| THESE LINDISFARNE monks, fleeing from the Vikings with St Cuthbert’s coffin on their way from Holy Island to his final resting place in Durham Cathedral, have now stopped at a foundry where they will be cast in bronze. But while Cuthbert himself completed the circuitous journey, and lies in his shrine behind the high altar in the cathedral, the bronze monks will come to rest in the Millennium Square in Durham city.
The Dean of Durham, the Very Revd Michael Sadgrove, believes that they will have great significance there, connecting the city with its spiritual as well as its historical roots. Both he and the sculptor, Fenwick Lawson, intend it to be a tactile work, encouraging people to relate to the “slightly more than life-size figures”.
There will be no inscription on the bronze, but the story will be told near by for people who do not know about this great seventh-century saint and Bishop of Lindisfarne. He is almost the only medieval saint who still occupies his shrine.
The Dean tells me that when Henry VIII’s despoilers opened the coffin, they were so taken aback by seeing an undecomposed body (long believed to be a guarantee of sanctity) that they sent back to London for further orders. Those orders never arrived; so they put him back, and there he still lies, in honour.
As for the monks, they will be for ever on their journey, the bronze ones on their way to the cathedral, the wooden ones back in the church on Holy Island. |
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