The Rest Is History - 34. St Cuthbert’s Day

Episode Date: March 20, 2021

March 20th marks the annual Feast day of the Northumbrian Saint Cuthbert. But why should we care about this largely forgotten figure from the 7th century? Tom Holland persuades Dominic Sandbrook that the story of Cuthbert, whose body lay perfectly preserved long after his death, is well worth re-examining. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. Hello and welcome to The Rest Is History. When I agreed to do this podcast with Tom Holland, the one thing I dreaded was that on a Saturday morning I'd be dragged out of bed to do a podcast about some obscure medieval saint. And lo and behold, that's precisely what we're doing in this special Rest Is History podcast about the life of St Cuthbert. Now, Tom, please explain to me.

He's not an obscure saint. He's the patron saint of Northumbria. And I think that most people, myself included, think that he should properly be the patron saint of England. So it's big news that today is his saint's day. So this is St Cuthbert's day. So this is St. Cuthbert's day. Yeah. This is St. Cuthbert's day. He died 1,334 years ago. So that's AD 687 on the 20th of March. A landmark anniversary. Landmark anniversary. And I think it's a big day. It's one of my favourite days of the year. And it started off as a joke that Jonathan Wilson, who we had on our most recent podcast talking about football.

He is a great football man. Those who've listened to it will perhaps recognise from his accent that he's a man of the North East. And Cuthbert was likewise a man of the North East. And so we got into the habit of meeting with Jonathan and a few friends to celebrate St. Cuthbert, to toast his memory. And it's become a kind of annual occurrence.

And actually one of the reasons that I wanted to do it this year was that last year our celebration of St. Cuthbert's Day was the first thing that got kiboshed by the lockdown, by the COVID lockdown. Yes. And it kind of, it actually really, it really kind of, that was the first time that I felt, oh God, this is going to be weird. Both because I missed it, but also because Cuthbert was a saint who lived in a time of terrible plague. The accounts of his life, endlessly, it's kind of taken for granted. He'll turn up and a plague is raging.

People will die of it and he brought incredible healing powers kind of supernatural healing powers but he also brought kind of comfort and concern so all right um let's get let's get to the nitty-gritty um what century are we in and what's the story basically we're in the seventh century and we're in um a north so this is before the kingdom of england this is when um what will become england is divided up among rival anglo-saxon kingdoms um we are in the kingdom of northumbria yeah um and uh it's a time when um christianity has come both from Ireland and from Rome. So it's pre-Viking. It's pre-Viking.

It's pre-Viking. So it's a period when the old gods are kind of retreating. And in fact, in Bede's account of Cuthbert, there's this kind of amazing detail where some monks are sailing out across the mouth of the Tyne and the wind blows up and starts blowing them out to sea. And a bunch of lads on the shore all start laughing. As they would. Yeah, it's kind of Dark Ages viz, I guess.

Yeah. And Cuthbert says to them, you know, why are you doing this? These poor guys are going to be swept to their deaths. And they say, well, we don't care because these monks are banishing our gods and we don't know what we're meant to do anymore. And Cuthbert kneels down and he prays and miraculously the wind changes and the monks are swept back in. But there's a glimpse there of what Cuthbert actually represents, which is a kind of a revolution, a process of revolution, the introduction of Christianity, both from Ireland and from Rome. So it's kind of mixed, but it's felt as radical. But what you see in the life of Cuthbert is why Christianity works, why it beds down. So who is he? Where's he born? Well, ironically for a man who comes to be associated with the emergent kingdom of England, he's actually born in what is now Scotland. He's a Scot. He's not.

He's a Northumbrian because, of course, the kingdom of Northumbria reached all the way up to the Firth of Forth. Okay. So he's perhaps born in the vicinity of Melrose, perhaps Dunbar, somewhere around like somewhere that. He seems to have been of aristocratic background. He's described as a young boy who enjoyed his sport so of course sportsmen like you will will empathize with that well i guess kind of thinking you know the the grand sporting tradition of the northeast because we've had both we've had dan jackson talking about that jackie milburn previous yeah all that bobby charlton and uh cuff butbert is described as playing a ball game.

So maybe, probably football, maybe cricket. Who knows? Can't say. But he was clearly a kind of Gazza-esque young man. That's not a comparison I was expecting. But then he has a kind of a conversion. Right. And then but then he has a kind of a conversion and and what he sees a vision of angels descending and a great beam of light and then a figure rising up to the sky. And this figure he subsequently learns is St.

