The monastery of Lindisfarne was founded by Irish monk Saint Aidan, who had been sent from Iona off the west coast of Scotland to Northumbria at the request of King Oswald ca.

Oswald gave the island of Lindisfarne to Aidan as his episcopal see, and Aidan achieved great success in spreading the Christian faith ; Bede mentions that Oswald acted as Aidan's interpreter when the latter was preaching, since Aidan did not know English well and Oswald had learned Irish during his exile.

He had decided to become a monk after seeing a vision on the night in 651 that St Aidan, the founder of Lindisfarne, died, but seems to have seen some military service first.

Edwin had been baptised by Paulinus of York, an Italian who had come with the Gregorian mission from Rome, but his successor Oswald also invited Irish monks from Iona to found the monastery at Lindisfarne where Cuthbert was to spend much of his life.

A manuscript so richly decorated reveals that the Lindisfarne Gospels not only had a practical ceremonial use, but also attempted to symbolize the Word of God in missionary expeditions ( Backhouse 1981, 33 ).

Eahlfrith had been brought up with Irish-Northumbrian usages, and his rejection of these, along with the expulsion of the future saints Cuthbert of Lindisfarne and Eata of Hexham from Ripon, is considered to have had a strong political component.

He was given ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Carlisle and Cumbria, because his predecessors had done so as bishops of Lindisfarne, but he only exercised this for a short time, as after the accession of Henry I jurisdiction over these areas was transferred to the diocese of York.

A hundred years earlier pagan Vikings had begun their raids on Britain — they first attacked Lindisfarne on the coast of Northumbria, killing the monks and devastating the Abbey.

In 794 Jarrow became the second target in England of the Vikings, who had plundered Lindisfarne in 793.

After the Romans left there is no record of who lived there ( apart from some wounded soldiers from wars who had to live there ), until 883 when a group of monks, driven out of Lindisfarne seven years earlier, stopped there to build a wooden shrine and church to St Cuthbert, whose body they had borne with them.

There the monks translated into English the Lindisfarne Gospels, which they had brought with them.

Edwin had been baptised by Paulinus of York, an Italian who had come with the Gregorian mission from Rome, but his successor Oswald also invited Irish monks from Iona to found the monastery at Lindisfarne where Cuthbert was to spend much of his life.

He had decided to become a monk after seeing a vision on the night in 651 that St Aidan, the founder of Lindisfarne, died, but seems to have seen some military service first.

Bede's Life recounts that Cuthbert was initially buried in a stone sarcophagus to the right of the altar in the church at Lindisfarne ; he had wanted to be buried at the hermitage on Inner Farne Island where he died, but before his death was persuaded to allow his burial at the main monastery.

Other bones taken by the party were those remains of St Aidan ( d. 651 ), the founder of the community, that had not been sent to Melrose, and the head of the king and saint Oswald of Northumbria, who had converted the kingdom and encouraged the founding of Lindisfarne.

After years at sea, Godric reportedly went to the island of Lindisfarne and there encountered Saint Cuthbert ; this will not have been a physical encounter as Cuthbert had long been dead and was by then interred at Durham Cathedral.

A church had been at Jedburgh since the 9th century, founded by Bishop Ecgred of Lindisfarne, and king David I of Scotland made it a priory between 1118 and 1138, housing Augustinian monks from Beauvais in France.

Meantime the bishopric had been merged in that of Lindisfarne, which latter see was removed to Chester-le-Street in 883, and thence to Durham in 995.

According to Bede, Tuda had been succeeded as abbot of Lindisfarne by Eata, who had been elevated to the rank of bishop.

In 684, Cuthbert was elected Bishop of Hexham, at a synod at Twyford ( believed to be present-day Alnmouth ), but was reluctant to leave his retirement and take up his charge ; it was only after a visit from a large group, including king Ecgfrith, that he agreed to return and take up the duties of bishop, but instead as Bishop of Lindisfarne, swapping with Eata, who went to Hexham instead.

The interlace, like that of the Durham fragment, is mostly large compared to the Book of Lindisfarne, but the extreme level of detail found in later Insular books begins here in the Celtic spirals and other curvilinear decoration used in initials and in sections of carpet pages.

