In 2011 an agreement was reached with the Jesuit British Province for the British Library to buy the St Cuthbert Gospel for £9 million (about $14,000,000).⁵

It has a beautifully worked original red leather binding in excellent condition, and it is the only surviving high-status manuscript from this period in British history to retain its original appearance, both inside and out.

St. Cuthbert’s Way

St. Cuthbert’s Way bridges the national border between Scotland and England. It is a cross-border route linking Melrose in the Scottish Borders, where St. Cuthbert started his religious life in 650AD, with Holy Island off the Northumberland Coast.⁶

1. Bede. (1887). The life of St. Cuthbert (J Stevenson. Trans.). London: Burns & Oates, Ltd; New York; Catholic Publication Society Co.; Foley, W. Trent. “Suffering and Sanctity in Bede’s Prose Life of St. Cuthbert.” Journal of Theological Studies 50, no. 1 (1999): 102–16.

2. Willem, David. St Cuthbert's Corpse: A Life After Death. Durham: Sacristry Press. 2013. The miracle of St Cuthbert’s incorrupt corpse has been the subject of much fascination since his death over thirteen-hundred years ago, inspiring pilgrims, monks, and even the construction of Durham Cathedral itself. Throughout the centuries, Cuthbert’s coffin has been opened on six occasions. For the first time, accounts of these openings have been brought together in a single volume, providing a unique history of the Saint from his death to the present day.

3. The Durham World Heritage Site was inscribed by UNESCO in 1986 (among the first UK sites to be listed) in recognition of its Outstanding Universal Value. The site's architectural importance lies in the fact that Durham Cathedral and Castle are among the greatest monuments of the Norman Conquest of Britain, and that Durham Cathedral, built between 1093 and 1133, is one of the finest examples of Norman architecture in Europe. World Heritage site. Durham Cathedral. See: St. Cuthbert’s Shrine.

4. Gameson, Richard. The Lindisfarne Gospels : New Perspectives. Edited by Richard Gameson. Leiden: Brill, 2017.

5. British Library acquires the St Cuthbert Gospel – the earliest intact European book. British Library; The St. Cuthbert Gospel: 1,300 Years Old And Looking Pretty Good. Morning Edition. National Public Radio, Inc. (NPR), 2012.

6. St. Cuthbert’s Way. Website.