Aidan, an Irish monk who has founded a monastery on an island called Lindisfarne. That'll be very well known. And and kuthbert decides that he is going to devote his life to christ and he turns up at um priory of of melrose and we're told again by bead that he arrives with a spear and on a horse so that suggests that actually he's a he's quite well born so or that he's why has he got a spear is he a soldier or do people just this is a, because this is a violent age. This is a violent age.

It's an age of plague and it's an age of war. And Cuthbert, by abandoning his horse, by abandoning his spear, is essentially becoming a slave of Christ. And he casts off all the privileges of his class. He lives an incredibly ascetic life. This is a man who in the middle of the night goes down into the North Sea, stands up to his neck, praying, comes back up as the chill wind is whipping off the North Sea in the early dawn.

Isn't that what people in the North do on like New Year's Day and stuff? They go for dips to show their hardiness. But they go for dips, but they don't stand for hours at an end up to their neck. But there's this wonderful detail, however, that as Cuthbert is standing on the shore, sea otters come and they warm his feet and then they slip back into the sea. And this is kind of one of the wonderful details about Cuthbert. That's just a bit weird, Tom.

That's a bit weird, Tom. That's a bit weird. Well, but there's a lot more. Cuthbert is a man who sees angels. He can heal the sick. He can banish fire. He can make the wind turn. And he communes with the natural world. So sea otters come and warm his feet. Eagles bring him fish when he's hungry. He can understand things from the pattern of the flying of the birds. And the truth is that if you want a model for, say, Gandalf or Merlin,

a man who has an incredible power that is actually greater than that that he would have had if he'd remained a warrior. Okay. But let me interrupt you, Tom. So where are you getting all this stuff from? I mean, how do we – is this sort of saints' lives written down by monks or is it a chronicle or what exactly is it? And was it written at the time or is this some fable told long afterwards so this is another reason why i thought it would be great to do it on this podcast because in a sense this is where the tradition that that this podcast and other history podcasts and people who

write about history and yeah i like the fact this podcast has a tradition now it does because because essentially it it begins with this because the one of the guys who writes about it is Bede. And Bede writes the first great history of what you might call the English people. And Bede writes this life of Cuthbert. And he specifies in his opening to it that he has researched it, that he's spoken to people who knew Cuthbert, and that these are living traditions that he's writing down. And there's another life as well, which is earlier, which is also clearly written by someone who knew Cuthbert quite well. And I think what's haunting about it is the sense of kind of anecdotes and stories that have,

they're clearly true. There's clearly some kind, there are memories that are told of Cuthbert that have been kind of retold and retold. So there's a story. So Cuthbert is closely associated with royal women who have become abbesses. So this is a period in which women have incredible sacral power as well and they're generally princesses are of the royal northumbrian

household and there's one who has the brilliant name alf lad um and she is the abbess of whitby and she she comes to meet with cuthbert and anduthbert sits down at table with her, although he barely eats anything. He's incredibly ascetic. And as they're sitting at table, we're told he suddenly has a kind of he goes and has a strange fit. He sits there and everyone's kind of staring at him, snapping their fingers in front of his eyes. Nothing happens. And then he wakens up from his trance and says, what's going on? And he says, someone I was watching someone in your Abbey going up to heaven. I saw angels come and collect

his soul and take it up to heaven. And Alphad says, well, you know, who? And Cuthbert says, you will tell me tomorrow when I am celebrating mass. And so Alphad sends off a messenger, gets told that it's a shepherd who's died. And as Cuthbert is celebrating mass, he comes to the point where you remember those who've died. Al-Flaad bursts in, says, it's this shepherd, and Cuthbert commemorates him. So what's striking about that is both the intimacy that Cuthbert has with a very, very high-born Northumbrian royal. But also the fact that they are talking about a shepherd. And it's hard to overemphasise the degree to which

people of high status generally are not bothered with the death of shepherds. And so you can see exactly that, both the power of Cuthbert, but also why Christianity puts down roots so quickly. It has something for the elites, for those who are royal. Yeah. But it also has something for those who are poor. And we're told again and again that although Cuthbert commands the respect of those who are very powerful, he also always has in his mind those who are poor, those who are suffering. And he is always concerned to make sure that he can heal them, give them food, give them shelter, whatever. So he's a very loved man, I think. How much is this, though, just basically, I mean, there were established formulas for saints' lives, weren't there?

