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Durham Cathedral was, until 1836, the seat of a prince-bishop with sovereign powers of jurisdiction, in whose diocese the king's writ did not run. Before the Reformation it had been a cathedral-priory and its choir contained the richest and most deeply venerated shrine in the north of England. Below it lay the relics of St. Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne in the seventh century, whose body, removed from that island in the earlier Viking raids, was carried from place to place to escape their fury for the space of a hundred and twenty years till it found secure repose on this high rock which rises abruptly in a loop of the River Wear. Over the body of the saint a new cathedral was founded in the year 999.

After the Conquest, a Norman bishop was installed who began rebuilding the cathedral on a very grand scale, attaching to it a Benedictine monastery, building himself a castle-palace and fortifying the whole enclosure of the rock. His successor, the notorious Ralph Flambard, continued the work, which still constitutes the greater part of the building and is our noblest example of Norman manner.

This picture shows the west front of the cathedral with its two towers (Norman in their lower stages). The great west window is an insertion of the fourteenth century. Below it is seen the Lady Chapel, a lovely building in transitional Norman. Its position at the west instead of the east of the great church is unique—and thereby hangs more than one tale. Abutting on the south-west tower is the western range of the monastic cloister with the windows of the monks' dormitory, now used as a library and museum. The central tower is a work of the fifteenth century.