THE VINDICATION OF A SAXON SAINT (1072).
Source.—Roger of Hoveden, Chronica, ed. Stubbs, vol. i., p. 126. (Rolls Series.)
At the same time, to wit, when the king had returned from Scotland, he built a castle in Durham, where the bishop and his men might enjoy security from the (Scottish) invaders. And since some of the Normans disbelieved that the blessed Cuthbert was a saint or that his body was preserved there, at the feast of All Saints, while the bishop was celebrating mass, the king ordered two chaplains to enter the sanctuary, and opening the tomb to examine both by sight and touch, whether the holy body was laid there. For the king had already resolved that, if it were not there, all the elders should be put to the sword. So, while all were terror-stricken, the chaplains proceeded to execute his orders. Now at the time the weather was severely cold, but the king meanwhile began to suffer from an intolerable heat and to sweat profusely, and to be smitten with an overpowering horror. He therefore sent quickly to the chaplains and ordered them not to presume to touch the tomb. And forthwith he took horse and galloped at full speed until he reached the Tees, and thereafter held the saint in great honour and confirmed for perpetual observance the laws and customs of that church, to be held as fully as ever in past times. And furthermore he gave and granted and by his charter confirmed to God and St. Cuthbert and the prior and monks there serving God, in pure and perpetual almoin,[4] his royal manor, to wit, the town of Hemingburgh with all the land of Brakenholm and all lands adjacent, with the church of the town aforesaid and all things pertaining thereto in wood and plain, moor and meadow, woods and marshes, waters, mills and fishponds ... and all the right bounds thereof, as well and quietly and freely, with all rights and customs thereof, as ever St. Cuthbert held other his lands, together with all royal customs and liberties which the king himself had therein, when he held the same in his own hand after the conquest of England, and with the same bounds with which he himself or Tostig or Siward held the manor.