Durham Cathedral: Norman Romanesque Masterpiece of England

Durham Cathedral is a great Norman church in north-east England, begun in 1093 to house the shrine of St Cuthbert, the most venerated saint of northern England. Set high above a loop of the River Wear beside Durham Castle, it is widely regarded as the finest Romanesque building in Britain. Its early rib vaults made it a landmark in the history of European architecture, and it is now part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Background: the community of St Cuthbert

St Cuthbert (c. 634-687) was a monk and bishop of Lindisfarne, the island monastery in Northumberland. After his death he became the focus of a powerful cult, and the monastery produced treasures such as the Lindisfarne Gospels in his honour.

Viking attacks, beginning with the raid on Lindisfarne in 793, eventually forced the community to leave the island in 875, carrying Cuthbert’s coffin with them. After years of wandering they settled at Chester-le-Street in 883. In 995 they moved again, to the defensible rocky peninsula at Durham, where they built a stone church to shelter the shrine.

Building the Norman cathedral

After the Norman Conquest, William the Conqueror appointed Norman bishops to the strategically important see of Durham, close to the Scottish border. Bishop William of St Calais replaced the community’s secular clergy with Benedictine monks in 1083 and then planned a new church on a grand scale.

According to the monk-chronicler Symeon of Durham, the foundation stone was laid on 11 August 1093. Building began at the east end. By 1104 enough was complete for Cuthbert’s body to be moved into the new church; the monks reported that it was still incorrupt when the coffin was opened.

Bishop Ranulf Flambard (1099-1128), a former minister of William Rufus who had escaped from the Tower of London, pushed the work forward. The nave was finished and vaulted by about 1133.

A revolution in stone

Durham’s builders achieved something new. Instead of covering the church with a timber roof or heavy barrel vaults, they built ribbed stone vaults over the high central spaces. In a rib vault, diagonal stone arches carry the weight of the ceiling to particular points, making it possible to vault wide spaces more efficiently.

The choir aisles of the 1090s contain some of the earliest surviving rib vaults in Europe. The nave vault, completed around 1133, uses pointed transverse arches as well. Pointed arches and rib vaults were later combined with flying buttresses to create the Gothic style that spread from northern France in the mid-twelfth century.

The interior is also famous for its massive cylindrical piers, alternating with clustered piers and carved with bold geometric patterns: chevrons, spirals, flutes and lozenges. Their deep incised decoration gives the nave its powerful, rhythmic character.

Cathedral and castle

The cathedral was only one half of a great complex. Across the green from it stands Durham Castle, begun in 1072 on the orders of William the Conqueror. The bishops of Durham lived there and held unusual powers: as so-called prince-bishops they ruled the County Palatine of Durham, raising troops, appointing judges and minting coins, partly to defend the frontier with Scotland. Church and castle together expressed both spiritual and political authority.

Later additions

Bishop Hugh du Puiset added the Galilee Chapel at the west end around 1175, a delicate space of slender columns and zigzag arches. The remains of the Venerable Bede, the great Anglo-Saxon historian, were placed there in a new tomb in 1370.

In the thirteenth century the east end was rebuilt as the Chapel of the Nine Altars in Gothic style. The central tower was rebuilt in the later fifteenth century. Cuthbert’s shrine was stripped at the Reformation in 1538-1541, and the monastery was replaced by a dean and chapter, but the saint’s grave remains behind the high altar.

Key people

William of St Calais (died 1096) was Bishop of Durham from 1081 and began the cathedral in 1093.

Ranulf Flambard (c. 1060-1128) was bishop from 1099 and oversaw much of the nave’s construction.

Hugh du Puiset (c. 1125-1195), bishop from 1153, built the Galilee Chapel.

Timeline

• 687: St Cuthbert dies on the island of Inner Farne.
• 875: The community of St Cuthbert leaves Lindisfarne.
• 995: Cuthbert’s body is brought to Durham.
• 1083: Benedictine monks are installed at Durham.
• 1093, 11 August: The foundation stone of the new cathedral is laid.
• 1104: Cuthbert’s body is moved into the new church.
• c. 1133: The nave and its rib vault are completed.
• c. 1175: The Galilee Chapel is built.
• 1986: Durham Castle and Cathedral become a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Why it matters

Durham Cathedral shows Norman Romanesque architecture at its most ambitious and inventive. It combines the power of the Norman conquerors, who also built the White Tower in London, with the devotion of a much older Anglo-Saxon cult. Its structural experiments helped prepare the way for the great Gothic cathedrals of medieval Europe.