For reasons best known to others, I received word recently that the Senior Common Room of St Chad’s College, Durham – one of my almæ matres – had invited me to join its ranks. Naturally it is a great honour; naturally I indicated that if elected I would accept; naturally I have accepted. The Principal has very kindly expressed the hope that I might appear from time to time at High Table, so prepare yourselves for future columns written on the 14.30 from King’s Cross, with an overnight bag and a rolled-up gown stuffed into the luggage rack.
St Chad’s is the smallest of the Durham colleges, tucked into a row of unassuming if charming-in-their-own-way houses in the shadow of the Cathedral with the gardens knocked through at the back. Once upon a time it was a High-Anglican theological college, and when I was there far too long ago one of the college songs ran thus, to the tune of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”.
St Chad’s College architecture may not be fantastical, But we have a long tradition that’s ecclesiastical. See our young potential bishops – never heard of actresses – Sanctimoniously performing Anglo-Carthlick practices!
Whether those pious young men of former generations would even have known what to do with an actress of an obliging disposition, had the opportunity arisen, is up for debate – but of course that was the joke. Naughtier liberties were taken with the College hymn, “Sons of St Chad, great Bishop and Confessor”, which was sung with gusto whenever the chance presented itself – most notably at patronal festival on March 2.
Liturgically, Chad is now lumped in with his brother Cedd on October 26, but when the change came the college simply continued to keep the feast on the anniversary of his death as it had done since its foundation. In many ways it makes sense to observe these episcopal brethren together – Bede credited them both with the conversion of the English Midlands – but old habits die hard.
What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, &c… That said, I understand that the more secular elements of the festivities (of which there are many) are now transferred to the nearest Saturday. Hazy memories of struggling into classes – or not – on the morning after the night before may well explain the innovation. I wonder if at breakfast there are still green scrambled eggs.
Chad and Cedd both belong to the procession of missionary saints whose lives and legends are intertwined with the story of Christianity in northern England. Although they ended their days further south – Chad as Bishop of the Mercians and Cedd as Bishop of the East Saxons – they were both educated under Aidan at his monastery on windswept Lindisfarne. A generation after them came Cuthbert, around whose shrine Durham grew.
The feretory where it stood survives at the east end of the cathedral and his resting place is now marked by a simple stone slab with one word carved into it: “Cuthbertus”. There he lies with the head of Oswald, the sainted King of Northumbria, for company.
The stories associated with Cuthbert and Durham are manifold. More than once “St Cuthbert’s Cloud” – a thick mist that occasion-ally rises from the River Wear and totally envelops cathedral, castle and city – has saved it from danger, most recently during World War II. It could not repel Henry VIII’s Commissioners, alas, who plundered the shrine and broke open the coffin: they found its occupant incorrupt. When it was opened again in 1827 he had turned to dust and bone. As one of my tutors naughtily observed, “that’s 300 years in the Church of England for you.”
Local lad Benjamin Myers (The Gallows Pole and The Offing) has brought out Cuddy in time for Cuthbert’s feast day on March 20. It’s a novel based on his nickname, which “takes in historical sources, poetry, drama, diary and contemporary prose”. Although he is its inspiration Myers insists that “while it is not about Cuthbert, it is about things he believed in – primarily human connection”.
Myers says that he has no faith, but explains that “growing up near Durham I was surrounded by the idea of saints and sainthood from a young age – especially the life of Cuthbert … [I]t was impossible not to feel the pull of history and the power of faith of those who have worked and lived in this medieval city over the preceding centuries. So I decided to construct a novel that spans time.”
Cuthbert’s own day seems an impossibly long time ago, but Myers brings it to life with his selection of sources and prose. We find out more about this remarkable man with whom the otters gambolled in the cold North Sea, who shares his claim on Durham with Our Lady, Chad, Aidan, John, Hild and Bede.
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