Cuthbert (2)
Cuthbert
Abbot of Wearmouth; a pupil of the Venerable Bede (d. 735). He was a native of Durham, but the dates of his birth and death are unknown. Becoming a monk at Jarrow, he studied under St. Bede and acted as his secretary, writing various works from his dictation. Bede dedicated to him his work “De Arte Metricâ”. He was present when Bede died, and wrote to Cuthwin, one of his fellow-pupils, a detailed account of all that happened. After the death of Huitbert, who succeeded Ceolfrid as Abbot of Wearmouth, Cuthbert was elected in his place. His correspondence with Lullus, the disciple and successor of St. Boniface, Archbishop of Mainz, is still preserved. He is also supposed to have written many other letters now lost. Priscus mentions a manuscript bearing his name which contains an addition to Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. His letter describing Bede’s death is also worthy of note because of the mention therein of the Rogation procession with the relics of the saints.
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MABILLON, Annales O. S. B. (Paris, 1703-39), II, 99b, 101a; IDEM, Acta SS. (Venice, 1733, etc.) III, 503, 504, 510 m; CEILLIER, Histoire générale des auteurs sacrés et ecclésiastiques (Paris, 1729-59), s. v. Cuthbert, Abbé de Jarrow; P. L., XCVI, 838, 846.
G.E. HIND Transcribed by Anthony J. Stokes
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IVCopyright © 1908 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Cuthbert (1)
Date of birth not known; died 25 October, 758. He is first heard of as Abbot of Liminge, Kent. Consecrated bishop by Archbishop Nothelm, he succeeded Wahlstod in the See of Hereford in 736 and was translated to Canterbury about 740. Journeying to Rome he received the palladium, and on his return assisted at the Council of Cloveshoe in 742. At this council Ethelbald, King of Mercia, confirmed many privileges to churches and monasteries. His friendship with St. Boniface, Archbishop of Mainz, accounts for the intimate knowledge that St. Boniface had of the evil life of Ethelbald, which prompted the saint to correspond with the king in the hope of inducing him to reform. Cuthbert, in obedience to the wish of Pope Zachary, called a second Council of Cloveshoe, in 747, which formulated many canons for the guidance of monastic life and the duties of bishops and priests. It especially insisted on catechetical instruction being given in the English tongue. The proceedings of this council were sent to St. Boniface and prompted him to act similarly in Germany. Some have thought that St. Boniface took the initiative and not Cuthbert, but most now admit that the proceedings in Germany for promoting a greater union with Rome took place after this council of Cloveshoe and in imitation of it.
Cuthbert brought about a great change with regard to the precedence of the Cathedral Church of Canterbury. Christ Church, Canterbury, was considered inferior in dignity to the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul where all the archbishops were interred. The pope granted his request for the interment of the archbishops at Christ Church and King Eadbert confirmed this. A chapel was the built at the east end of the cathedral dedicated to St. John the Baptist to serve as the baptistery, the court of the archbishops and their place of burial. Fearing opposition from the monks of Sts. Peter and Paul’s church Cuthbert was stealthily buried in the new chapel several days before his death was generally known. From that time until the Conquest at least, every Archbishop of Canterbury except one was buried at Christ Church. A letter of his to Lullus, Archbishop of Mainz, is still extant and also two short poems preserved by William of Malmesbury. Leland speaks of a volume of his epigrams in the library of Malmesbury Abbey. This volume is now lost.
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Ang.-Sax. Chronicle, sub ann. 741, 742, 758; HADDON AND STUBBS, Councils, III, 340-96; GERVASE, Actus Pont. Cant. (Twysden, 1640); SIMEON OF DURHAM, Mon. Hist. Brit., 659, 661; WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY, Gesta Regum (Eng. Hist. Soc.), I, 115, 116; IDEM, Gest. Pontiff, 8, 9, 15, 299; HOOK, Lives of the Archbishops, I, 217-34; MIGNE, P.L., LXXXIX, 757, 763; Anglia Sacra, II, Metrical Life of Cuthbert.
