THE footsteps came nearer and nearer, until the thief felt a heavy body stumble into him. It was Reginald, carrying bundles of candles. Reginald demanded with some asperity to know who was there, and why he was crouching in the middle of the altar steps — the most public spot in the church. Impatient of the thief’s excuses, Reginald hustled him through a door on the north side and left him beside the altar of St Oswald.*
At first glance, Reginald thought nothing had been taken, but then he missed the little ivory box. “I have been trying to get it out of my shirt” the wretched fellow complained, when accused of the theft, “but I can’t”. Reginald and the other monks lent willing hands, but the box eluded their grasp in the most uncanny way. Only when Benedict reached beneath the shirt did the little box meekly allow itself to be drawn out.
All this (Reginald ended) shows the compassion of St Cuthbert, who made sure that Benedict did not lose any of the precious things he had so lovingly displayed in the saint’s honour, and also arranged it so that when one almost went missing, Benedict was the man to recover it.
* Little remains of the design of the church’s east end as it was in Reginald’s time. Originally, there were three roughly semi-circular apses, the central and largest apse containing the Holy Table and the shrine of St Cuthbert tucked in behind it. Leading from the chancel to the northern apse there was a door, and beyond the door an altar dedicated to St Oswald. However, in 1242 work began on demolishing the apses for a new east end, the Chapel of the Nine Altars, which was completed in 1290 and stands to this day.
* St Oswald was King of Northumbria from 634 to 641/2 (Cuthbert was probably born in 635), and died in the Battle of Maserfield defending his kingdom against the ambitious King Penda of Mercia, a pagan. Oswald had a reputation for great Christian charity, and his appointment of the gifted preacher St Aidan as first Bishop of Lindisfarne (634-651) began the ‘Northumbrian Renaissance’ that transformed much of northern Europe for the better. Penda had Oswald’s head cut off and paraded, but it was recovered and at length buried with St Cuthbert’s body, hence the Priory’s keen interest in St Oswald. See also On Holy Ground.