In addition there is also a large recreation park which includes playing fields — home to the Lindisfarne Blues competing in the Southern Tasmanian Football League now known as the SFL and the Lindisfarne Cricket Club competing in the Tasmanian Grade Cricket part of the Tasmanian Cricket Association, tennis courts — home to the Lindisfarne Tennis Club, Beltana RSL Bowls Club links and a ANZAC memorial park, all situated on a bluff overlooking the Derwent River and Mount Wellington.

Lindisfarne is also home to a number of large retirement villages and similar senior-citizen accommodations.

The Breton Gospel is similar to the form of Carolingian minuscule developed at Tours – one of the classicising centres of the Carolingian Renaissance, and although the form of the large illuminated letters that form the beginning of each Gospel are comparable to those found in Carolingian manuscripts, the decoration thereof is far more similar to insular manuscripts such as the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels, suggesting a continuum of cultural tradition.

A Dundee firm built lime kilns on Lindisfarne in the 1860s, and lime was burnt on the island until at least the end of the 19th century.

The lime kilns on Lindisfarne are among the few being actively preserved in Northumberland.

Lindisfarne was mainly a fishing community for many years, with farming and the production of lime also of some importance.

Guests stay at the Lindisfarne Guest House, a traditional Japanese building with a wood burning stove as the heating source.

Large parts of the island, and all of the adjacent intertidal area, are protected as Lindisfarne National Nature Reserve to help safeguard the internationally important wintering bird populations.

St Cuthbert, Lindisfarne, and the Viking raid, are also focal points of Westall's " The Wind Eye ".

* The monastery and monks of Lindisfarne are an important part of British author / broadcastor Melvyn Bragg's epic, historically based novel " Credo " published in 1996.

Oswald's head was interred in Durham Cathedral together with the remains of Cuthbert of Lindisfarne ( a saint with whom Oswald became posthumously associated, although the two were not associated in life ; Cuthbert became bishop of Lindisfarne more than forty years after Oswald's death ) and other valuables in a quickly made coffin, where it is generally believed to remain, although there are at least four other claimed heads of Oswald in continental Europe.

While there are few records, the Vikings are thought to have led their first raids in Scotland on the holy island of Iona in 794, the year following the raid on the other holy island of Lindisfarne, Northumbria.

The school's houses are named after important locations in the life of the Saint: Dunblane ( Yellow ), Elgin ( Green ), Iona ( Purple ), Kelso ( Blue ), Lindisfarne ( White ) and Melrose ( Red ).

The Lindisfarne Gospels ( 715-720 AD ) are an early example ( Brown 2004 ).

These knots are most known for their adaptation for use in the ornamentation of Christian monuments and manuscripts, such as the 8th-century St. Teilo Gospels, the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels.

The Lindisfarne Gospels are presumed to be the work of a monk named Eadfrith, who became Bishop of Lindisfarne in 698 and died in 721.

As Alan Thacker notes, the Lindisfarne Gospels are " undoubtedly the work of a single hand ," and Eadfrith remains regarded as " the scribe and painter of the Lindisfarne Gospels ".

The pages of the Lindisfarne gospels are vellum, made from the skins of sheep or calves and evidence from the manuscript reveals that the vellum used for the Gospels was made from calfskin.

The Lindisfarne Gospels are impeccably designed, and as Backhouse points out vellum would have been too expensive for ‘ practice runs ’ for the pages, and so “ preliminary designs ” may have been done on a wax tablet ( a device that is hollowed out wood or bone with a layer of wax ).

The Lindisfarne Gospels are in remarkable condition and the text is complete and undamaged ( Backhouse 1981, 66 ).

The Lindisfarne Gospels are not an example of “ isolated genius ... in an otherwise dark age ” ( Backhouse 1981, 62 ).

The Durham Gospels ( Durham Cathedral Library ) are suspected as being created slightly earlier than the Lindisfarne Gospels, and while they have the bird interlace, the birds lack the naturalness and realness of Eadfrith ’ s birds in the Lindisfarne Gospels ( Backhouse 1981, 67 ).

The Book of Kells ( Trinity College, Dublin, MS A. I. 6 ( 58 )) employs decorative patterns that are similar to other insular art pieces of the period, but is thought to be produced much later than the Lindisfarne Gospels ( Backhouse 1981, 41 ).

The Reserves are scattered through England, from Lindisfarne in Northumberland to The Lizard in Cornwall.

In the context of the cult of Cuthbert, the lavishly illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels were made at Lindisfarne, probably shortly after the St Cuthbert Gospel, with covers involving metalwork, perhaps entirely made in it, which are also now lost.