Crayke Abbey

The long-lost monastery at Crayke in North Yorkshire was home to two saints with different but equally valuable gifts.

767

Anglo-Saxon Britain 410-1066

Introduction

Crayke in North Yorkshire was at one time home to a thriving monastic community, founded by St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne (634-687), and blessed with two eighth-century saints, St Echa (or Etha) whose feast is kept on May 5th, and St Ultan, commemorated on August 8th.

by Clay Lane

WHEN St Cuthbert was consecrated bishop of Lindisfarne in 685, King Ecgfrith of Northumbria gave him an estate at Crayke, some twelve miles north of York, as a place to stay on his journeys to the capital.

Cuthbert at once founded a monastery there, and appointed the first abbot; one monk in the early days was Ultan, an Irishman admired for his beautiful illuminated manuscripts. And in 882, the monks who had been driven out of Lindisfarne by the Viking invasion seven years earlier brought St Cuthbert’s body to Crayke Abbey, for four months of welcome respite.

In 732, Ecgbert became bishop of York, and it was in his time that a monk named Echa retired to the seemingly endless woods surrounding Crayke, and built himself a hermitage.* His contemporary and neighbour Alcuin wrote that Echa lived in the company of the angels rather than men, but that those who visited him found a holy man gifted with prophetic powers. Echa died peacefully in 767.

by Clay Lane

Based on Alcuin’s ‘The Bishops, Kings, and Saints of York’; Symeon of Durham’s ‘Of the English Kings’; and Bulmer’s ‘History and Directory of North Yorkshire (1890)’.

Alciun of York (735-804) calls him Echa. Symeon of Durham (1060-1129) calls him Etha. Both wrote in Latin.

Précis

In the late 7th century, St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne founded an abbey at Crayke near York. Some fifty years on, it was home to two monks now venerated as saints, Ultan, a calligrapher, and Echa, a hermit. Crayke was also one of the places where the monks of Lindisfarne took Cuthbert’s body during the Viking raids of the ninth century.

Sevens

Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.

How did Bishop Cuthbert come to own Crayke?

Suggestion

He was given it by King Ecgfrith.

Jigsaws

Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.

Cuthbert became Bishop of Lindisfarne in 685. King Ecgfrith granted him land at Crayke. Cuthbert founded an abbey there.

Crayke Abbey

Introduction

Précis

Sevens

Jigsaws

Tags

Read Next