So how much is this just sort of recapping the traditional formulae for saints' lives? You know, history in its early years, in its early centuries, followed set rules set rules you know people behaved in certain ways emperors saints bishops kings yeah how is cuthbert different is cuthbert different or is this just basically following the traditional tram lines well um cuthbert is is bred of an age where holy men are vested with an incredible sense of power so this is also for instance on the other end of the former roman empire this is the age of instance, on the other end of the former Roman empire, this is the age of Muhammad, very kind of different tradition,

but you can see bread of the kind of same matrix perhaps. And so you're right that there are absolutely kind of traditions specifically within the Christian one that Cuthbert embodies. But I think that what makes Cuthbert's reputation different is firstly what I was saying, that these lives are clearly written out of a sense of awe and love for him. And they bear the definite imprint of personal experiences

to a degree that I think is unusual in saints' lives. And the other thing is that these lives are written because Cuthbert comes to have after after his life, in death, an incredible potency. Well, let's do that after the break, maybe. We've done Cuthbert Alive. We'll do After the Break. We'll do his death and his afterlife, which is an amazing story. I think in many ways even more interesting than his life. Well, that is something for our remaining listeners to look forward to.

We'll see you again after the break. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip. And on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works.

We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes, and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com. Welcome back to The Rest Is History. We are discussing the life of St Cuthbert. It is St Cuthbert's Day.

Tom Holland is brimming with enthusiasm. We've been talking about St Cuthbert. It is St. Cuthbert's day. Tom Holland is brimming with enthusiasm. We've been talking about St. Cuthbert alive. Tom, so St. Cuthbert dies, and this is a big, this is really where the story gets juicy, right, with St. Cuthbert's death. Yes. So a dead saint is a very valuable commodity. So the moment Cuthbert dies, beacons are lit.

He's on a kind of a far island out in the wilds of the North Sea. And his body is brought over to Lindisfarne, wrapped up, buried. And 11 years later, the monks look at the body and it's fully preserved. Miraculous. That is miraculous. And the reason they do that is that everything associated with Cuthbert has been doing amazing miracles. So his shoes cures people, his comb cures people. A boldness, presumably.

I'm sure, yeah. The body is particularly potent. And over the course of the century that follows, it becomes a great object of pilgrimage because not just across England, but across the whole of Northern Christian, Northern Europe, people are coming to Lindisfarne to pray at St. Cuthbert's because it's, you know, it's the kind of equivalent of a Pfizer vaccine.

It's, it's that, that important. And that's a hell of a journey, Tom. I mean, if you're coming from or something, I mean,

that's, you know, this is like a massive expedition. And do you have any sense of numbers? I mean, are we talking, are we talking dozens? Well, we, the, the's, you know, this is like a massive expedition. And do you have any sense of numbers? I mean, are we talking dozens? Well, the measurement of how many people are coming is that Lindisfarne becomes spectacularly rich because every time they come, they bring an offering. And so you have this island off the North Sea, exposed, distant, absolutely stuffed full of gold and treasure. And of course, in 793, this attracts the attention of various gentlemen from across the North Sea,

the Vikings. And the Viking Age begins with the sack of Lindisfarne. And they keep coming back and coming back and coming back. And they're coming back for Cuthbert's loot, basically, for the loot that's loot, basically. For the loot that's been accumulated from the tourist trade. And it all gets too much. And 875, that's almost a century after the monks, you know, fed up with this. And so they upload Cuthbert in his coffin and they transport it. And essentially what they seem to be doing with that is that they take it around all the various lands that the monastery of Lindisfarne has come to be given over the course of the century.

And they're taking the body as a kind of stamp. So they're saying, you know, here it is. And this body continues to do incredible miracles. And what's interesting is that it seems to impress the Vikings as much as the native Northumbrians. And so in 883, there's a king, he's actually formerly a slave, a Viking slave who becomes a king called Guthrid. Oh, yeah. I've read about him in Bernard Cornwell. That's right. So Bernard Cornwell writes about it in a sceptical way. But it's evident that to everyone, Cuthbert's body is just the most remarkable, supernatural, terrifying thing that there is. And the body gets taken to York when Guthrid is crowned. And Guthrid gives all the land between the Tine and the Tees to the body, to St. Cuthbert. To the body. So basically, for most of the 9th century and into the 10th century, the guy who is ruling the lands between the Tine and the Tees is a dead body.

