page_title: Vita Sancti Cuthberti
section_title: Synopsis
hierarchical_section_title: Vita Sancti Cuthberti / Synopsis
caption_attribution_description: English: A miniature in the British Library Yates Thomson MS 26, with Saint Cuthbert horse finding food near the river Wear in winter
context_page_description: The Vita Sancti Cuthberti is a prose hagiography from early medieval Northumbria. It is probably the earliest extant saint's life from Anglo-Saxon England, and is an account of the life and miracles of Cuthbert, a Bernician hermit-monk who became bishop of Lindisfarne. Surviving in eight manuscripts from Continental Europe, it was not as well read in the Middle Ages as the prose version by Bede. It was however Bede's main source for his two dedicated works on Cuthbert, the "Metrical Life" and the "Prose Life".
  It was completed soon after the translation of Cuthbert's body in 698, at some point between 699 and 705. Compiled from oral sources available in Bernicia at the time of its composition, the Vita nonetheless utilized previous Christian writing from the Continent, particularly Gregory the Great's Dialogi and Sulpicius Severus' Vita Sancti Martini, as powerful influences. The name of the author is not known, though he was a monk of the monastery of Lindisfarne. It is often called the Anonymous Life to distinguish it from the "Prose Life" and the "Metrical Life" of Bede. There are four modern editions of the Anonymous Life, the latest by historian Bertram Colgrave.
context_section_description: The Anonymous Life consists of 4 books, book i relating Cuthbert's youth, book ii his early years serving God, book iii his time as a hermit on Farne, and book iv his time as bishop.
caption: Cuthbert's horse finds food on the roof of an abandoned dwelling
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