ABSTRACT
The river Wear, winding slowly to the sea, makes a grand sweep around a rocky plateau, cutting for itself a deep gorge amidst the hills. Water flows on three sides, girding the plateau like a horseshoe, and the only connection to the mainland is by a thin neck of land. To the monks bearing the body of St Cuthbert this seemed a safe resting place, harried from place to place, as they had been, on their journey from Lindisfarne in the turbulent days before the Conquest. The precious relics and the body of the saint reached their final resting place in AD 995, and thereafter Durham became a unique outpost of civilization, readily defended from attack, a place of religious veneration, and thus a monastery of great importance and a seat of government. The Bishops of Durham rapidly rose to power and wealth in the years before the Reformation. Princes both temporal and spiritual, they were entrusted with the government of the County Palatine and within that area they enjoyed the privileges and rights of monarchy, administering justice, receiving taxes and even minting their own
coinage; and with the privileges went the responsibilities of keeping the peace and resisting the scourges of the hostile Scottish neighbours.
