Saint Cuthbert: with an account of the state in which his remains were found upon the opening of his tomb in Durham Cathedral, in the year MDCCCXXVII ... / [James Raine].

  • James Raine
Date:
1828
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Saint Cuthbert: with an account of the state in which his remains were found upon the opening of his tomb in Durham Cathedral, in the year MDCCCXXVII ... / [James Raine]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/286 page 2
    The whole book contains 140 Chapters—a complete abstract of each of which may be seen in the lately published Catalogue of the MSS. of the Dean and Chapter, p. 399, &c.* Reginald’s period is easily ascertained from his writings. In one of his Chapters he records a miracle, which, says he, happened in these our days, “namely, in the year 1165.”+ In another, he speaks of Thomas a Becket as dead, and performing miracles. Becket was mur- dered in 1170. Of Reginald’s style, an opinion may be easily formed, from the copious extracts submitted to my readers ; and I have only to add, that however marvellously his Chapters may conclude—and they are almost all of them miraculous—his preambles seldom fail to begin with matter of fact. The publication of Reginald, notwithstanding his absurdities, would throw much light upon the history of the northern counties, connected with a period, relative to which the sources of in- formation are so few. From Reginald I pass on to another Mauuscript on the subject of Durham and its early history. I mean the Compilations of Prior Wes- sington—a MS. belonging to the Dean and Chapter of Durham, B. in. 30. fol. This book and its contents are minutely described in the lately published Catalogue of Durham Manuscripts. The book to which I have more than once referred under the name of the York MS., is a manuscript in the possession of the Dean and Chapter of that Cathedral, containing inter alia a list of relics preserv- ed at Durham in the thirteenth century j that Life of St. Cuthbert, which makes him of Irish extraction ; a transcript of Reginald, and other tracts on the subject of Durham. My other manuscript authorities have been sufficiently specified in the places where they are quoted. * There is a transcript of Reginald upon paper in the British Museum, MS. Harl. 4843; another in the York MS. below; and I believe other copies may be found in the kingdom. f That of a poor 6tag roused from his lair in close time by the hounds of Robert Fitz Philip, a Nobleman in the Lothians. The stag, after a long chase, finding death at his heels, bounded with all his might over the fence into the yard of a neighbouring church, dedicated to St. Cuthbert, and •traightway was enabled to laugh bis followers to scorn. According to Reginald, the dogs ran in full cry up to the fence, but when they got thither their feet became suddenly rivetted to the ground, and there they one and all stood gaping, but unable to give mouth. The stag the while was walk- ing round the church at a moderate pace, as if adoring the sanctuary of Cuthbert; and at last he quietly laid himself down in the porch and fell asleep, under the protection of the Saint.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3