He built his monastery on the island of Lindisfarne, now Holy Island, off Northumbria. Saint Cuthbert became bishop of Lindisfarne in 685 and died in 687. Early in the eleventh century the relics of the Venerable Bede were stolen from Jarrow under cover of darkness and laid in Cuthbert's shrine. He also replaced the cathedral clergy with Benedictine monks from Jarrow and Wearmouth. The main body of the cathedral was completed in 1133.
Few churches occupy so magnificent and commanding a site.
The Norman Romanesque architecture of the structure is one of the finest examples ever built. Durham Cathedral is also noted in the history of architecture for its Gothic rib-groined vaulting, the earliest surviving example. Even before the Conquest the bishops of Durham held large tracts of land known as the patrimony of Saint Cuthbert that allowed them almost complete immunity from the power of the king and the earl of Northumbria. The see's extensive rights were strengthened by the fact that the bishops frequently had to repel Scottish invasions that fostered both military and financial independence. The bishop headed the civil government, maintained courts of both common and canon law, and stamped his initials on the backs of his own mint's coinage.