Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Burfjam Dunholme. ( Doomsday Book.") Hac sunt in fossa Bcdae Venerabilis ossa. HOUGH Durham dates from the tenth century, yet it is necessary, to understand the growth of its power, to go back to the seventh century. The exact date of the birth of St. Cuthbert is unknown. As a youth he was admitted into Melrose Abbey, where in the course of fourteen years he became monk and prior. From there he passed another fourteen years in the Convent of Lindisfarne, after which he retired to Fame for nine years. At the end of this period he was persuaded, most unwillingly, by Egrid, King of Northumbria, to become Bishop of Lindisfarne, a See in Bernicia, as Durham County was then called. But after two years' office he retired to Fame. There died St. Cuthbert on March 20, A. D. 687, in the thirty-ninth year of his monastic life, stillundecided as to where he should be buried. However, the remains were reverently preserved in the Church of Lindisfarne, till the monks were compelled to flee, owing to the invasion of the Danes, towards the end of the ninth century. Though in dire dread and confusion, the monks forgot not their sacred trust, but carried the holy remains of St. Cuthbert with them. They wandered many a weary day throughout the North of England in search of " Dunholme," which Eadner, a monk of their order, declared to them had been divinely revealed to him as the lasting place of rest for the holy and incorruptible body of St. Cuthbert. They seemed to have had great difficulty in locating the whereabouts of Dunholme, for according to tradition they were miraculously delivered from their nomadic life. As they proceeded they heard a woman inquire of another if she had seen her cow, which had gone astray. Much to their joy and relief they heard the reply, " In Dunh...