Some time in the late seventh century, a young man rode from the hills above Melrose to the gate of the old Celtic monastery that lay in a loop of the River Tweed. Cuthbert wished to become a monk and lead an exemplary life of prayer, contemplation and preaching. He became Bishop of Lindisfarne and, shortly after his death on the tidal island, he was canonised. And immediately claimed by the English. The reality is more complicated. Cuthbert is an Anglian name but, in the seventh century, the Borders and the Lothians formed part of the glittering kingdom of Northumbria and would remain so for more than three centuries. A northern dialect of early English would develop into Scots and it was introduced by the Angles of the Tweed Basin and the Lothians. Surely the most beautiful and dramatic in Britain, Durham Cathedral was raised on Cuthbert’s bones and his saintly cult brought pilgrims, gifts and money to his tomb and those who tended it. His name supplied an early definition of Englishness when the people who lived to the south of the Tweed began to call themselves the Haliwerfolc, the People of the Holy Man. But, in truth, these claims and counterclaims pale into insignificance beside the glorious achievements of the church in the north between the seventh and ninth centuries. The Book of Kells was essentially a production of the Columban monastery at Iona and the Lindisfarne Gospels were made by the island monks in their windblown refuge off the Northumberland coast. Perhaps one day these stunning artistic and spiritual achievements will come back home where they belong.
Panel stitched by:
Stitchers o’ Stow
Anna Houston
Helen Houston
Lorna Lyons
Patricia McMahon
Diana Muir
Karen Nelson
Serpil Renton
Amanda Runciman
Kathleen Runciman
Libby Runciman
Elizabeth Simm
Dorothy Small
Deborah Wood
with stitches from the children of Stow Primary School
Stitched in:
Stow, Galashiels, Lauder