|
|
Lastingham
The foundation of Cedd’s monastery 2km east of the entrance to Farndale
|
|
Headlines are in brown.
Dates are in red.
Hyperlinks to other pages are in dark blue.
References and citations are in turquoise.
Context and local history are in purple.
Geographical context is in green.
Roman period
There was probably a Roman building at
Lastingham, evidenced by some carved stones now in the crypt which seem to have
been Roman in origin. It is possible that the crypt itself began as some sort
of Roman mausoleum or shrine, and if not there may
have been a Roman monument in the area, or possibly a nymphaeum. A Roman street
ran from Malton to Hovingham with a military centre at Malton and a villa at
Hovingham. Hovingham might have been the official residence of the military
commander of Malton. A pagan shrine at Lastingham might have lain on the
periphery of the estates of the Hovingham villa. (Lastingham
in its sacred landscapes, Ian Wood, Professor of Early Medieval History, The
Fifth Lastingham Lecture, 2008).
The idea of Rome continued into the Anglo Saxon period.
563 CE
Columba left Ireland to found the monastery of Iona, off the coast of Scotland.
634 CE
Bishop Aiden of Iona was requested by the
King at Bamburgh to bring Christianity to Northumbria and set up a see at
Lindisfarne. Amongst his pupils were Cedd, Cynebil,
Caelin and Chad, four brothers who eventually became bishops.
651 CE
Oswine, King of the Deiri
(644 to 651 CE), was murdered. Oswine was the nephew of Edwin, and so a member
of the dynasty competing for control of Northumbria. Oswine had decided to
disband his forces at Wilfaraesdun, ten miles north
of Catterick and went into hiding at a place called Gilling, but he was
betrayed and murdered on Oswiu’s orders.
Gilling West is near Catterick, but
Gilling East is the more likely site of the murder.
There is a reference in the History
of St Cuthbert to King Ecgfrith of the Bernicians
granting land at Suthgedling, which has been
interpreted as Gilling East, in 685 CE.
Oswiu, King of the Bernicii,
founded Gilling. Oswiu’s queen, Eanflaed (who was
related to Oswine) persuaded Oswiu to atone by building a monastery at the site
of the murder. Gilling was founded within Bernicia, in the territory of another
King. It must have been seen as an admission of guilt.
Aethewald became King of the Deiri
and seems to have ruled alongside Oswiu.
653 CE
Oswiu sent Cedd to evangelise the Middle
Angles under Paeda and the East Saxons as Bishop.
The monastery at
Lastingham
Bede,
in his History of the English Church and People (731
CE), recorded that a
small monastic community was founded at Lastingeau,
the abode of Læ̃sta's people, now Lastingham
(some 10km northeast of Kirkdale) under royal patronage, partly to prepare an
eventual burial place for Æthelwald, Christian king of Deira, partly to assert
the presence and lordship of Christ in a trackless moorland wilderness haunted
by wild beasts and outlaws.
Lastingham, was probably only the second
religious community founded in Deira after Gilling. (Power,
Religious Patronage and Pastoral Care, Religious communities, mother parishes
and local churches in Ryedale c650 to c1250, Thomas Pickles D Phil Oxon,
Lecturer in Medieval History, The Kirkdale Lecture 2009). Aethewald may have been trying to carve some political
independence for his line by creating a dynastic mausoleum.
Aethelwald, son of Oswald, gave the land
at Lastingham to Cedd between about 653 to 655 CE. These lands ‘vel bestiae commorari vel hommines bestialiter
vivere conserverant’, ‘fit only for wild beasts,
and men who live like wild beasts’ were about 2 km east of the entrance to Farndale.
Stained glass windows at Lastingham
Landscape was important and Bede was
purposely drawing attention to an image of wilderness, as a vehicle for
transformation. This was a common image of early medieval monasticism.
Lastingham stands on the edge of the uncultivated, with implications for spiritual
development. The wild nature of the site, as with the Romulus and Remus story,
provided the perfect setting against which to described
the civilisation of the area.
