ST CUTHBERT’S CHURCH CRAYKE, NORTH YORKSHIRE St Cuthbert - North Nave Aisle Underpinning the imagery is a large letter C, for (1.1m x 2.5m) 2020 both Cuthbert and Crayke, in the style of richly illuminated Insular manuscripts, such as the Lindisfarne Gospels. This gospel book, one of the The donor requested a new window which earliest masterpieces of mediaeval European book celebrates and illustrates the life St Cuthbert, to production, was made on Lindisfarne by Eadfrith to whom Crayke church is dedicated. Cuthbert was honour God and St Cuthbert and is closely born only a decade or so after the conversion of associated with veneration of the Saint. Behind the King Edwin of Northumbria by Paulinus of York letter C, a beam of light pours from the heavens, in 627 and became the most important and linking the two lights of the window and illustrating widely celebrated northern saint after his death Cuthbert’s youthful vision of the soul of St Aidan, and his interment in Durham Cathedral. first bishop of Lindisfarne, being borne heavenward Historically Crayke was part of the bishopric of by angels. Durham, a gift of the Northumbrian King Ecgfrith to the church. The Lindisfarne Gospels are filled with visual references to the wildlife of the Farne Islands, and The focus of the design is the figure of Cuthbert the Venerable Bede speaks of Cuthbert’s fascination himself, dressed as a bishop, carrying his pastoral with all birds and animals. Appropriately, the staff and wearing the famous pectoral cross Islands are now a wildlife sanctuary under his recovered from his coffin in 1827. He has a saint’s protection, while the eider duck is known locally as nimbus but wears no mitre, despite his high the Cuthbert’s or ‘Cuddy’ duck. status, to indicate his life-long commitment to the simple and austere life of a monk and a The background of the design is inspired by the hermit. A wren perches on his right hand; a bird magnificent, intricately worked ‘carpet pages’ of the significant to the donor’s family but also to the Lindisfarne Gospels, decorated with ‘Cuddy’s Celtic tradition of the earliest Northumbrian beads’, small fossil crinoids found on the beaches of Christians, for whom the wren was a reminder to Lindisfarne, which would have been familiar to the live well and to be kind. Saint. The combination of Celtic style, apparent in the Lindisfarne Gospels, with Christian and Pagan The right-hand light illustrates the setting of the influences, similarly inspired the Irish glass painter Saint’s life and his intense connection with the Harry Clarke, a particular favourite of the donor. sea and the Northumbrian coast. In the Worked into the pattern is a quotation from Robert foreground are rocks on the shore of Lindisfarne, Louis Stevenson, now carved on a field-gate on the island of Cuthbert’s monastery, while in the Lindisfarne; distance is the island of Inner Farne, where he Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but lived as a hermit and where he died. In the sky by the seeds that you plant. above the islands the sunrise recalls the lighted This timely invocation to look to the future with torches which announced to Cuthbert’s brother Cuthbert’s selflessness is apposite not only to the monks the end of his earthly life, being also a natural world of God’s creation, but also to the signal of re-birth and resurrection. faithful journey of the Christian soul. © Helen Whittaker 2020 | [email protected] | www.helenwhittakerart.com ST CUTHBERT’S CHURCH CRAYKE, NORTH YORKSHIRE St Cuthbert - North Nave Aisle (1.1m x 2.5m) 2020 © Helen Whittaker 2020 | [email protected] | www.helenwhittakerart.com .