St Cuthbert's coffin

What is usually referred to as St. Cuthbert's coffin is a fragmentary oak coffin in Durham Cathedral, pieced together in the 20th century, which between AD 698 and 1827 contained the remains of Saint Cuthbert, who died in 687. In fact when Cuthbert's remains were yet again reburied in 1827 in a new coffin, some 6,000 pieces of up to four previous layers of coffin were left in the burial, and then finally removed in 1899. This coffin is thought to be Cuthbert's first wooden coffin, and probably to date to 698, when his remains were moved from a stone sarcophagus in the abbey church at Lindisfarne to the main altar.

The coffin is almost the only survival of what was no doubt a very large body of Anglo-Saxon wood carving, being inscribed or engraved with linear images which have tituli in Latin lettering and Anglo-Saxon runes with names of apostles and saints; many names are illegible.

Few people's remains are as well-travelled as those of Cuthbert. He died on 20 March 687 in his hermit's cell on Inner Farne Island, two miles from Bamburgh, Northumberland, and was taken back to the main monastery at Lindisfarne to be buried. Eleven years later the coffin was re-opened, and according to his biographies (including prose and verse ones by Bede from about 720) his remains were found to be "incorrupt" or undecayed. This was a traditional attribute of sainthood and helped greatly in his subsequent cult. He was reburied in a new coffin, apparently over the original one, which is described in his biographies, and matches the surviving coffin closely; this is called a levis theca ("light chest" in Latin) in Bede's biography. This was placed above ground at the altar, and apparently covered with a linen cloth, an indication that Cuthbert was already regarded as a saint.

In 875 the monks evacuated the abbey with the coffin, in anticipation of the Great Heathen Army moving into the area. For seven years they carried it with them to various places in modern Scotland and Northumbria before settling it in the still existing St Cuthbert's church in Chester-le-Street until 995, when another Danish invasion led to its removal to Ripon. It was at Chester-le-Street that King Athelstan visited it, and the textiles were placed inside. Travelling once again, the cart with the coffin became stuck at Durham, which was taken as a sign that the saint wished to remain there. A new stone church—the so-called 'White Church'—was built, the predecessor of the present grand cathedral. The body was moved within the cathedral at various points; perhaps in 1041, in 1069 to escape the Harrying of the North by William the Conqueror, in 1104 when the Norman cathedral was constructed, and in 1541 when the medieval shrine which was one of the principal English pilgrimage sites was destroyed during the Reformation. The coffin was opened at various times during this period: one mid-10th century monk was in the habit of often combing the hair of the saint, and was also responsible for placing the purloined bones of Bede in the coffin.

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Wikipedia