Lindisfarne - Abbey

Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island, is a tidal island off the coast. The island has a recorded history from the 6th century AD. It was an important centre of Celtic Christianity under Saints Aidan, Cuthbert, Eadfrith, and Eadberht of Lindisfarne.

Around 634 by the Irish monk Aidan, who had been sent from Iona off the west coast of Scotland at the request of King Oswald founded the monastery of Lindisfarne. Cuthbert, who had joined the monastery, eventually became the most important monastic bishop of Lindisfarne. Cuthbert died in 687 and was buried in a stone coffin. Eleven years later the monks opened his tomb. They discovered that Cuthbert’s body had not decayed, – a sure sign, they argued, of his purity and saintliness. This marked the beginnings of the cult of St Cuthbert.

Miracles were soon reported at St Cuthbert’s shrine and Lindisfarne was established as the major pilgrimage centre. As a result, the monastery grew in power and wealth, attracting grants of land from kings and nobles. The cult of St Cuthbert consolidated the monastery’s reputation as a centre of learning. One of the results was the production in about 710–25 of the masterpiece of early medieval art known today as the "Lindisfarne Gospels".

In 793, Lindisfarne was attacked by Vikings. The raiders plundered and destroyed the church and slew the inhabitants. This raid marked the beginning of the Viking Age. Alcuin, a Northumbrian scholar in Charlemagne's court at the time, wrote: "Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race ... The heathens poured out the blood of saints around the altar, and trampled on the bodies of saints in the temple of God, like dung in the streets." Alcuin also sent a letter to Higbald, the Bishop of Lindisfarne, in which he explained that the best protection against such incidents was a better way of life and the invocation of the saints.

The abbey was re-established as a priory following the Norman Conquest of England.