St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne’s Posthumous Journey

From twice fleeing the Danes to settling at Durham, until at last Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries wrecked his tomb.

St. Cuthbert’s characteristic (for a saint) incorrupt body, pictured in the Venerable Bede’s Life of Cuthbert (Vita Sancti Cuthberdi — having a prose and verse version), a 12th century manuscript. (Bede himself born almost fifteen years before St. Cuthbert’s death.)

Saint Cuthbert was born in a time in which England was ‘reconverting’ to Christianity. After the Romans had left in 410, the island had famously been invaded by…