Founded in AD 635 by Aidan, an Irish monk summoned by King Oswald of Northumbria to be the first bishop of Bernicia, the northern part of his kingdom, Lindisfarne was one of the most holy sites in Anglo-Saxon England. The priory church was constructed in the mid-twelfth century to mark the place where Cuthbert's coffin had been buried, the incised pillars of the nave deliberately evoking those of Durham, where the saint's body was interred.