Bede went on to say that to cleanse the
place from former crimes, St. Cedd planned to spend all Lent there in prayer,
but being called away on the king's affairs, his place was taken by his brother
Cynebil, who readily complied, and when the time of fasting and prayer was
over, he there built the monastery, which is now called Lestingau, and
established therein the religious customs of Lindisfarne, where they had been
educated.
The monastery was then established,
following the practices of Lindisfarne.
There are theories that Kirkdale
was the true site of the monastery. An inscription on a coffin lid was
interpreted in 1846 by D H Haigh as the cross of King Ethelwald of Deira and
another coffin lid was interpreted as belonging to St Cedd. However Bede later
referred to Cedd cleansing the site from its former crimes by fasting and
prayer, before he built the monastery which is now called Lestingau, and
established on the religious customs of Lindisfarne.
St Cedd (c 620 to 26 October 664) was one of a
family of missionary priests, educated at Lindisfarne under St Aidan, the most
famous of whom was Chad, the first Bishop of Lichfield. Cedd preached first to the Middle Angles and
then to the East Saxons. About 654 CE he became their Bishop. Cedd was
appointed as abbot of the monastery of Lastingham in his native Northumbria at
the request of the sub-king Œthelwald of Deira. Bede records the foundation of
this monastery in some detail, showing that Ethelwald was put in contact with
Cedd through Caelin, one of the bishop's brothers, who was on the king's staff.
It seems most probable that the early
monastery was established in or about 653 CE by St Cedd at Lastingham.
Cedd occupied the position of abbot of
Lastingham to the end of his life, while maintaining his position as missionary
bishop and diplomat. He often travelled far from the monastery in fulfilment of
these other duties. His brother Chad, who succeeded him as abbot, did the same.
Cedd and his brothers regarded Lastingham as a monastic base, providing
intellectual and spiritual support, and a place of retreat. Cedd delegated
daily care of Lastingham to other priests, and it is likely that Chad operated
similarly.
655 CE
In 655 CE, less than three years from
the foundation of Lastingham, Aethelwald joined forces with Penda against his
uncle, Oswiu. Aethewald did not participate in the
ensuing Battle of Winwaed when Penda, King of Mercia,
was killed.
Oswiu commemorated his victory by
founding twelve votive monasteries, six among the Deiri
and six among the Bernici. Bede did not name toe
monasteries. These monasteries probably related in some way to the already
established monasteries of Lastingham and Gilling.
Oswiu then sought to assert more control
over the Deirans and he
founded his own dynastic mausoleum at Whitby (see below). He installed his own
son Alhfrith as king of the Deirans.
The six Deiran
monstareies must have marked the failure of Aethewald’s rebellion as well as the defeat of Penda. This
must have influenced the community at Lastingham.
657 CE
The foundation of Whitby. Oswiu founded
his own dynastic mausoleum at Whitby in order to
promote his control over Deira.
664 CE
The Synod of Whitby.
Bede also tells us that St Cedd later died
of pestilence (plague) in 664 CE, while visiting the monastery and he was
buried in the open air, but at the site of the formerly wooden monastery, while
a stone church was being built. His body was interred to the right of the
altar. Although this suggests that the crypt was not yet part of the, then
wooden, church, Ian Wood suggests that it is possible that the main fabric of
the crypt was in existence before the late Middle Saxon and Norman church. (Lastingham in its sacred landscapes, Ian Wood, Professor
of Early Medieval History, The Fifth Lastingham Lecture, 2008)
Ian Wood suggested that Cedd was
originally buried outside the walls of Lastingham, but
was placed at the right side of the altar after the construction of a new stone
church. There is a suggestion that a Roman sarcophagus was reshaped to form a
mandorla or an oval shaped aperture to house the saint’s relics. In time a cult
of Cedd was created around his shrine. Bede tells of how thirty monks from his
East Saxon foundation came to spend the rest of their lives in his tomb after
he died. Lastingham seems to have retained its connections with the south east of England.
The death of Cedd, his burial and
reburial, and the development of a cult, further changed the religious
landscape of the monastery.
