While it retains many of the trappings of a traditional saint's life, the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto is also a remarkable record of the political activities and property acquisitions of a powerful Anglo-Saxon monastery, and it vividly demonstrates the ongoing relationship between the monks and their patron saint. Written in Northumbria in the tenth or eleventh century, the Historia presents a striking contrast with earlier lives of Cuthbert such as Bede's, and is a valuable teaching text.
The present edition is the first to make use of all three surviving manuscripts of the Historia, and is also the first English translation of this brief but important text. It includes a reassessment of the text's purpose and date, a detailed historical commentary, excerpts of related texts, and a discussion of the patrimony of St Cuthbert, including maps of estates and a catalogue of the more than one hundred vills listed in the text. TED JOHNSON SOUTH is Associate Professor of History, Western New England College.