A page from the Durham Gospels, a 7th century manuscript made in Lindisfarne, and brought to Durham in the 10th century, where it remains until today.
© Durham Cathedral and Jarrold Printing
Durham Cathedral developed as a renowned centre for learning – this is hardly surprising as learning was fundamental to the Benedictine Order. In the 13th century, then still a Benedictine monastery, the Cathedral library was said to contain more books than the great Benedictine mother monastery in Cluny in France.
Durham is fortunate to have retained many of its medieval manuscripts – among its more famous ones are the Durham Gospels, a precursor to the more celebrated Lindisfarne Gospels that once lay in the nave of Durham Cathedral but is now in the British Library in London.
Manuscript production was a costly and time-consuming process. The blue pigment used on this page is probably ground lapis lazuli, which could only be obtained from Afghanistan. Thus, the production of a book relied on an extensive trade network. The mental image of a monk sitting at a desk writing was just the tip of the iceberg.
This is a page from a Bible commissioned by Hugh Le Puiset, Bishop of Durham in the late 12th century.
© Durham Cathedral and Jarrold Printing
How did Durham Retain So Many of its Medieval Manuscripts?
Although done forcedly, During Henry VIII’s Reformation, Durham Cathedral switched from a Benedictine monastery to an Anglican Cathedral quite quickly. (The prior at the time of the Reformation, Whitehead, became the first dean of the new establishment in 1539). This relatively smooth transition gave the Cathedral institutional continuity, leading to much of its library surviving intact.
Visit the Durham Cathedral Library webpage.
View of the Cathedral Library, an extraordinary repository of medieval and post-medieval material, much of which is today administered by the library of Durham University.
© Jeffrey Veitch