G.E. HIND Transcribed by Gerald Rossi
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IVCopyright © 1908 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Cuthbert
ST., an eminent monk, born in the north of England in the beginning of the 7th century. His life, written by Bede, is full of marvelous stories; but it is clear that he was an earnest and faithful minister. He was educated by the Scottish monks at Icolmkill. After being for some time a monk in the monastery of Mailros, he became prior of the monastery of Lindisfarne. In 676 he withdrew to the island of Fame, where he lived a life of most rigorous asceticism as a hermit, and enjoyed the reputation of working many miracles. In 685 he yielded to the entreaties of king Egbert, and accepted the episcopal see of Hexham. When he felt the approach of death he returned to his hermitage on Frnme, and there died, March 20, 687. He is commemorated in the Roman Church March 20. The fame of St. Cuthbert had been great during his life; it became far greater after his death. Churches were dedicated to him throughout all the country between the Trent and Mersey on the south, and the Forth and Clyde on the north. When his tomb was opened at the end of eleven years, it was believed that his body was found incorrupt, and so for more than 800 years it was believed still to continue. It remained at Lindisfarne till 875, when the monks, bearing it on their shoulders, fled inland from the fury of the Danes. After many wanderings through the south of Scotland and the north of England, it found a resting-place at Chester-le-Street in 882. It was transferred to Ripon in 995, and in the same year it was removed to Durham. Here, enclosed in a costly shrine, and believed to work daily miracles, it remained till the Reformation, when it was buried under the pavement of the cathedral. The grave was opened in 1827, when a coffin, ascertained to have been made in 1541 when the body was committed to the earth was found to enclose another, which there was reason to suppose had been made in 1104; and this again enclosed a third, which answered the description of one made in 698, when the saint was raised from his first grave. This innermost case contained, not, indeed, the incorruptible body of St. Cuthbert, but his skeleton, still entire, wrapped in live robes of embroidered silk. Fragments of these, and of the episcopal vestments, together with a comb and other relics, found beside the bones, are to be seen in the cathedral library.
The asceticism which distinguished St. Cuthbert in life long lingered round his tomb. Until the Reformation, no woman was suffered to approach his shrine; the cross of blue marble still remains in the cathedral floor which marked the limits beyond which female footsteps were forbidden to pass, under pain of instant and signal punishment from the offended saint. His wrath, it was believed, was equally prompt to avenge every injury to the honor or possessions of his church. It was told that William the Conqueror, anxious to see the incorrupt body of the saint, ordered the shrine to be broken up; but scarcely had a stroke been struck, when such sickness and terror fell upon the king that he rushed from the cathedral, and, mounting his horse, never drew bridle till he had crossed the Tees! A cloth, said to have been used by St. Cuthbert in celebrating mass, was fashioned into a standard, which was believed to insure victory to the army in whose ranks it was carried. Flodden was only one of many fields in which the defeat of the Scots was ascribed to the banner of St. Cuthbert. It hung beside his shrine until the Reformation, when it is said to have been burnt by Calvin’s sister, the wife of the first Protestant dean of the cathedral. The life of St. Cuthbert was twice written by the Venerable Bede briefly in vigorous hexameters in his Liber de Miraculis Sancti Cuthbercti Episcopi; at greater length in prose, in his Liber de Vita et Miraculis Sancti Cuthbercti Lindisfarnensis Episcopi. In this latter work he made use of an earlier life by a monk of Lindisfarne, which is still preserved. Besides these lives all of which have been printed more than once and what is told of St. Cuthbert in Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Angloorum, the chief ancient authorities are the Historia Translationis S. Cuthberti, published by the Bollandists in the Acta Sanctorum, mens. Martii, vol. 3; the Libellus de Exordio Duunlelniensis Ecclesie, by Symeon of Durham; the Libellus de Nativitate S. Cuthberti de Historiis Hybernensium excerptus, and the Libellus de Admirandis B. Cuthberti Virtutibuss; by Reginald of Durham, both published by the Surtees Society. There are two modern Memoirs of St. Cuthbert the late Rev. James Raine’s St. Cuthbert (Durham, 1828), and the Very Rev. Monsignor C. Eyre’s History of St. Cuthbert (Lond. 1849). Chambers, Encyclopedia, s.v.; Butler, Lives of Saints, March 20; Herzog, Real-Encyklop. 19:374.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Cuthbert (2)
was also the name of two early English abbots:
1. Of Malmesbury, in the latter part of the 8th century.
2. Of Jarrow and Wearmouth, in the same century. He was a disciple of Bede, and several of his Letters are extant. See Smith, Dict. of Christ. Biog. s.v.