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Northumberland - the history, the people and the places Northumberland is often called the "cradle of Christianity" in England, because Christianity flourished on Holy Island, a.k.a. Lindisfarne, an island accessed by a tidal causeway, north of Bamburgh; when King Oswald of Northumbria (reigned 634–642) invited monks from Iona to take residence and convert the English. Lindisfarne is famous for producing the Lindisfarne Gospels in ca. 700 and was the home of St. Cuthbert in circa 634–687 (he was abbot from ca. 665 and died on 20th March, 687AD), who is famously buried in Durham Cathedral, after a revelation to a religious person called Eadmer told monks to take Cuthbert's body to Dunholme (Anglo Saxon for hill-island), thus founding the first settlement on Durham's peninsula |
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Llanerch Publishers, 1996, pbk In stock, click image above to buy for £14.00, not including post & packing, which is Amazon UK's standard charge (currently £2.80 for UK buyers, more for overseas customers) Alternative online retailers to try: Or click here to access our prebuilt search for this title on Alibris Or click here to access our prebuilt search for this title on Ebay Click here to access our prebuilt search for this title on Biblio
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About this book/synopsis: Northumbria in the days of Bede is that rare phenomenon, a scholar's labour of love designed for the widest possible audience. In this absorbing book, Peter Hunter Blair celebrates the brilliance of seventh and eighth century Northumbria. He defines the geography of this first great Anglo-Saxon kingdom, analyses its place names, details its kings; he recalls the lost Gods the Northumbrians still half-believed in after the momentous advent of Christianity; and he investigates the plethora of Northumbrian hermits, ascetics, virgins, and explains the cult of the saint; he outlines the dispute between the Celtic and Roman churches that culminated in the Synod of Whitby; he describes exactly what went on in the monastery schools and he examines the influence of very great men: Columba who founded the settlement of Iona, and Aidan from Iona who was instrumental in the conversion of Northumbria; Cuthbert for whose uncorrupt body Durham Cathedral was built; Alcuin, teacher of Charlemagne; Caedmon, visionary cowherd-poet; and Bede, greatest of all, first of the modern historians. For more than a century, Northumbria was the centre of European civilisation. Its monasteries were hives, producing brilliant illuminated manuscripts, standing stone crosses, garnet-and-gold metalwork, poems that have weathered the storm of years. In this wide-ranging and penetrating survey, Peter Hunter Blair shows how an entire culture was invigorated by the impact of books, by the desire to learn, by the possibility of enlargement, until the monastery of Lindisfarne was sacked by Vikings in 793 - the beginning of the end Contents: |
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