Lindisfarne
“Don’t worry, I’ve been here before”, remarked Captain Joachim Saterskog, with a twinkle in his eye, as he masterfully edged the M/V Endeavour close to shore to provide protection from a strong offshore breeze. The previous visit that he was referring took place over a thousand years ago. In AD793, the monastic community at Lindisfarne on Holy Island in the kingdom of Northumbria, now an English county bordering Scotland, became the first place in the British Isles to be visited by our Captain’s Viking ancestors. The shock of the Viking raid on Linsdisfarne was felt far and wide. The monk Alcuin, writing at the court of Charlemagne, lamented that “never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race.”
He may have protested too much. Ever since, the Vikings have had a bad press. They are inevitably portrayed with horned helmets, marking them clearly as the agents of the devil, even though no archaeologist has ever found a horned helmet from the Viking period. The Vikings were traders as well as raiders, skilled boat builders and craftsmen as well as destructive looters. In the case of the monastery on Holy Island, its unprotected church plate proved overwhelmingly tempting. Precious objects from this monastery have been found at Novgorod, on the Viking trade route through Russia.
The monastery had been founded in AD635 by St Aidan who had come on mission from Iona at the invitation of King Oswald of Northumbria. Originally a center of Celtic Christainity, the monastery accepted the authority of Rome in AD 664 after the Synod of Whitby. In AD 685 St Cuthbert became abbot of the monastery, his reputation for holiness enhanced eleven years after his death when his exhumed body was found to be completely undecayed. He was finally laid to rest in Durham where a great cathedral was built in his honor in AD 1104. After the devastation of the Viking raid, the monastery on Lindisfarne fell to ruins but in the twelfth century a priory church was established in honor of St Cuthbert. It was the ruins of this Norman priory that we able to visit this afternoon.
“Don’t worry, I’ve been here before”, remarked Captain Joachim Saterskog, with a twinkle in his eye, as he masterfully edged the M/V Endeavour close to shore to provide protection from a strong offshore breeze. The previous visit that he was referring took place over a thousand years ago. In AD793, the monastic community at Lindisfarne on Holy Island in the kingdom of Northumbria, now an English county bordering Scotland, became the first place in the British Isles to be visited by our Captain’s Viking ancestors. The shock of the Viking raid on Linsdisfarne was felt far and wide. The monk Alcuin, writing at the court of Charlemagne, lamented that “never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race.”
He may have protested too much. Ever since, the Vikings have had a bad press. They are inevitably portrayed with horned helmets, marking them clearly as the agents of the devil, even though no archaeologist has ever found a horned helmet from the Viking period. The Vikings were traders as well as raiders, skilled boat builders and craftsmen as well as destructive looters. In the case of the monastery on Holy Island, its unprotected church plate proved overwhelmingly tempting. Precious objects from this monastery have been found at Novgorod, on the Viking trade route through Russia.
The monastery had been founded in AD635 by St Aidan who had come on mission from Iona at the invitation of King Oswald of Northumbria. Originally a center of Celtic Christainity, the monastery accepted the authority of Rome in AD 664 after the Synod of Whitby. In AD 685 St Cuthbert became abbot of the monastery, his reputation for holiness enhanced eleven years after his death when his exhumed body was found to be completely undecayed. He was finally laid to rest in Durham where a great cathedral was built in his honor in AD 1104. After the devastation of the Viking raid, the monastery on Lindisfarne fell to ruins but in the twelfth century a priory church was established in honor of St Cuthbert. It was the ruins of this Norman priory that we able to visit this afternoon.
