Historia de Sancto Cuthberto | |
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"History of St Cuthbert" | |
Full title | Historia de Sancto Cuthberto et de Commemoratione Locorum Regionumque Eius Priscae Possessionis, a Primordio usque Nunc Temporis |
Author(s) | anonymous |
Patron | Bishopric of Durham |
Language | Latin |
Date | mid- to late-11th century |
Provenance | Durham Cathedral |
State of existence | three witnesses |
Manuscript(s) | Oxford Bodleian Library, Bodley 596; Cambridge University Library, Ff. 1.27; Lincoln's Inn London Hale 114 |
First printed edition | Roger Twysden, Historiae Anglicanae Scriptores X (1652) |
Genre | Chronicle cartulary |
Length | c. 6500 words |
Subject | St Cuthbert and the property of the church of St Cuthbert |
Period covered | 7th century to 1031 |
Personages | St Cuthbert, Bishop Ecgred, Abbot Eadred, Cuthheard |
The Historia de Sancto Cuthberto ("History of St Cuthbert") is a historical compilation finished some time after 1031. It is an account of the history of the bishopric of St Cuthbert—based successively at Lindisfarne, Norham, Chester-le-Street and finally Durham—from the life of St Cuthbert himself onwards. The latest event documented is a grant by King Cnut, c. 1031. The work is a cartulary chronicle recording grants and losses of property as well as miracles of retribution, under a loose narrative of temporal progression. The text survives in three manuscripts, the earliest of which dates from around 1100. The original version of the text is not thought to be extant; rather, all surviving manuscripts are thought to be copies of an earlier but lost exemplar. The Historia is one of the sources for the histories produced at Durham in the early 12th century, particularly the Historia Regum and Symeon of Durham's Libellus de Exordio.