Eadfrith of Lindisfarne

Saint Eadfrith of Lindisfarne was bishop of Lindisfarne, probably from the year 698, and reposed in 721. In the early eighth century Lindisfarne was one of the great holy places of the kingdom of Northumbria and the resting place of Saints Aidan and Cuthbert. As early as the twelfth century it was believed that Eadfrith succeeded Eadberht in the see, and nothing in the surviving records contradicts this.

A note added in the tenth century to the Lindisfarne Gospels says that Eadfrith was the one who wrote the book and adorned it with miniatures, in honour of Saint Cuthbert. Some historians accept this testimony and place the work before he became bishop; others think he only commissioned the book, or regard the link as an uncertain tradition.

Eadfrith was a supporter of the veneration of Saint Cuthbert. At his command Bede reworked, around 720, an older anonymous life of the saint, giving it in prose and in verse. He also ordered the restoration of the hermitage on the island of Farne, where Cuthbert had often lived, and he advised Eanmund, the first abbot of a monastery founded in the time of King Osred.

When Lindisfarne was abandoned at the end of the ninth century, Eadfrith's relics were carried with those of Cuthbert on the long wanderings of the community through Northumbria. They then settled at Chester-⁠le-⁠Street, where they remained for a century, and in 995 were moved to Durham Cathedral. There he was commemorated, together with his predecessor Eadberht and his successor Æthelwold, on 4 June. He is honoured by the Orthodox Church as a saint of the West before the Great Schism (a saint of the undivided Church), by the New Calendar.