It's the late St. Cuthbert. Brilliant. And any Viking who gives St. Cuthbert shit comes to a horrible end. So there is one Viking who tries to break into the shrine that's been set up at Chesterless Street, the old Roman fort. And the floor opens and the Viking gets swallowed up and goes to hell. And so after that, you know, people are not going to give Cuthbert any grief. And so what that means is that a dead body is perhaps the most significant lord in early 10th century England. I can think of two really good parallels for that from either ends of the historical spectrum. So one, which some listeners may already have thought of, is the body of Alexander the Great.

So Alexander the Great dies after all his conquests. And then there's a big tussle, isn't there, for his body. It's basically stolen by his mate Ptolemy, who takes it to Egypt. And the body of Alexander, which is sort of, you know, it's buried with all sort of honours and stuff in Egypt, in Alexandria, is the sort of badge of legitimacy, isn't it? And bodies were a kind of badge of power and legitimacy.

Except I don't think that Alexander's body does miracles. No, that's right. And really, the thing with Cuthbert is that it… But he was a god. Yes, yes. Cuthbert wasn't even a god. Cuthbert was just a saint. Alexander was a god.

But Cuthbert is capable of miracles, and therefore that's the basis of his power. Okay. Although, interestingly, with Alexander, I mean, there's this kind of wonderful theory that his body vanishes at around the same time that a Venetian flotilla arrives in Alexandria and steals the body of St. Mark. So I always loved the idea that actually the body of St. Mark in Venice is the body of Alexander, which would be wonderful. So here's my other example. Now, the thing about St. Cuthbert you were saying was that his body was miraculously preserved intact after his death. And, of course, there is a body in the world, which some listeners will have seen, which is miraculously preserved, of another revolutionary who is the sort of badge of legitimacy of a state and that's lenin have you been to lenin's have you seen lenin and i have yes i have yes i've

threaded past it's very strange isn't it to kind of queue up and go into that mausoleum which is designed like a pyramid you know it's got this sort of pyramidal design he looks like robin cook but it's just a wax work isn't he that's the extraordinary thing they pumped it with so much i don't know formaldehyde or whatever it is it's just this sort of weird plastic looking and they have had arguments in the russian parliament about whether they should just replace him with a resin you know a resin copy because basically the lenin in but that's the that's sort of the same thing isn't it it? The body has become an emblem of authenticity, a really weird sort of parallel.

Yes, to a degree. So the way in which possession of his body serves to legitimise a broader authority. So that's why Guthrie, the Viking king, is patron of Cuthbert, because it legitimizes him. But the king who really exploits this is Athelstan, the grandson of Alfred the Great, and in a sense, the first English king, who he is riding up from Winchester

to smite the Scots who are in rebellion. And he pauses off in Chester-le-Street and he pays a visit to Cuthbert. And the grave is, the coffin is opened and Athelstan leaves various gifts within the coffin. And Athelstan is very respectful of Cuthbert because Cuthbert had appeared to his grandfather Alfred on the Isle of Athelni. So everyone knows the story of the Alfred burning the cakes. But there's another food-related story about Alfred on Athelni that he's sitting there alone, feeling hungry, pondering how to defeat the Vikings.

And he sent all his men out to go fishing because they're really running short of supplies. And his men are out there in the shallows, not getting any fish at all. And a poor man turns up hood over his his head um asks alfred for for some food alfred gives him the last bit of food that he has and the man thanks him and then wanders goes off um and then suddenly all the uh all the men who are out fishing start hauling in great quantities of fish and from that point on

they have no lack of food and that man was Cuthbert that man it turns out was Cuthbert he appears to Alfred that evening in a dream and says that I will be backing you I favor you I'm going to back your house and so and so it's from that point on Cuthbert becomes a patron saint of the house of Wessex as well as the Northumbrians and so for Athel, who's just annexed Northumbria into his realms, you can see it's incredibly useful. So to dig into that for a second, that's a story presumably created by Wessex propagandists because they want to reach out to the kind of Northumbrian public and to say, we're not conquering you. We are, you know, we're your friends. We really respect your saint. Your

saint has actually chosen us. That's what's going on there, surely. I think that's a hard-nosed 21st century perspective that ignores the degree to which this was real for people. So of course, Athelstan knows full well that he needs to get the Northumbrians on side. And of course, he knows that by showing his respect to Cuthbert, he's going to get Northumbrian support. But Athelstan is a highly devout man, and he would not be doing this if he thought it was just a scam. He really believes this. I remember when I was a student, I was studying the Byzantine Empire,

