Lastingham, 653 CE

The founding of Celtic Christianity by Cedd, 2 km from the entrance to Farndale

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Wilderness

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.

The idea of Rome continued into the Anglo Saxon period.

In 563 CE, Columba left Ireland to found the monastery of Iona, off the coast of Scotland. In 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 four brothers called Cedd, Cynebil, Caelin and Chad. They would all eventually became bishops.

In 651 CE, Oswine, King of Deira (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. Gilling East, near Oswaldkirk, is 4 km south of Helmsley, not far from Kirkdale, and about 10km to the southwest of the site of Lastingham.

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’s queen, Eanflaed (who was related to the murdered Oswine) persuaded Oswiu to atone by building a monastery at the site of the murder. Gilling was founded by the Bernician King within Deira, in the territory of another King. It must have been seen as an admission of guilt.

Æthelwald became King of Deira and seems to have ruled alongside Oswiu.

In 653 CE, Oswiu sent Cedd to convert the Middle Angles under Paeda and the East Saxons as Bishop.

Civilisation

Lastingham, was probably only the second religious community founded in Deira after Gilling. Æthelwald may have been trying to carve some political independence for his line by creating a dynastic mausoleum.

Bede, in his History of the English Church and People (written in 731 CE), recorded that a small monastic community was founded at Lastingeau in 655 CE, the abode of Læ̃sta's people, now Lastingham under royal patronage, partly to prepare an eventual burial place for Æthelwald, Christian king of Deira, partly to found a Christian monastic institution in a trackless moorland wilderness haunted by wild beasts and outlaws.

Æthelwald, 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.

Lastingham was founded by Cedd in about 655 CE. He was a native of Northumbria, a monk and missionary who became the first bishop of the East Saxons (Essex today) in about 654 and died in 664. It was in the course of one of his journeys in Northumbria after he had become a bishop that he founded Lastingham. The sort of architecture favoured by Cedd may still be seen at the imposing, barn-like church of Bradwell-on-Sea in Essex. The monastery at Lastingham was an important one, and it is by no means impossible that it had daughter-houses. A nearby and contemporary parallel is Hackness, founded in 680 CE as the daughter-house of the monastery of Whitby. It is therefore possible that Kirkdale may have originated as a satellite of Lastingham.

Bede described the founding of Lastingham:

While Cedd was acting as bishop of the East Saxons, he used very often to visit his own land, the kingdom of Northumbria, to preach. Oethelwald, son of King Oswald who reigned over the Deira, seeing that Cedd was a wise, holy, and upright man, asked him to accept a grant of land, on which to build a monastery where he himself might frequently come to pray and hear the Word and where he might be buried; for he firmly believed that the daily prayers of those who served God there would greatly help him.

This king had previously had with him Caelin, Cedd’s brother, a man equally devoted to God, who had been accustomed to minister the word and the sacraments of the faith to himself and his family; for he was a priest. It was through him chiefly that the king had got to know and had learned to love the bishop.

So, in accordance with the king’s desire, Cedd chose himself a site for the monastery amid some steep and remote hills which seemed better fitted for the haunts of robbers and the dens of wild beasts than for human habitation; so that, as Isaiah says, “In the habitation where once dragons lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes., that is, the fruit of good works shall spring up where once beasts dwelt or where men lived after the manner of beasts.

Stained glass windows at Lastingham

Landscape provided an important stage for the civilisation of new places through Christian teaching 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 stood on the edge of the uncultivated, uncivilised world, with scope for its spiritual development. The wild nature of the site, as with the Romulus and Remus story, provided the perfect setting against which to describe future successes.

Bede went on to say that to cleanse the place from former crimes, 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, Cedd built the monastery, which was named called Lestingau, and established the religious customs of Lindisfarne, where Cedd and his brothers had been educated.

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 Æthelwald of Deira and another coffin lid, with an interlace design, and the tassels of a pall on the edges, was interpreted as belonging to Cedd. However there is little doubt that the location of the new monastery at the place Bede called Lestingau, was the site at Lastingham.

Cedd occupied the position of abbot of Lastingham to the end of his life, whilst maintaining his position as missionary bishop and diplomat. He often travelled far from the monastery in fulfilment of his wider 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.

Expansion

In 655 CE, less than three years from the foundation of Lastingham, Æthelwald joined forces with Penda against his uncle, Oswiu. Æthelwald 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 the monasteries. The monasteries probably related in some way to the already established monasteries of Lastingham and Gilling.

The six Deiran monasteries must have marked the failure of Æthelwald’s rebellion as well as the defeat of Penda. This must have influenced the community at Lastingham.

Oswiu then sought to assert more control over the Deirans and he founded his own dynastic mausoleum at Whitby. He installed his son Alhfrith as king of the Deirans. In 657 CE an abbey was founded at Whitby.

A decade later in 664 CE Cedd was at the Synod of Whitby and agreed to the adoption of Roman customs.

It was in the same year of the Synod that Bede tells us that Cedd later died of pestilence or plague in 664 CE, while visiting the monastery at Lastingham. 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, it is possible that the main fabric of the crypt was in existence before the late Middle Saxon and Norman church.

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. 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.

Carved Celtic stones in the crypt, which probably date to Cedd’s time

Bede’s account indicates that the royal foundation of Lastingham by Æthelwald 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.

In 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.

Anglo-Saxon-Scandinavian Lastingham

793 CE was the year of the Viking raid on Lindisfarne, the place where Cedd was a pupil. This 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 does not help us with an understanding of the early Scandinavian period, but it was likely to have been influenced by the new cultural trends.

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 Scandinavian sculpture and a fusing of Anglo Saxon and Scandinavian 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.

The monastery is believed to have been destroyed in 870 CE. Lastingham was a monastery centuries before the Cistercian abbeys such as Rievaulx and Fountains. The monastery had thus ceased to be a place of monkish life, centuries before the great Yorkshire Abbeys of Rievaulx, Byland and Fountains were begun.

In 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.

Only a decade later, the monks left in 1088 and the church was left to decay. It has been suggested that the remoteness of the abbey and the outlaw activity in the area forced them to relocate.

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.

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You will find a chronology, together with source material about Lastingham and Cedd.