The church of Durham, founded in 995, claimed in the Middle Ages to be in origin the church of Lindisfarne or Holy Island, the members of which had fled in the face of Viking raids and had wandered for long across northern England, before re-establishing their church at Chester-le-Street in Co. Durham and then at Durham itself. The text edited and translated here for the first time for over a century is the most complete and detailed account of the history of that church. Important as a piece of early post-Conquest historiography by an author about whom much is now known, the text is fascinating for the details it gives about the ecclesiastical community of Durham, the miracles which its members believed had occurred, and the place of the church of Durham in relation to the lands and secular inhabitants of northern England.
The church of Durham, founded in 995, claimed in the Middle Ages to be in origin the church of Lindisfarne or Holy Island, the members of which had fled in the face of Viking raids and had wandered for long across northern England before re-establishing their church. This book is a newly edited and translated version of the most complete and detailed account of the history of this church. Important as a piece of early post-Conquest historiography by an author about whom much is now known, the text is fascinating for the details it gives about the ecclesiastical community of Durham, the miracles which its members believed had occurred, and the relationship between the church and the lands and secular inhabitants of northern England.
This edition is a welcome culmination to the recent dramatic advances in our knowledge of Durham historiography to which Rollason himself has made a significant contribution. The text will hold its own, its historical commentary is helpful and exhaustive, the introduction brings Symeon and Durham historical writing into sharper focus. Studies of the Cronica monasterii Dunelmensis, of the De primo aduentu Saxonum, and of the Historia regum in time might give a fuller picture, but they are unlikely to affect the great value of this edition for which Rollason must to be warmly thanked. The history of the see of St Cuthbert from its start at Lindisfarne in the seventh century to the reestablishment of a monastic community in Durham is again firmly underpinned and clearly visible. Symeon and his team could not have wished for more.