having an argument with my tutor because I said, but we know that icons don't have powers. And he said, well, well no you can't approach this subject you know thinking that thinking in that way and my question to you is you know we think that all this is balderdash basically did people at the time absolutely completely believe that you know eagles have been providing cuthbert with fish, that people had been... There was no hint of scepticism. They completely signed up to this. Because otherwise he wouldn't have the power

to have a body successfully govern it. People have to believe that it's powerful. And I think what's interesting is the longer Cuthbert gets, the more the emphasis comes to be on his power rather than on his charity. So this man who had spent a lot of time with women comes to be cast as a misogynist. And when in due course his body gets enshrined in a great shrine in Durham Cathedral, which is his final resting place, women aren't allowed to enter it. And he becomes a great patron of, ultimately, of English resistance to the Scots, even though Cuthbert was born within what becomes Scotland.

He is seen as the patron of the English in their wars against Scottish invaders. And I think that there is, one of the reasons why I do find Cuthbert a haunting figure is that I do think there is, you know, you say it's all balderdash, but there is something kind of haunting about perhaps his body. Because I said that Cuthbert embodies a kind of living tradition that I think is unique because he almost uniquely survives the reformation because that's the great kind of break yeah when all the other saints are basically broken up and they get literally broken up yeah yeah bunged on rubbish tips burnt whatever um Thomas Cromwell's agents arrive in Durham and they dis they they get rid of the shrine the great, and they open up Cuthbert's tomb. And there they find that the body is, it's, there it is. It's not a skeleton. Please tell me, it's not still preserved.

You're not going to make that claim. It's been mummified. Okay. And I guess it's, you know, if you want to pursue the sceptical line, you can say that's because he was such an, no, no, it's because he was, he was probably so ascetic that he naturally mummified that maybe there was no kind of liquids in it or whatever i don't know um that seems very unlikely but but what we know is that um cromwell's agents were unsettled by this and so they remove the body and they they kind of lay it out in a kind of side chapel for for two years and then they bury it so they they put it in a fresh tomb and they bury it and it's it's still there so the body of cuthbert is still in durham cathedral his relics are still there and you know it's it's it's a link to to that very ancient those ancient

beginnings of christianity that simply doesn't exist anywhere else. And what's your case, Tom, for ditching St. George? Because that's what you want to do, right? You want to ditch St. George and you want St. Cuthbert. I mean, I think you've got an uphill task persuading, you know, England's football fans that they should be cheering for St. Cuthbert. But what's your case? How are you going to sell this to the great public?

Did St. George play football? I don't think so. Cuthbert did. I think they'd rally behind him. You reckon? The trouble with Cuthbert is the name as well. The name is slightly foppish, I think. But he's the opposite of foppish.

He's the opposite of foppish. He's the first great English saint. I mean, he's the greatest English saint,ish he's he's the first great saint he's the first great english saint i mean he's the greatest english saint i think and i guess george isn't english and cuthbert is is the saint of the north but he's also the saint that gets adopted by the kings of wessex so he's he's a properly english saint um his his body has remains there in situ in in northumbria and he has a capacity to work work miracles that survived even into the 20th century. So it's said that as the Luftwaffe were approaching Newcastle, getting ready to bomb it,

that prayers were raised across the Northeast asking for Cuthbert's intercession and a great fog descended on the Tyne. Wow. Fog on the Tyne. Fog on the Tyne and the Luftwa turned around fog on the time and uh the luffa turned around and um newcastle was saved so i think this is this is this is a saint who who means business tom i my skepticism is at an end i am fully persuaded i shall go out forthwith on this

and cuthbert's day and attempt to to to rouse the great British public, or the great English public anyway, in adopting Cuthbert as our patron saint. So, that concludes our special Cuthbertian, is Cuthbertian? I think so, yeah, I mean, coin that. Cuthbertian edition of The Rest is History. And Tom,

we are back next week with a plethora of episodes, aren't we? We've got one on Monday about the World Cup of Prime Ministers. We have another on Tuesday about the World Cup of Prime Ministers. Because we had so much to say. We had so much to say about Britain's Prime Ministers. And then we are back at the end of the week with Spies and Ben McIntyre, which is immensely exciting.

So have a good weekend and we'll see you next week. Happy St Cuthbert's day bye-bye bye-bye thanks for listening to the rest is history for bonus episodes access, ad-free listening, and access to our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com. That's restishistorypod.com.