His brother Chad then governed the
monastery. St Chad was not at Lastingham for long, before becoming Bishop of
Lichfield. It was while Chad was Abbot of Lastingham that St Ovin joined the
monastery, renouncing a life of privilege and influence in favour of prayer
through manual work.
There was a later claim that a Midland
diocese, probably Lichfield, had the relics of Cedd and Chad
Lastingham was a monastery centuries
before the Cistercian abbeys such as Rievaulx and Fountains. The monastery had
thus ceased to be, centuries before the great Yorkshire Abbeys of Rievaulx,
Byland and Fountains were begun.
Carved
Celtic stones in the crypt, which probably date to Cedd’s time.
Bede’s
account indicates that the royal foundation of Lastingham by Aethelwald came
with an expectation that he was to be buried there. In fact
Aethelwald was not buried there and seems to have died outside Northumberland.
He was probably not buried at Kirkdale either, despite later claims of his
association with the tombs there.
725 CE
A
stone church replaced earlier wooden structures, although there is a suggestion
that the stone structure was started at the time of Cedd’s death.
There
are references to the founding of religious communities at Coxwold and Stonegrave in 757 CE and fragments evidencing religious
communities at Middleton, Kirkbymoorside and Kirby Misperton. The concentration
of religious communities in Ryedale may have arisen because the Deiran kings held extensive lands there.
Kings
and aristocrats may have competed for control through display of prominence by
founding religious communities as a political act and a statement of power and
wealth.
793 CE
The
Viking raid on Lindisfarne (the place where Cedd was a pupil) is generally
taken to be the start of the period of Scandinavian domination, though there
were attacks in the years before 793 CE.
The
historical record of Lastingham is silent during this period. Heather O’Donaghue gave a Lastingham Lecture to try to piece
together how the Scandinavian age might have influenced Lastingham.
It
has long been recognised that following a period of Viking raids, there came a
period of Scandinavian settlement, often taken to be heralded by the Anglo Saxon Chronicle entry for 876 CE, and they
proceeded to plough and support themselves.
Yorkshire
place names are a mix of Scandinavian and Anglo Saxon and the North Yorkshire
dialect includes words derived from Old Norse. The evidence suggests a mixture
of ethnic groups living together. There is significant evidence of Viking Age
sculpture and a fusing of Anglo Saxon and Viking influences. There was no
tradition of stone crosses in Scandinavia, but there are crosses decorated with
pagan and mythological scenes from Scandinavian tradition. Sometimes
Scandinavian tales were used to illustrate Christian themes, such as Thor
fishing for the World serpent, depicting Christ hooking Leviathan. Evidence
also comes from the hogback stones, with a profile like a pig’s back, which are
typically Anglo-Scandinavian. There is a
hogback stone in the Lastingham crypt. These stones date from the first half of
the tenth century and are mostly found in North Yorkshire and Cleveland. They
were possibly grave markers and often include extensive Scandinavian scenes.
They appear to depict the permanence of Anglo-Scandinavian settlement in the
area.
O’Donaghue suggests that like
all immigrants. The Scandinavians probably felt a fundamental conflict between
their own beliefs and customs with the local, and may have expressed a desire
to fit in to their new home through creative impulse.
Anglo Scandinavian sculpture might be the expression of this conflict.
(Viking Age
Lastingham, Heather O’Donaghue, Professor of Old Norse at the University of
Oxford, 2016)
870 CE
The
monastery is believed to have been destroyed in 870 CE.
1078
William
the Conqueror gave permission for the building of a new church at Lastingham,
for Benedictine monks from Whitby, under the authority of Abbot Stephen of
Whitby. A crypt was built where it was believed that Cedd’s body had been laid
to rest.
The
Norman Crypt dates to the late eleventh century
The
crypt is the only Norman Crypt with a nave, apse and side aisles. The walls are
nearly three feet thick.
1088
The
monks left and the church was left to decay. It has been suggested that the
remoteness of the abbey and the outlaw nature of the area forced them to
relocate.
1228
A
new parish church was built on the site. From 1228 a full
time priest was appointed and this has been the foundation of the parish
church ever since.
The Ryedale Historian, Vol 7, 1974
